WUNRN
Latin America – Rural Women Define Their Own Kind of Feminism
A group of
indigenous women participating in one of the debates at the Fifth
Continent-wide Assembly of Rural Women during the sixth congress of the Latin
American Coordinating Committee of Rural Organisations-Via Campesina, held in
Ezeiza in Greater Buenos Aires. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS
EZEIZA, Argentina – April 6, 2015 (IPS) - Rural
organisations in Latin America are working on defining their own concept of
feminism, one that takes into account alternative economic models as well as
their own concerns and viewpoints, which are not always in line with those of
women in urban areas.
Gregoria
Chávez, an older farmer from the northwest Argentine province of Santiago del
Estero, said feminism must include “the struggles and support of our fellow
farmers in defending the land.”
Until
recently, feminism was an alien concept for her. But like so many other women
farmers around Latin America, she is now a leader in the battles in her
province against the spread of monoculture soy production and the displacement
of small farmers.
“I
think women are important in the countryside because they are braver than men,”
she told IPS. “I’m not afraid of anything. I always tell my compañeras that
without courage we won’t gain a thing.”
Defining
rural feminism is not an easy task for the Latin American
Coordinating Committee of Rural Organisations (CLOC)-Via Campesina,
which is holding its sixth congress Apr. 10-17 in Ezeiza, a district on the
outskirts of Buenos Aires.
But
its members see it as more than just a question of gender equality.
Strengthening
feminism in the rural sphere was one focus of debate in the Fifth Continent-wide Assembly of Rural Women, held during
CLOC’s congress, which drew 400 delegates from 18 Latin American and Caribbean
nations and ended Apr. 14.
Deolinda
Carrizo of the National Indigenous Campesino Movement of Argentina said that
in the Assembly an attempt was at least made to “deepen those furrows.”
The
term “feminism” scares many rural women, said Rilma Román, a delegate of Cuba’s
National Association of Small Farmers and one of the members of the
coordinating committee of the international peasant movement Via Campesina, where half
of the leaders are women, she noted.
“It
scares people because many think that feminism means women on their own
fighting against men, that it’s two different sides,” she told IPS. “It’s
practically a new subject in our debates. I think more time is needed to be
able to explain it and reach a consensus.”
Carrizo
said some aspects have to be explained, such as the question of sexual
diversity. “It used to be very uncommon to find transvestites revealing
themselves in rural communities. There was a lot of self-repression and
repression, and there still is.
“It’s
really hard for older people to understand that there are people with different
sexual orientations. We’re gradually seeing how to address the issue and how to
encourage them to accept it,” she said.
The
fifth assembly of rural women recognises feminism’s “historic contribution.”
But in their critique of “capitalism,” which according to Carrizo causes
exploitation – including gender exploitation – they focus on agrarian reform,
the dispute against giant agribusiness corporations, the concentration of land
ownership and water use rights, agribusiness and the mining industry, where
both men and women are marginalised and excluded.
However,
Marina dos Santos, of Brazil’s Landless Workers
Movement (MST), said women, especially in rural areas, have always
been excluded the most.
And
they are also marginalised by public policies in the areas of health and
education, she told IPS.
“Rural
schools are closing in Brazil,” she said. “Health posts, when there are any,
don’t have doctors, nurses or medicine. Many women in the countryside go into
labour and because of the lack of hospitals and transportation, they end up
dying.”
Women
are also excluded when it comes to land titling or access to credit in rural
areas.
“Women
work the most but they are the last to have access to land and are exploited
more as cheap labour. The rural exodus means men increasingly go to other parts
of the country to work, and the women are left to support their families,”
Santos said.
“Land
first goes to men. We women who are heads of households, who have no husbands,
don’t stand a chance because we need to have a man as a reference,” added
Luzdari Molina, with Colombia’s Federación Nacional Sindical Unitaria
Agropecuaria (FENSUAGRO-CUT) rural union.
Inequality
in numbers
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), 58
million women live in the rural areas of Latin America, representing a key
element in the region’s food security, preservation of biodiversity and
production of healthy food.
But despite the fact that they produce half of the region’s food, rural women
suffer inequality on the social, political and economic fronts. Only 40 percent
of rural women over 15 have an income of their own, and women have titles to
only 30 percent of the land and receive only 10 percent of the credit and five
percent of the technical assistance.
“Another
particularity, in Colombia for example, is that rural women still have little
formal education, because we have to take care of everything at home,” she told
IPS.
The
participants in the fifth assembly stressed that on top of the household and
care-giving tasks, women have to produce food for the family.
“In
Santiago del Estero, there are times when they have to go out to the corral to
take care of the goats or cows. When the men leave (to find seasonal work in
other provinces), women are left to run the household and work the land,”
Carrizo said.
“Women
farmers aren’t recognised as workers. In my region (the Colombian department of
Boyacá) we get up at 3:00 in the morning to milk the cows, clean the house,
make breakfast for the farmhands, take care of our own production, and our days
are just so full of work,” Molina said.
Rural
women, according to Carrizo, have also historically played the role of
“guardians of the seeds,” which is why they see attempts to “privatise seeds”
as “violence.”
Another
form of violence, the Argentine rural leader said, is spraying with pesticides,
because it affects “the health of our children and our own health, and causes
miscarriages, malformations, and accumulation of poisons in breast milk.”
Santos
also stressed that gender problems that are common among women in urban areas
are even worse for rural women. She mentioned domestic violence, for example,
which is a more difficult problem because the special police units for women
are in the cities.
In
Colombia, said Molina, “there is no one to guarantee women the right to leave
the place where they have been the victims of violence,” which prevents them
from reporting domestic abuse.
“The
neighbours say ‘I’m not getting involved, problems between a couple are worked
out in bed’. But when things reach an extreme, the community goes to the
funeral and holds a mass to save the soul of the poor husband. It’s sad but
true,” she said.
The
question is how to tackle these problems, which are often just seen as a normal
part of life.
“In
the countryside there’s a lot of machismo and many women grow up with that from
birth,” said Román, from Cuba. “There are women and men who think we want to
break up families, or encourage divorce.”
For
that reason, Carrizo said, “the different cosmovisions of the people of each
country should be taken into consideration.”
“Rural
women in Colombia, for example, don’t identify as feminists. What makes it hard
for them to understand (urban women) is a question of class, that they have
certain conveniences and activities that are different from their lives,”
Molina said.
Carrizo
said “Sometimes we have that concept of feminism which we have learned, that to
fight sexism you also have to take an oppressive stance. But that’s not what
we’re trying to encourage – we want feminism to be an act of solidarity between
women and men.”