by Joan Allen Peters*
'Mangalika' is a nineteen-year old rural wife and mother. She begins her 16-hour day when she rises at 4:30 a.m. to wash the meal dishes from the previous night. She then prepares and serves a morning meal to her husband and others in the family. After clearing away the remains of the meal, she must sweep the area surrounding the one-room house and make a five mile round-trip to fetch the day's water supply. She spends the daylight hours tending her two small children, one of whom is still being breastfed, caring for the animals, cultivating a small garden plot, washing clothes by hand at the village stream and grinding grains and spices. She must also find time to collect firewood for cooking. Some days she processes rice for the family. If there has been a good harvest, she may process some to sell in the market. As the sun goes down, she prepares an evening meal and readies her children for sleep. She will probably not rest until midnight. During harvest season, she has the added chores of threshing, winnowing, drying and storing rice paddy and seed. When she is pregnant, or when one of the children is sick, she may walk the four miles to the nearest health clinic for medical attention. In the view of her husband and much of society, Mangalika does not 'work'. Would we agree?
Mangalika's story illustrates some of the problems faced by rural women throughout the developing world today. Behind this pattern of living is a long history of sexual discrimination to which women have been exposed. In many countries, a female's experience with such discrimination begins at birth. A son is usually considered a potential source of economic security and social status, but a daughter is often seen differently. 'For many families, especially those living in poverty, a daughter is considered a luxury and a burden' says the Communication Centre of the Population Institute. 'She is not thought of as a contributor to the family's income, despite the fact that her help with domestic chores begins at an early age.'
This attitude colours society's whole approach to a woman. Because of her sex, she may even be discriminated against in terms of the food available. In many households it is common practice to give nutritional priority to the men and boys of the family. By the time a young girl becomes an adolescent, she will begin the exhausting regime of farming, food preparation, child care, crafts production, local trade and other chores such as carrying water and firewood great distances. Since she neither owns or controls the use of the land she works, a woman's efforts are usually economically invisible not only to her husband and family, but to many development agencies. Because of this, she is deprived of the rewards of her work, such as food, income and status.
Women are often left out of the planning of development projects because they aren't included in the statistics and data on which governments base their planning. The measurement of national output and productivity in a country is based on the Gross National Product or GNP. But GNP only measures goods and services with monetary value placed on them. Therefore, the GNP technique omits the informal activities in which Third World women are particularly involved, such as food production at the subsistence level, child care, breastfeeding, etc. This omission indicates how little economic importance is attached to women's work and responsibilities. Third World statistics show that only about 28% of women are economically active. Yet some individual country data show that more than half the women work long hours every day in the fields.
So many women don't show up in the statistics based on income and land ownership. Because of this, rural development efforts have often been directly aimed toward men, and have even operated contrary to the needs of women, who are the majority of the world's farmers.
These same development programmes have usually been planned, implemented and evaluated by men. New agricultural practices, technical assistance, industrialization and the introduction of certain technologies have all suffered from being male-dominated. Consequently they have sometimes damaged the well-being of women. Instead of closing the gap between rich and poor, many such patriarchal development schemes have widened the gap between women and men even further.
The basic objective of many development projects, to integrate developing countries into the international market system, also hurts the status of women. The very process of integrating Third World countries into the international economy tends to make these nations more dependent on the developed countries for foreign exchange, imported technology and other outside inputs. Because women occupy an inferior status within the dependent society, they are doubly damaged by development projects which emphasize integration instead of self-sufficiency. 'In an unequal world, women are the most unequal even among unequals,' writes Krishna Ahooja-Patel of the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation.
One example of a popular income-generating project that seeks to integrate Third World agriculture into the international economy is cash cropping. We know that growing crops such as tea, coffee or sugar for export instead of growing foods for local consumption can result in worse diets and exploitative working conditions for both men and women. But because women are less likely than men to own the land on which they work, they are more likely to be hurt by a heavy national or regional emphasis on growing cash crops. When a woman does not own land, she is usually automatically prevented from benefitting from any income generated by the cash crops. Instead, she receives through cash cropping a heavier workload and less food. This for a person who is probably already overworked and underfed! Her subsistence farming plots may well be the first to be sacrificed to make room for the cash crops. Likewise she will often be put to work weeding the cash crop fields. Thus the shift from subsistence-level to profit-motivated agriculture demotes women from their roles as independent food producers into exploited labourers who don’t share in the sale of the crops. After UNDP made a study of the impact of cash cropping on women, it concluded: 'The fact that no action is being taken to insure that each land holding has a balanced food and cash crop utilization is due to the laws which do not give due recognition to women in agriculture.'
