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1. Today we are confronted, even beyond urban structures, with the Janus-face of technical progress. While the simplifications of work and increases in yield in agricultural production achieved through scientific and technical innovation certainly are impressive, the fact remains that centralisation and maximisation of profit have led to the destruction of global working and living contexts and to the reckless exploitation of nature. Women and mothers have to confront the consequences of such development, due to their responsibility for the wellbeing and quality of life of their families. For the fast structural changes in agriculture not only affect the employment situation of farmers of both sexes, but also reproductive conditions in the countryside as a whole.
2. How are women reacting to this situation? What barriers and opportunities for changes exist for women in rural areas? What discourse and decision-making structures are necessary in order to effectively incorporate female interests and perspectives?
3. One manifest experience of politically involved women, both in urban and rural environments, produces the thesis that despite the present institutionalised representation of women's interests at a number of levels of activity, it is not possible to assume any change in the relation between the sexes in favour of women. Political involvement by women is clearly accompanied by a high expenditure of power, since it involves the acceptance of conditions, most of which have been determined by male representatives.
4. A number of analyses of women and their self-image within politics demonstrate that wherever women have to accept rules and behavioural codes which have been set up by others, they develop and reproduce a sense of foreignness. This state even causes some of them to doubt whether they can take any legitimate place in these alien male structures. In principle, in order to maintain their identity, they would continuously have to thwart the rules and subsequently endure the associated penalties, which is extremely debilitating in the long term. An example from the everyday life of a female town planner serves to highlight the problem: she maintained, during the planning of a new residential area, that an already erected bus stop, at the edge of a regional bypass, and which could only be reached via a ramp/steps, did not exactly promote public local transport. Her justified objection, namely that this was a bus stop designed by a man, which took no account of the needs of women with children or of older and less able people, was ridiculed by the mayor in charge of building with the comment that "he had never before considered the erotic qualities of bus stops". [ Fritz-Haendeler, R. 1990. Draußen vor der Tür - Apartheid im Stadtplanungsamt. In: K. Dörhöfer (pub.): Stadt-Land-Frau - Soziologische Analysen feministischer Planungsansätze, Freiburg i. Br. p. 189 ff.] This constitutes the downside of the fundamentally justified call to "march through the institutions", which women in rural areas also have to confront.
5. We cannot dismiss the possibility that this is one of the causes of the fact that women still appear only at the margins of the discussion and decision-making structures which are characterised by men, and that the lives of men and women continue to have highly different areas of focus. Empirical analyses register for most women in rural areas the continued existence of the "hierarchical difference". [ Spiegel, L. Ländliche Erbinnen. Ergebnisse empirischer Untersuchungen zu Lebensweise und Gesundheit von Frauen im ländlichen Raum. In: K. Dörhöfer (pub.): Stadt-Land-Frau - Soziologische Analysen feministi-scher Planungsansätze, as above, p. 133] The direction of the female reference systems (associations, groups) in terms of their content and organization are far from being composed in such a way that specific feminine forms of existence and consciousness are able to penetrate into male dominated structures and to permanently alter them.
6. However the numbers involved have altered in a number of political contexts: there is now at least a sizeable female minority on most political levels. Even if things are moving slowly, as soon as women become active other than as individual fighters in what are otherwise patriarchally conceived structures, they discover that the quality of the discussion and the social manners alter once the number of women reaches a critical mass. The feeling of potential alliance has a sizeable effect on self-assurance, even if this cannot be articulated in an explicit manner.
7. Nevertheless, external support systems such as women's networks are extremely important, simply because they are not part of old boys' networks and equivalent structures. They rather represent an instrument of self-reassurance, permitting women to exchange experiences, develop and attempt strategies in circumstances which they have structured themselves and which are free of fear. They preserve identity, prevent fear of failure on the part of individuals and provide the courage to experiment. [ See Lobby für Frauennetzwerke. Documentation from the specialist conference "Zur aktuellen Standortbe-stimmung der Frauennetzwerke - Frauen im Spannungsfeld zwischen Konkurrenz und Kooperation", Hesse Ministry for Women, Work and Social Order (pub.), Wiesbaden 1996]
8. However they can only fulfil this function provided they consciously and resolutely turn to genuine female resources and acknowledge and further develop the significance of these. Taking the theses of the two Americans Carolyn Duff and Barbara Cohen, I should like in particular to mention three resources which women clearly possess and which put them in a position to deal and work with one another other than competitively. [ See Duff, C.S. Cohen, B. 1993. When Women Work Together: Using Our Strengths to Overcome Our Challenges .]
