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Rural Development in Brazil: Are We Practising Feminism or Gender?

Author(s): Cecilia Sardenberg, Ana Alice Costa and Elizete Passos
Source:
Gender and Development, Vol. 7, No. 3, [Agriculture] (Nov., 1999), pp. 28-38
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28
Rural development in
Brazil: Are we practising
feminism or gender?
Cecilia Sardenberg, Ana Alice Costa, and Elizete Passos
In the past two decades, the concept of gender has become central tofeminist sch
It is a powerful instrument towards the empowerment of women, but with the m
its political meaning is being lost, which may lead to women becoming invisible o
A t least in theory, gender awareness
means greater visibility for the way
in which development planning is
shaped by patriarchal social relations.
Planners are obliged to consider the social,
political, economic, and cultural forces that
determine women's and men's control of
resources and products and therefore the
degree to which they can participate in-
and benefit from - development efforts.
However, feminists working in develop-
ment are currently concerned that the
widespread use of the term 'gender' by
mainstream development planners is
'contributing to its vulgarisation and
simplification' (Celiberti 1997, 69), and the
effacement of its political meaning (Costa
and Sardenberg 1994).
In this article, we consider these issues,
while sharing our experience as gender
consultants on a state-sponsored rural
development project in an arid area of Bahia,
Brazil, where agriculture is one activity in
the complex livelihood strategies of poor
women and men. We shall refer to the
project as the Eagle River project, and to the
target area as the Eagle River region. The
project is a major development effort in one
of the most deprived and poorest regions in
north-eastern Brazil, and is the first one
there which incorporates a gender analysis.
Implementation of the project began in
December 1997, but only six months later
the implementing agency, the Regional
Agricultural Development Company (CAR),
an agency linked to the planning bureau of
Bahia, contacted us to devise a gender
programme.1 We work as external consul-
tants through REDOR, a regional network
of women's studies centres which includes
our own institution, Nutcleo de Estudos
Interdisciplinares sobre a Mulher (NEIM),
the Centre for Interdisciplinary Women's
Studies of the Federal University of Bahia.
NEIM was founded in 1983, as the second
women's studies centre in Brazil. We
should state at the outset that we are self-
proclaimed feminists, active in women's
movements in Brazil.
The Eagle River project
The Eagle River project is an ambitious
undertaking, covering a large area of one of
the least hospitable regions of Bahia. Its
implementation was planned to take five
Gender and Development Vol. 7, No. 3, November 1999
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Rural development in Brazil: Are we practisingfeminism or gender? 29
years, with the aim of developing an area
encompassing 13 counties covering about
4,580 square miles, in the centre-south
region of the state. This area consists almost
entirely of caatinga vegetation,2 with several
distinct ecological sub-regions, some of
which are considerably more humid and
more fertile than others. However, agri-
cultural production is limited due to lack of
water: the area frequently suffers from long
seasonal droughts. A drought can last as
long as seven years, since the rain is never
adequate to replenish water holes or rivers.
Part of the project area is located in an area
called the 'drought polygon', and one county
has the lowest annual rainfall in the whole
of Bahia. Although there are waterways
throughout the area (including the Eagle
River itself, which flows through all the 13
counties), most rivers are seasonal and
almost completely dry up during the
drought periods. Other water resources
such as dams and waterholes are scarce and
unevenly distributed, and access to them is
difficult for many local producers.
As a result, the region has not attracted
major agricultural and industrial enter-
prises. In contrast to most other regions in
Bahia where large estates predominate, the
Eagle River region is characterised by small
land-holdings (minifundia). Close to two-
thirds of the population live off the land,
staying close to their relatives in small
communities.Most minifundia are less than
100 hectares, and many are under 10 hectares.
Nearly 85 per cent of the properties are
worked by the owners themselves with the
help of family members; the other 15 per
cent regularly hire outside hands, or work
as hired hands on other people's properties.
The larger properties are usually owned by
people who live in the city and who employ
hired hands to run their farm. Those who
run theses places usually do not own land,
or own such small areas that it is not worth
the trouble to farm them.