Appropriate technology too can be an example of a potentially positive innovation that can yield negative results if the needs and roles of women are ignored. As an example, installing a pipe to move water in a village was originally intended to eliminate the burden of carrying water for long distances, an activity traditionally performed by women. Yet the explanation of the system of piping the water and the instructions on using and replacing the labour-saving pipes were only given to the men. The women were thus robbed of control over something that had long been one of their domains.
Industrialization in urban areas can also hurt rural women. The transfer of workers from farms to factories means that there are more people for each remaining farmer to feed. Because women tend to have the primary responsibility for cultivating the family garden as well as caring for children, wives are apt to be left behind on the land when husbands go off to work in industry. The remaining women farmers have added pressure to produce more food.
Women may also be directly victimized by industrialization. Many employers move to the Third World in search of cheap unorganized labour. They see women as industrial bargains. In many of the free enterprise zones which specialize in light industries such as textiles and electronics, women are actively recruited because they are seen as more easygoing, more accepting of authority and less likely to organize union activities than men. Women make up an estimated 90% of the employment in these notoriously exploitative enterprise zones, working long hours and receiving low pay. This abusive treatment of women in industrial work continues even though it has been shown that women can organize just as effectively as men against exploitation.
Added to these types of male-dominated development-scheme problems is the perennial stress to which the unique roles of childbearing and caring for children subject women biologically and socially. The deadly combination of poor nutrition, frequent pregnancies and strenuous work schedules can be fatal. Childbirth is still a major cause of death in women in many developing countries especially among the poorest sector of the population. Half the women in developing countries suffer from some degree of anaemia. Yet in many countries a woman's freedom to obtain and use birth control is restricted. As a result in many Third World countries women can still expect an average of eight pregnancies.
So we can see that sexual discrimination, manifested by unequal access to ownership of land, insensitive development projects, and traditional patterns of domestic and social life, continues to be a major factor that denies women proper recognition and access to important resources.
PLANNING APPROPRIATE PROGRAMMES FOR RURAL YOUNG WOMEN
Having examined some of the typical constraints which operate to keep women in their discriminated-against and powerless place, let us now consider the criteria we might apply to the planning of any development or education programmes for rural youth, particularly women. While not a complete list, the following may serve as a basis for developing a checklist to use in programme planning.
1. Planning must be based on accurate and appropriate data which reflect the true status and needs of young women. A similar recommendation was made as early as 1980 by the United Nations Development Programme. That agency suggested that systematic studies of women's work should be undertaken not only as part of technical cooperation projects already assisted by the International Labour Organisation and the United Nations, but also through the interregional national household survey capability programme sponsored by the World Bank, UNDP and the UN. At the country level, household surveys on a wide range of topics pertaining to the socio-economic conditions of women, including employment, were seen as essential to form a more accurate data base on which to plan. Assuming that some of these data now exist, along with country profiles and the many case studies in current literature, we have a far more reliable picture of what women do and need than we used to.
We must use these data in an effective way. The revolution in communications technology sometimes seems peculiarly ineffective in getting the facts into the field where they are most needed. Relevant statistics and case studies must be widely disseminated at national and local levels for use in planning — such information must not be left to collect dust in government offices or lie unread in the official files of international development agencies. Implementing bodies must be helped wherever necessary to use this information in the best way. This may include assistance with interpretation of data so that the implications of statistics are not lost during planning. Women should be encouraged to collect, analyze and use data themselves.
2. Women's programmes must have active support and adequate resources from top level government as well as from nongovernmental and community groups. In most countries where women's bureaux and similar units are actively promoting research and action by and for women in development, progress is seen. Recent publications, including issue No. 158 of Ideas and Action, published by Freedom from Hunger Campaign/Action for Development of FAO, give ample evidence of this through a number of country reports. It is not enough, however, to provide a bureaucratic entity to deal with women's work. A whole grassroots network of community resource persons and groups must be actively involved in planning, implementing and evaluating activities of the women's unit. This leads naturally to that current 'in' approach, community participation.