9. Women see their strengths in the ability to put to the test consensus-producing forms of collaboration in conjunction with others, and they expect precisely these abilities in others: empathy, the ability to listen, consideration of others, conveying to one another at the same time both factual and personal information. We are aware that men, on the other hand, normally refuse to mix their professional and personal spheres. This frequently makes it so difficult to deal with them, since obviously certain facts and circumstances will always need to be conveyed, negotiated or evaluated by individuals, by living persons. The artificial separation of professional questions and personal position frequently prevents perfect social solutions from being found. Women should insist in such cases on their proven style of discussion and decision-making, instead of allowing themselves to be dazzled by the apparent objectivity of men.
10. Although prejudice states otherwise, women generally value very positively the work and competence of others of their own sex in certain working contexts. Women value in other women reliability, competence, determination and the ability to be well prepared for certain tasks. At the same time however they describe their colleagues as tending to be hardly self-assured, shy, unsure of themselves or even fearful.
11. Women can do more, frequently much more than their male colleagues, but they far too rarely develop adequate self-assurance and self-confidence, which proves a major strategic disadvantage. What they need are empowerment strategies and the associated self-reflection.
12. Attachment to others represents a basis for cooperative interaction. The ability to empathise with others and with their work provides support to cooperative working relationships. Cooperative action is one of the things most valued by women and is part of female authority. It is based on the resources mentioned, it aims to further develop these resources and absolutely not to foster the traditional authoritative objective of "power".
13. Female support, solidarity and the political practice of women are fed by these resources. Positive experiences with successful cooperative relations then extremely quickly lead to the realisation that we are not condemned to be competitive. [ A. Bisecker. Wir sind nicht zur Konkurrenz verdammt! In: Vorsorgendes Wirtschaften. Frauen auf dem Weg zu einer Ökonomie der Nachhaltigkeit. In: Politische Ökologie, special volume 6, Munich 1994]
14. This however calls into question the principle of competition which has almost "naturally " governed our day-to-day life to date. It is also true however that successful cooperative relationships are capable of changing what is still a primarily competitive everyday life.
15. This again clearly demonstrates the ambivalence of the need to "march through the institutions". Women must become involved in competitive structures in order to change them. Competitive working and living contexts also include the risk that women and their special qualities will be swallowed up or levelled out. But as soon as cooperation and solidarity become qualities which can be experienced and reproduced, then competitive pressure loses its tough edge and its apparent inevitability. The fact that it can be overcome is then not merely a hope, but becomes a certainty.
16. Specifically because women as it were personally experience all the destructive force and tough nature of the competitive model, and at the same time it is they who have acquired the ability to cooperate as a result of their social skills and apply it on a daily basis within their families, and also in the world of work, precisely for this reason must they give support to the generalisation of this principle of cooperation as a viable future style of discourse and decision-making.
17. Women can exemplify this. In rural areas a kind of "collective malaise" is becoming established amongst women in particular, as a result of the breakdown of global working and living environments, the disappearance of working opportunities which are needed to secure existence and the associated reductions in quality of life. Specifically, desperate ecological situations, the fact that many villages are reduced to mere "dormitories", infrastructural deficits which make it extremely difficult to secure day-to-day needs [ Wie komm'ich bloß nach Jeddeloh? Der öffentliche Personennahverkehr und die Bedürfnisse der Frauen im Landkreis Ammerland, DGB [German Federation of Trade Unions] Oldenburg and women's representative of the rural district of Ammerland (pub.), Oldenburg 1995] have set in motion the consideration of alternatives to the "main(male)stream" at different levels of action.
18. Associations of women in rural areas, the association of teaching and advisory staff for budgeting and consumption in rural areas, advisory seminars for women and seminars for women establishing a livelihood, all seek plans for living and working alternatives which have future viability and new solutions for providing social security for individuals. [ As an example, see: Pichler, G. 1997 . Land- und hauswirtschaftliche Beratung in Österreich. Ein Beitrag zur Ent-wicklung von Lebenskonzepten bäuerlicher Familien. In: Vom Oikos zum modernen Dienstleistungs-haushalt, U. Meier (pub.), Frankfurt am Main/New York. p. 219-246] It is apparent that it is principally women who take an extremely creative approach to these endeavours, accompanied by a marked sensitivity for securing or restoring quality of life in rural areas. Whether dealing with topics such as direct marketing or local supply, or strategies which are aimed at preserving the attraction of rural sites, the unity of ecology, economy and social affairs, with a view to permanent development, affects the interests of women and encourages their commitment in this direction.
