The Green Economy Post had this interesting article on March 9th about how the green jobs push may be leaving women behind because they may need child care and they may not have the ability to do hard physical labor - much of the green jobs created with stimulus money have been for renewable energy development. But this idea contrasts with the discussion of late all over the Internet about the growing movement of women in agriculture, a field that one would argue is the oldest green job out there. (I, myself, mentioned the agriculture-as-green-collar-job thing here.)
This past Sunday, the New York Times had an article called The Femivore's Dilemma, about how women for a long time had shunned homemaking in favor of entering the workforce, both to provide income for the family and to seek autonomy and personal fulfillment. Being a stay-at-home mother, doing the cooking and cleaning, managing the home, was seen as so 1950s. But women are once again returning to the home to garden, raise chickens and other livestock, can food, and create self-sufficiency, and indeed personal fulfillment. I like this quote from the article:
"My femivore friends may never do more than dabble in backyard farming — keeping a couple of chickens, some rabbits, maybe a beehive or two — but they’re still transforming the definition of homemaker to one that’s more about soil than dirt, fresh air than air freshener. Their vehicle for children’s enrichment goes well beyond a ride to the next math tutoring session."
One point made in the article is a question that many of my friends, both male and female, have been asking as we enter the workforce: What is this all for? If given the opportunity, many of us would buy some land, set up some buildings, and start a farm. Women abandoned the domestic arts because they felt hemmed in, as though sewing and cleaning were occupations they attended to because they felt they had few options, and they sought out meaningful experiences in the workplace. Now, we're all feeling like we just go to our jobs because we have to earn money, and we think that work with tangible results, like farming, cooking, canning, quilting, can be more meaningful. Perhaps some day we'll find a happy medium.
Perhaps it's just coincidence, or perhaps there's something else out there driving the discussion, but the topic of women in agriculture is hot right now. The DC Environmental Film Festival, which starts today, features a film on March 20th called "Ladies of the Land". The Women in Agriculture national conference is next Wednesday, March 24th, in Baltimore, MD. The book Farmer Jane, about thirty women who are making a difference in sustainable agriculture, has been getting some press lately because it comes out May 1st. Why the recent focus on women in farming? Or have we been talking about it for years without much notice? Does Michelle Obama's involvement in food and nutrition have anything to do with it? What do you think?