3. Community participation for all youth programmes, not just those for women, must take place at every stage from planning to evaluation, and it must include YOUTH. I personally have attended two rather high-level meetings sponsored by international agencies for the International Year of Youth. Neither included anyone representative of that age group. I realize the difficulties inherent in planning consultations and policy meetings at the international or national level which include chiefly young people. I have seen and sympathized with the difficulties of my home country in allowing the recipients of youth programmes to be involved from the very beginning. It's true, they don't know the channels of command, or the jargon of our profession, or that we've tried it before and it didn't work. They do however, know better than any one of us what it is like to be young right now. I am not discounting the need for expertise and input from those in positions of authority and with specialized knowledge, but I am pleading for the development of systems to achieve real dialogue and planning with young people. This would not only allow young people to express their needs as they see them, but would allow their energies and enthusiasm to be channeled into change. And we must learn to listen with intent to respond and act on their input, not just to achieve participation as an expedient way to get funding from sources demanding participation, or compliance from the client group. Many countries have Ministries of Youth. How much access to the Ministry's decision-making do young people have? And what about access to international agencies? Do youth have any direct channel through which to voice their concerns or any effective way to work with them in programme development?
4. If young people are to participate in their own development, they will need training. Not training to be like us, to think or act in traditional ways, but training to explore the current situation, to practice creative problem-solving, to lead groups in constructive discussion, to practice programme planning, implementation, management and evaluation. And the young people trained thus must include women.
Training should be needs and community-based in order to allow girls and young women to participate in spite of their working hours.
5. Programmes designed for rural young women must recognize the imbalance that already exists in the workloads of men and women. Young girls and women often do not receive even basic education because their daily chores of child-minding and water-fetching interfere. Some programmes must have as their primary goal the reduction of this workload.
It is in this area that appropriate courses in home economics, both through the organized school system and in nonformal channels, could make a significant contribution to the welfare of young women. This kind of home economics training would include a heavy emphasis on appropriate technology to save time and labour.
Programmes which address the problem of providing safe and adequate water for the household, which reduce the labour of food production and preparation through appropriate technologies, and which look at ways to conserve fuel through exploration and application of alternate energy sources, should be of top priority.
6. These programmes must also provide income and the power which accompanies it. Activities rewarded financially assume importance in the eyes of the community and the individual. Attempts must be made to put an economic or monetary value on the things which women do as a regular part of home and family life. In some cultures, men to learn what a woman is worth when death, illness or divorce, force them to hire a worker to carry out the household tasks formerly performed by the spouse. Schemes through which a woman receives a regular salary or allowance for work in the home might be desirable. Payment may give to woman's work the importance and dignity it seems to have lost in many countries.
If we require that programmes promote self-reliance and even power rather than welfare and dependency, we acknowledge that they may also produce stresses on the traditional patterns and relationships of life. So these programmes must also recognize and address the problems of helping men and women cope with the tensions that may arise with shifts in power and roles.
7. Educational and extension activities must meet women's needs for increased managerial, organizational, entrepreneurial and decision-making skills, along with the technical skills needed for activities related to food production, small-scale community industries, etc. These activities, community-based, are especially needed in areas where irrigation schemes are bringing drastic changes in the agricultural picture, as well as in the demands on women's time.
8. Programmes must address the health, nutrition and family planning issues facing women in the particular country or region in which they are being carried out. The social costs of poor health, undernutrition and overly large families to young people of both sexes must be calculated. This is particularly important to do for women, whose underproductivity because of these health-related problems may not be as easily estimated as the time lost from employment by men.
Primary health care approaches have proven useful in some countries. However, there are places where the primary health care worker is male and therefore often at a disadvantage in dealing with women and their problems. Voluntary programmes where the primary health care worker is a woman may add to the problems of that particular woman, who must try to fit this unpaid work into an already crowded schedule of daily duties.
Therefore, the primary health care approach, while useful and desirable, must be carefully thought through in the light of each country's culture and conditions before it can truly be of benefit to that country's women.
9. Programmes for rural youth must promote rural industrial development to lessen the migration of men to the cities. These must be planned with due attention to ecological and environmental concerns, so that they do not destroy the area's ability to produce food, to provide water, fuel and a decent quality of life. If women are to be used in such industries, they must not be expected to carry out also the traditional labourious household tasks. Along with industrial jobs must go labour-saving practices and devices for the home. Programmes might examine ways to help families look at the changing roles of every member of the family, from child to grandparent.
10. All programmes for rural youth should include a strong emphasis on development education, not only to create an informed body of citizens for the country, but also to promote knowledge and understanding of our global interdependency, environmental concerns, initiatives for world peace and equitable distribution of resources. Such development education is crucial in both developed and developing countries and would provide a worthwhile focus for the International Youth Year.
SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR STRATEGIES TO REACH RURAL YOUTH
The purpose of this meeting is to assist in developing strategies for FAO and countries to use in planning and carrying out development and education programmes to serve rural youth. I would like to suggest a few questions we might ask as a starting point for our deliberations.
First, are we using our existing educational structures, organizations and programmes in the most effective and appropriate ways?