19. My central thesis states that a clear opportunity to take women's interests into account within discourse and decision-making processes in rural areas exists within the implementation of the long-term plan of action for the 21st century - the local Agenda 21 plan. This range of duties, which was agreed in 1992 by a total of 178 member states of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), is more than an environmental policy programme. In view of the fact that in conceptual terms it includes both social and economic dimensions of long-term development in regional contexts, it is extremely interesting for women and their concerns. Since it attacks the fact that many systems employed for decision-making nowadays separate economic, social and ecological factors on a political, planning and management level, and demands instead implementation of "adjustment or even restructuring of the decision-making process" for the purposes of "full integration of these factors", it represents a platform for action, of which women should avail themselves since it represents a major opportunity and challenge. [ Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Protection and Reactor Safety (BMU) (pub.): United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development in June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Agenda 21, Bonn (BMU, Art. no. 1012), OJ, p. 58)]
20. Furthermore the Agenda 21 Action Programme concentrates emphatically on the promotion of long-term agriculture and rural development and describes a primary objective of its land settlement policy as "the improvement of social and economic conditions and environmental quality in urban and rural settlements and in the lives and work of all people, in particular the urban and rural poor." [ Ibid. p. 44]
21. The Action Programme has not yet been implemented. In Germany Agenda 21 is frequently misinterpreted as a programme of local environmental policy and development collaboration and its message is inadmissibly abbreviated. The Agenda work is almost exclusively integrated into environmental offices or urban planning offices, with so far no offices for economic promotion and social offices as well as social topics being present.
22. This has not occurred by chance, but represents a consequence of the continuation of traditional styles of discourse and decision-making within the prevailing structures. In this way it will not be possible to introduce the necessary innovations. There is no structure for discussion which involves the various groups of actors, both male and female, with their different, but equally important interests, and which overcomes the separation of social, economic and ecological factors.
23. During a survey of potential participants of both sexes in the town of Gießen in Hessen, it interestingly proved that enthusiasm for the Agenda 21 is primarily displayed amongst women, whereas the representatives of traditional associations and structures appeared to be those with reservations. Women were far better informed than men, on the basis of personal or professional interest. They obviously see an opportunity here to overcome the foreignness within male-dominated structures which was mentioned at the outset and to introduce a complex examination of everyday life. This however demands new forms of negotiation, work and thinking, with the recognition that the objectives of Agenda 21 must become a matter of cultural fact, for example in administrative activities. The women questioned were not looking at things through rose-coloured spectacles in their enthusiasm. They anticipate conflicts, but hope to be able to overcome these through new methods of participation and presentation. [ Local Agenda 21. Vor dem ersten Schritt - ein Situationsbericht, Gießen 1998, p. 33]
24. Women have a distinct feel for the fact that the concerns of local Agenda 21 initiatives must be removed from the exclusive arena of environmental experts and administrative specialists. It permits local participants of both sexes not to adapt in a streamlined fashion to traditional, male-dominated discourse and decision-making processes. In fact it gives them the courage to speak from a woman's point of view, to try out new forms of discussion and involvement such as consensus conferences, multiple stage dialogue processes, civil tribunals etc. The cooperative involvement of different target groups, specialist representatives and civil initiatives demands in the final analysis the restructuring of traditional institutions and structures both in urban and rural areas. [ Meier, U. Welche Chancen haben nachhaltige Lebens- und Ernährungsstile in der bundesrepublika-nischen Erlebnisgesellschaft? In: Vom Oikos zum modernen Dienstleistungshaushalt, as mentioned above, p. 263] In my view this represents a historical opportunity for women to confidently introduce their view of things into the Agenda 21 process and to anchor it therein in both conceptual and structural terms. For rural areas this means helping towards the general acceptance of a socio-ecological agricultural policy in which living together, culture and the preservation of nature is given (restored) clear priority over the striving for profit. [ Schweitzer, R. v. 1994. Die Verantwortung des Agrarbereichs für das Alltagsleben der Menschen im ländlichen Raum. In: Lebensperspektiven für Frauen und Männer, documentation from the 1994 Loccum Agriculture Conference, Reburg-Loccum. p. 151f.]
25. Finally it is in the genuine interests of women that living conditions in rural areas should no longer be reduced to a private matter, but should become a turning point or pivot within a long-term policy structure.
26. Women as frontier commuters between various areas of life make a major contribution to the preservation of the wealth of societies in human terms. They know that a society which is able to retain its viability in the future can only be created provided all its members remain receptive in principle to forms of life and work which are humane, and which depend on attachment and cooperation and, with respect to the vicissitudes of life (and these include more than merely illness and unemployment, namely the wish to have children, the family and the succession of generations), depend on solidarity.
27. The paths and solutions which women have to offer, which use their resources in the manner described above, are viable for the future, are enduring and are more democratic than what we are used to. Thus female resources, the "patchwork" lives of women and female styles of behaviour constitute models for the future and the true utopia for the 21st century. We need to stand up for this with self-assurance and female authority. Women’s authority means finally being able to free ourselves from a petitioner mentality, placing ourselves in the centre, using our own terms, respecting our own achievements and those of other women. [ Praetorius, I. 1996. Thinking Economy beyond the andocentric order. In: Europe: Challenges for Every Day Living. Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (pub.), Conference papers from the International Employment Conference 21.-23. October 1996. Vienna, p. 270]
28. That demands a holistic concept for Rural Development: