Yes, female farmers are an oddity to most, which I suspect is a remnant of our society’s patriarchal roots. It’s not surprising that the gender break down of farmers would be changing.  Women tend to be much more focused on health and therefore food issues which naturally flows into where our food comes from and farming. However, when women do get involved in farming they face many cultural barriers to entry:

That said, I acknowledge my shortcomings, like a lack of confidence with machines and power tools. Part of this is completely personal, gender aside; I happen to not be good with power tools, whereas I know many women who are. However, there is a gendered aspect to power-tool-confidence. My sister recently visited me in Philadelphia, and came to work with me on the farm. When I asked her what she wanted to work on, she replied, “anything with power tools,” explaining that she recently volunteered recycling old doors for a green-deconstruction non-profit with a male friend of hers.

When the staff person trained them, he offered a power drill to help, but spoke about it and handed it only to my sister’s male friend. Finally, the friend asked my sister if she, too, would like to use the power drill. My sister did, and had a great time.

My insecurity with machines and tools has several layers. I am not good at them, I suspect, because I was never encouraged to use them, so I never gained comfort or ability through practice. Now, I am afraid to practice because I am not good, and I do not want other people to notice and use their observations of my fumbling to further whatever ingrained ideas they have of women being bad with power tools.

Growing up, my dad was always doing odd jobs around the house, but he almost never took the time to teach my sisters and I how to use his tools or do those things for ourselves. I’m sure it never occurred to him to do so, even though I was always one more drawn to Legos and building blocks rather than Barbies. I’ve been known to put together Ikea furniture in a third of the time he can. When I started seriously looking into buying a house, one of the first things I did was ask for a tool set and power drill for Christmas. Yet when we had a “building” day for our community garden  and I stepped up to handle the drill for our garden boxes, an older gentleman was practically chomping at the bit to retrieve it from me, insistent that he could do it better.  And when I broke out the hedge clippers this summer, hacking away at my front yard, the kindly older gentleman next door almost begged me to let him do it instead.

Yes, woman in general have less arm strength than men.  However, that doesn’t make us incompetent, and its not insurmountable.  Being female does put us at a disadvantage that is not just physical though.  Until parents starting teaching their daughters how to use nail guns and levels and crowbars, women will always have an experience gap that will leave them handicapped in all things tool-related.

Tags: farming, women

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 1:30 pm and is filed under farming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.