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Ireland is one of the most agrarian countries in the EU and virtually all Irish farms are family farms. Farm women as wives and mothers are clearly at the heart of farm families, yet family farming as social form and agriculture as a economic activity have a distinctly male appearance. The visible presentation of the family farmis usally that of the male farmer who owns the land represents the family in farming organisation, is subject to taxation and entitled to social security. Moreover, the public world of agriculture and agribusiness is perhaps one of the remaining sectors in which women seem almost entirely absent or invisible. Women’s marginality in agriculture as an economic activity has its roots in the patriarchal character of family farming itself. Women may be integral to the farm family but it almost invariably ment who inherit the land. Since access to farming is mostly through gift or inheritance rather than the purchase of land this effectively excludes farm daughters from the occupation of farmer. Women generally become involved in farming mostly through their relationship to a male landowner, most commonly through marriage. Irish farming then has a gendered structure in which the interests of men (fathers and sons) supersede those of women and daughters. This is reinforced and legitimated in rural Ireland by the weight of culture, tradition and family ideology, which identifies farming as a family activity based largely on male ownership and control of the land. Until relatively recently social scientist s largely ignored gender as an issue in family farming and it is only in past two decades that woman’s status and their invisibility have begun to receive attention. Now there were made attempts to make their contribution more visible.
Approximate Word count = 1118
Approximate Pages = 4.5
(250 words per page double spaced)
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