Due to the adverse ecological conditions,
the small size of the properties, and the lack
of available credit to small farmers and
peasants in the region, production returns
tend to be low, barely covering family needs.
The vast majority of the properties are
geared primarily to subsistence production
and the sale of surplus products. Families
in the region plant corn, beans, manioc, and
sugarcane, and also raise cattle and small
farm animals. Almost 65 per cent of rural
families in Bahia live in poverty (averaging
an annual income of less than US$2,500 per
household (internal surveys from Secretaria
de Planejamento e Tecnologia (Seplantec)/
CAR, undated). Less than 35 per cent of the
rural communities in the project area have
electricity, and only a few have a local health
facility with an attending nurse. A family
has between five and six children, and child
mortality rates are high: 88.20 per 1,000
(ibid.). Rural elementary schools (taking
children up to the fifth grade3) have only
been set up in recent years, together with
transport to enable older children to attend
high schools in the main county-towns. At
49 per cent of the population4, the area's
illiteracy rate is one of the highest in Bahia.
The county towns are the only urban
areas; for the most part, they are small in
size and unimpressive in terms of services
and commercial activities. One of the few
major events in these towns are the feiras
(weekly markets or fairs), where local
farmers - including women - bring garden
produce and small animals for sale.
Women's lives in the project
area
In the Eagle River region, as in other rural
areas across Brazil, traditional values
regarding the division of labour, women's
domestic roles, and gender hierarchies still
predominate. Women marry young and are
entrusted primarily with the care of children
and other domestic activities. However, they
are also expected to 'help' their husbands in
the field, care for small animals raised on the
farm, and prepare manioc flour and cheese
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30 Gender and Development
for home consumption and for sale in the
fairs; some also raise produce for sale. Since
much of women's agricultural work is
performed as part of their duties as wives
and mothers, their productive roles and
crucial contribution to household survival
are largely 'invisible' and unvalued. Even
the women themselves tend to undervalue
their participation in production: only 25 per
cent of the female workforce are officially
recognised as rural workers (Instituto Brasi-
leiro de Geografia e Estatistic/ Pesquisa
Nacional por Amostra de Domicili 1996)
and covered by social security benefits.
In comparison to women in urban areas,
rural women not only have less access to
education, health-care, and employment
opportunities, but are also much more
dependent upon the men in their families
and caught in a structure of more unequal
gender relations. Indeed, in line with other
poverty-stricken rural areas throughout the
world, patriarchal family and social
structures deny women real rights to land,
limit women's access to and control over
the proceeds of their own labour, and
constrain their decision-making.
Agriculture is not the only source of
income: migration to the south, especially
to S?o Paulo, is a major strategy for most
local families to supplement their incomes.
Although recent statistics on migration
rates in the region are not available, the fact
that nearly every family contacted thus far
by the project's field staff has one or more
members working in S?o Paulo or elsewhere
in the south shows the scale of the liveli-
hoods problem in the area. Young women
may go alone, or young couples migrate
together; some married women with children
also head south to work as domestic ser-
vants, leaving the care of the home and
children to their husbands and fathers.
However, this is more likely to happen if
the men are unable to find jobs, or are either
too old or too sick to migrate, and if there
are no young men in the family to take their
place as providers. Usually, husbands and
adult children migrate, while women and
youngsters stay behind caring for the farm.
In April, around the start of the dry season,
busloads of migrant men leave the area to
find jobs as construction workers in S?o
Paulo. Many return in November, when
the rainy season is supposed to start, to
clear and till the land for planting.
Depending on precipitation rates and
yearly harvests, men's migration between
S?o Paulo and their homes in the Eagle River
region may last for many years, giving rise
to the phenomenon of 'drought widows',
and a large percentage of female-headed
households. For some, migration is perma-
nent: the small size of the landed properties
and large family sizes means there are too
many people who inherit too little land.
This, added to the adverse ecological
conditions, pushes young men and women
to go south permanently.
During our work, we found that the loss
of labour through migration can effectively
double women's workload. Women from
one of the communities told us:
'When the man of the house is away, the woman
of the house becomes man and woman of the
house. That is why I pray for rain. It is too
much work on the woman when we are alone.
What happens when my husband is away?