Are our home economics teaching programmes relevant to the needs of our countries rather than to passing external examinations that put emphasis on irrelevant skills and information?
Do literacy programmes reach women whose status worldwide in literacy is shockingly inferior to that of men? Within these literacy programmes, are skills for leadership, management of resources, consumerism, health and nutrition also being taught? Is there an appropriate blend of classroom teaching and use of mass media to enable literacy programmes to reach women who are confined to the home sphere?
Are our schools broadening into community centres for learning? Are resources being devoted to teaching for life as well as for academic qualification? Are community educators being trained in participatory learning styles and methods? Is there an emphasis on development education for youth, including opportunities for young people to work and study in other parts of their own country to usefully promote national unity and understanding?
Are we educating young people for true development, that is, to think critically? To ask the uncomfortable questions that challenge the status quo and help identify the true causes of poverty, hunger and other rural problems? To choose a reasoned and informed course of action, both individual and collective?
Do extension programmes put emphasis on subsistence agriculture as well as large-scale production? Do they strengthen managerial skills and training in agriculture-related activities such as small-scale community food processing and preservation? Are women given increasing access to these types of extension activities as well as to the more traditional food, nutrition and homemaking-related learnings? Is women's programming designed by women for women as an integral part of extension work, rather than sometimes tacked on to existing plans of work?
Secondly, are we designing strategies for increasing integration and collaboration within self-help efforts such as primary health care, community educational services, industrial education, etc.? Are the traditional divisions of responsibility according to ministries or departments being made less defined through integrative bodies which look at total needs? Do these groups include women and men, young and old? Does the process of integration create still another layer of bureacracy instead of freeing existing ministries to respond more quickly to local development needs? Are non-governmental and private groups part of this integration? Is there increased emphasis on networking among groups, communities and agencies? Are strategies for integration, networking and sharing being experimented with .at the international level as well?
Are we using and strengthening international systems of information storage and retrieval and clearinghouses for materials and project information? Countries and agencies planning for women need to know of data and programmes that can be usefully applied in their situation. Often even the largest international organizations are not aware of all the materials and projects that have been successfully developed, used and evaluated in various places. Annotated bibliographies are sometimes helpful, as are catalogues of information. But many listed reports and materials are too expensive for countries with foreign exchange problems to obtain.
Are there ways in which educational materials and reports can be more quickly, widely and inexpensively distributed for application and adaptation in other countries? Can FAO explore this need more deeply? Can it also emphasize better communications among organizations working in these problem areas, especially regional and national groups involved in the production and testing of educational materials and programmes?
Finally, are we using the new media technologies for consumer education, food production, health, nutrition literacy, etc., and applying the marketing approach successfully used to sell food products? Social marketing which emphasizes the consumer's needs, attitudes, constraints and opportunities is being tested in several regions. Can we learn from these experiences? At the same time, should we be exerting pressure, including economic means, to force multinationals to develop a stronger social conscience in their own marketing efforts for food and health products?
As we explore new media technologies, are we giving at the same time active encouragement and reinforcement to the use of traditional media such as folk drama, music and art forms for non-formal education? Do we recognize the customary sources and figures of authority and power in communities as important channels for new learnings as well as old? Can FAO, with its long tradition of expertise and innovation in the use of media at the village level, be even more influential in expanding and strengthening this blend of media efforts?
I hope that these few ideas will serve as a starting point for discussion during the remainder of our time together. I look forward to our developing a comprehensive set of guidelines to help both FAO and our participating countries to design those strategies which can successfully reach rural youth with appropriate education and training for the future.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
'Women and Children Last'. World Hunger Action Letter.
January/February 1984. American Friends Service Committee.
Washington D.C.
'Rural Women's Participation in Development, Evaluation Study no. 3, United Nations Development Programmes, New York, 1980.
The Women and Food Information Network Newsletter: Volume 2, no. 1, September 1984, Cambridge, Ma.
Fyson, N. 'A Woman's Place... ', Centre for World Development Education, London, 1983.
Mermillod, M.J. 'International Programmes for the Development of Rural Women', Home Economics, International Federation of Home Economics, September/December 1984.
Ideas and Action, no. 158, Special issue on Rural Women, Freedom from Hunger Campaign/Action for Development, FAO, Rome 1984.
'Towards a Woman's World', IDAC Document no. 10, IDAC, Geneva, Switzerland, 1975.
Saunders, S. and Smith, W.A. 'Social Marketing: Two Views. Two Opportunities', Development Communications Report no. 47, Autumn 1984, Washington D.C.
*Senior Lecturer, Home Economics Bath College of Higher Education Bath, U.K. BA1 5SJ.
