Re-masculinising agricultural space: Men's response to women's farm networks

Abstract

One of the most widely engaged strategies to address women’s marginal position in agricultural organisations has been to establish women-only networks. This paper identifies and describes four discourses by which men in agricultural organisations have sought to discredit these networks. These are through trivialising, masculinising pathologising and sexualising them. The paper explains that women leaders in the farm networks have attempted to counter these discourses by drawing on traditional gender discourses which position the women’s groups as existing to support and assist men, their families and their communities.