Well, let me tell you, it is work, work, work. I
much rather go to S?o Paulo myself to clean
other people's latrines than stay behind here. I
can work all day as a maid in S?o Paulo and
still not work as much as I work here. Besides,
there I get paid, here I don't.'
In certain communities, women hold respon-
sibility for nearly 80 per cent of the house-
holds and the care of the land for most of
the year (internal project document, 1998).
Aims of the project
The main objective of the Eagle River
project is to enable the rural population to
stay in the area, through raising production
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Rural development in Brazil: Are we practisingfeminism or gender? 31
levels and improving the overall social and
economic conditions in the region. The
project aims to achieve this through the
following activities.
a Promoting and strengthening local
producers' associations. Some communities
already had associations; in others, they are
being created with the help of the project.
Project plans call for work with 'interest-
groups of producers', rather than individual
families. All activities are to be carried out
with groups, in line with principles of
community development.
* Developing and implementing services to
improve the productive capacity of small
properties, including constructing dams
and waterholes.
* Offering technical assistance to producers
appropriate to local climatic and agri-
cultural conditions, and providing credit to
stimulate productivity.
* Improving social conditions through road-
construction and maintenance programmes.
* Devising means of water storage for the
use of local families.
* Supporting alternative rural education
programmes.
* Offering technical and financial support for
the implementation of small-scale irrigation
systems running to small properties.
* Promoting the development and marketing
of products which can take advantage of
existing markets, to bring higher returns to
local farmers.
To achieve these aims, the project has three
main areas of work: community develop-
ment (based on a commitment to community
participation); production development;
and provision of rural credit.
The project's structure and
decision-making powers
The project area has been divided into four
sub-regions, each with a local office staffed
by a male agronomist/ co-ordinator, a
female social worker, and between three
and six agricultural technicians, all but one
of whom are men. All the technicians have
responsibility for a particular county in the
sub-region, and over the past year, each has
worked with eight to ten communities there.
The number of communities involved in the
project should double within the next year,
and there are plans to hire more technicians
to share the work. Most of the technicians
are natives of the Eagle River region, who
trained in Agricultural Family Schools5,
which offer the equivalent of a high-school
education. Overseeing the work of the local
offices is a regional office, with a male
regional co-ordinator and three monitors
(two agronomists, who are male, and one
social worker, who is female). The monitors
are currently expected to visit the different
sub-units throughout the week, although a
decision has just been taken to halt this
activity. The regional social worker is
primarily responsible for communicating
the work of the project's local social workers.
The balance of women and men in the
organisation changes at the senior level.
The Eagle River project's head office is in
Salvador, Bahia's capital city. Its head co-
ordinator is a woman, as are two of its four
area co-ordinators - a woman sociologist
(responsible for community development),
a male agronomist (in charge of production
development), another male agronomist
who oversees the building of dams and
waterholes, and a woman economist in
charge of evaluations. The staff also include
a male accountant and a female secretary.
At first sight, the presence of three
women in top positions may suggest that
women have considerable power in high-
level decision-making in the Eagle River
project. In fact, this is far from true: the
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32 Gender and Development
project is administrated by CAR, which is
headed by a man, and he has the final
word. The balance of power is even more
skewed at lower levels of the project: in
particular, the regional social worker is
often excluded from decision-making, and
even from basic activities. On occasion,
meetings have been held without her, and
she has been told that 'technical matters',
which she would not understand, were
discussed. She, and the other social
workers in the project, are the only field
staff who do not have direct access to
transport.Women are thus dependent on
the male staff to carry out their work.
The project's first 18 months
During the past 18 months, much of the
work has been to identify and survey rural
communities in each of the counties,
mobilising the producers and working with
them to draw up a 'community operative
plan'. Perhaps the greatest effort has been
concentrated on the construction of 95 water
holes throughout the Eagle River area, and
the development of field centres (named
CATS) which offer communities the chance
to participate in the development of
alternative technologies, and see them in
action. Several 'field days' have been held,
in the field centres or at producers' homes,
to train them in the use of new methods of
appropriate technology, and disseminate
information about alternative crops. For
example, a type of watermelon is being
promoted which can be used as food and
water for animals, and is drought-resistant
for up to two years. Other crops for cattle-
fodder are promoted, which are more
appropriate for the ecological conditions of
the area, and which could serve as
'strategic reserves' for the drought season.
Some of the CATS have been very
successful in terms of agricultural output.
In one of the sub-units, enough water-
melons were produced to distribute to all
producers in the community. They kept
some of the seeds for their own use, but
there was enough to distribute them in
other communities as well. However, there
has been much less success in terms of
women's participation. In the beginning,
very few women participated in the field-
days, and most of those who did attend
were there to cook for participants.
Challenges of incorporating
gender into the project
We were asked to respond to the need to
involve women in the project, by devising
and implementing a gender programme.
There are few people in Bahia trained to do
the kind of work we do, and we had many
misgivings about taking on this responsi-
bility. As members of NEIM, we had often
worked as gender consultants for govern-
ment agencies and in development projects,
and a major drawback was the fact that
government-sponsored projects are often
used for political ends. The present govern-
ment of Bahia is conservative, whereas our
work focuses on raising consciousness of
gender in the context of wider social rights.
We made it clear from our first contacts with
the Eagle River project that our main goal in
developing a gender programme for it was
to contribute to women's empowerment.
Our knowledge of rural life was mostly
academic: we had been involved with a
range of extension programmes over many
years, working with women's groups, but
these were concentrated in urban areas,
primarily in the poor neighbourhoods of
Salvador. What did we have to offer a rural
development project? We were also told by
the head co-ordinator for community
development, who guided our work, that
much of our work was likely to be gender-
awareness training for the project staff,
mostly male agricultural engineers and
technicians, many of whom were natives of
the project region. We had no experience in
training men in gender-related matters
outside an academic setting, and no idea of
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Rural development in Brazil: Are we practisingfeminism or gender? 33
how we would go about this with men from
rural areas. We were afraid that they would
be very conservative: Brazilian men are
known for their machismo. How would we
go about sensitising them to gender issues?
Developing the gender
programme
We were first contacted by the community
development co-ordinator on the project, to
whom we report. She asked us to write a
proposal for 'doing gender', but what she
had in mind at first was a programme for
'women only'. We insisted from the outset
that it is necessary to mainstream a full
analysis of gendered power relations in all
the planned activities of the project. Thus
the first document we submitted as gender
consultants was geared towards providing
a critical gender analysis of the project. This
analysis included a point-by-point
discussion of the project's components, and
how one should proceed in order to
guarantee a gender perspective (internal
document, 1998). Underlying this analysis
was the notion that guaranteeing gender
equity implies pursuing two lines of action
simultaneously: one that tends to the
practical needs of women (Moser 1989),
and one which is geared to their strategic
needs (ibid.) - that is to say, women's
need to challenge the unequal balance of
power between women and men.
The programme we have devised aims
to meet both sets of needs, so that women
in the Eagle River region can participate on
more equal terms with men, and draw
greater development benefits than they
would otherwise. In particular, the
programme focuses on the following:
1. widening and increasing women's
participation in activities related to
technical assistance and training in
agricultural and husbandry technologies,
as well as to the appropriate use of soils
and water resources;
2. guaranteeing women's access to
productive resources such as credit systems,
water holes and irrigation systems, and
legal ownership of land;
3. guaranteeing greater gender equity in
community associations and local decision-
making structures.
One key activity is to form 'production
groups' geared to income-generation, in
which women receive technical training,
parallel to participating in monthly held
gender awareness workshops. In order to
create the necessary conditions for achieving
the proposed goals, the gender programme
also includes specific activities such as
providing gender-awareness training for
the project staff and those of the partner
institutions and agencies involved, as well
as a programme of gender-sensitising
workshops for local women in leadership
positions, and one for school teachers.
The original plans envisaged one
production group per county, in rural
communities where the field staff were
already involved. Staff were asked to
identify first any pre-existing women's
groups, independent of their nature
(women's associations, income-generating
groups, and religious groups), and, second,
communities where such groups were
either just starting, or where the commu-
nity showed an interest in and potential for
starting one. We visited all communities
thus identified, and selected 15: one in
which there was a goat-keeping women's
collective; two where women had well-
developed income-generating activities, but
pursued them individually, with no history
of formal association; two where there were
long-established women's groups, but none
geared to income-generating activities; and
ten where there were strong women's
networks, either kin-related or associated
with local Catholic pastoral activities,
which showed significant production and
organisational potential. In total, these
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34 Gender and Development
groups include about 450 women; the
number of participants varies from 15 to 60.
Their age, marital status, and level of
formal education also vary widely.
Learning from our
experience
What does a 'gender programme' involve?
The greatest difficulty we have encountered
has been arriving at a common understan-
ding with the senior management of the
Eagle River project of what a gender pro-
gramme should involve, and whether 'doing
gender' was the same as 'doing feminism'.
Senior staff in the project initially saw a
gender programme as merely creating
income-generating opportunities for women,
primarily by forming women's production
groups. The head co-ordinator in particular
saw women's economic participation as the
only gender issue to be addressed. She
insisted on the creation of these groups when
we presented our first proposal, although
she later agreed with us that there was a
need to involve women in the other project-
related production activities planned.
An opposing view was - and still is
held by the agronomist responsible for the
production-development work. He attended
a gender-training workshop held by the
international co-operation organisation that
co-sponsors the project, before we became
involved with the project. At the workshop
it was (correctly, albeit simplistically)
stressed that 'sex is not equal to gender'
and that 'gender is not equal to women'. He
holds the view that no special programme
should be carried out for women, and that
'gender' is concerned with men and women.
However, he has not taken on the idea that
a gender analysis is founded on acknowl-
edging the unequal power relations
between women and men, and is therefore
oblivious to the need for 'empowering'
women. He proposed that women be
'incorporated' in all the existing planned
activities and programmes; yet, given the
asymmetrical character of the pattern of
gender relations in the region, women
cannot participate on equal terms.
We have been adamant that gender
cannot be a mere 'sub-component' in the
project, to be contained in women's
production groups; nor can it be assumed
that 'including' women in all activities will
suffice, unless unequal power relations are
challenged. For example, most of the work-
shops with producer groups have involved
games and dramatisations and have had a
playful, relaxed tone. Our initial focus was
to assist the groups in defining their
specific production interest, and what was
necessary to develop it. At the same time,
we used techniques to promote group
solidarity and organisational skills. We
began a series of monthly gender-sensitising
workshops on specific topics. Topics already
covered include gender roles, women's
organisations and struggles, women's rights,
and women's health; the last two will focus
on education and women's work. Based on
'gender pedagogy' methodologies (Biittner
et al. 1997) which are themselves adapta-
tions of techniques devised in feminist
consciousness-raising groups, these work-
shops build upon women's individual
experiences and practical knowledge, to
achieve a collective reflection on gender
relations and women's condition, and ways
of improving the situation.
Although the community workshops
have been an enriching experience for all
involved, including ourselves, there have
been some emotional moments, in parti-
cular when the issue of domestic violence is
raised.This topic has also been the focus of
considerable disagreements between us and
some of the local co-ordinators, who insist
that the issue of domestic violence falls
outside of project goals, and that discussing
it with the women may result in the loss of
support to the project on the part of the
men in the communities. They have taken
the matter to the head co-ordinator, who
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Rural development in Brazil: Are we practisingfeminism or gender? 35
appears to agree with them. We do not
consider it to be adequate to raise women's
self-esteem and promote their participation
in production activities, without
'tampering' with the existing pattern of
gender relations in the region, especially as
far as domestic violence is concerned. Staff
say that when we address this issue, we are
'doing feminism', rather than gender,
which should be avoided, even when the
women themselves have identified violence
as one of the main problems they face.
Support and resistancefrom men
As stated above, we were pessimistic about
men's reaction to our activities. However,
we were surprised by the genuine openness
and interest shown by the male agricultural
extension workers who attended the first
staff gender-training workshop in October
1998. Contrary to our initial fears and
expectations, they showed a high level of
perception of and sensitivity towards the
unequal relations between women and men
in the areas covered by the project, and
made a significant contribution to formu-
lating a concrete action for the gender
programme. As natives of the area, they
were particularly helpful during our first
field trip, which followed the first work-
shop, pointing out nuances in gender
relations in the communities visited which
we might have missed otherwise. In a
subsequent workshop, they not only took
an active part in all the discussions, but also
added a special touch to the success of the
event. For the 'finale' of this workshop,
they presented us with a play in which,
dressed as women, they showed in a funny
yet poignant matter the economic and
social problems faced by women in the
region, and how they hoped the gender
programme could effect changes in the
existing situation.
However, none of the men in the upper
echelons of the organisation, or of the
partner institutions involved in the
technical aspects of production develop-
ment, participated in the second workshop.
Instead, they attended a training workshop
on the construction of dams, which, against
our efforts, was scheduled on the same date.
This reflects the tendency to separate the
'social' from the `technical' activities of the
project. With a few exceptions, these men
have shown the greatest resistance to the
gender programme, even if at times in a
veiled manner.
To assist them to change, we have held
monthly workshops in each of the project's
local units, when we not only discuss some
of the more theoretical and methodological
aspects of the gender programme, but also
evaluate all the activities underway from a
gender perspective, regardless of what
component they belong to. This has opened
the way for a rich exchange, in terms of
looking more closely at the difficulties en-
countered, as well as at the different forms
(and degrees) of resistance. These work-
shops have given an us opportunity to
monitor, month by month, the growth of
gender awareness among the staff. We
have found that the higher the men's status
in the project, the greater their tendency to
resist our efforts. Most of the problems we
have faced have been related to sexism on
the part of the local co-ordinators.
Women's participation in decision-
making: How far does this help?
From the above, it can be seen that the fact
that a senior manager of a development
project is a woman does not guarantee that
it will be informed by a feminist commit-
ment to equality between women and men.
While it is important in itself to have equal
numbers of women and men staff at all
levels, and particularly in senior manage-
ment, only the individual commitment of
staff to feminist ideals will actually ensure
that the project benefits women through
challenging oppressive gender relations.
For many women, 'making it to the top'
is accompanied by adopting values and
attitudes associated with male managers. In
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36 Gender and Development
one meeting, the head co-ordinator told us
that all that is necessary to improve women's
condition is to give them better economic
opportunities. This position is at odds with
feminist views that women's experience of
poverty has social and political dimensions
as well as economic ones. She also espouses
the idea that 'doing gender' should not be
the same as 'doing feminism'. She told us
that the project should not 'start a feminist
revolution in the area', and that domestic
violence is a private issue, which the project
should not meddle with.
In contrast, the other women senior
managers at head office have made it clear
that they sympathise with feminist ideals,
agreeing that we must work towards
raising women's consciousness of their
oppressed situation. They also agree that
gender must be mainstreamed in all project
activities, but they are responsible for
components which are regarded as 'less
important' than those co-ordinated by their
male counterparts, and are often excluded
from the overall decision-making process.
Timing of staff training
As Robert Chambers asserts in a conside-
ration of the importance of staff training:
'... in trying to understand projects and to
derive practical lessons from them, the staff
and their organisation are, if anything,
more important than the people they affect.
It is the staff who decide policy and execute
it'(1969, 8). It is now beyond contention that
providing gender ?wareness training for
staff is a fundamental step in any attempt at
mainstreaming gender in a given project.
Ideally, this kind of staff training should be
accomplished long before the staff actually
set foot in the field. In the case of the Eagle
River project, however, we have not only
been forced to deal with a numerically
male-dominated staff and the project's
patriarchal structure of power relations, but
have also faced the added disadvantage of
more than nine months' delay before
training got underway.
The status of the gender programme and
female staff in the project
As can be seen from the discussion of the
staffing structure above, women staff
(including ourselves) are included in the
community-development component, while
men control all the technical activities,
classified as 'production development'. The
simple fact that men outnumber the women
lends a greater emphasis to production-
related project activities: they are much
more highly valued than those within the
community development component. Of
course one could argue that simply because
production-development posts outnumber
community-development posts, the former
would be more highly valued regardless of
sex. However, the fact that most agrono-
mists are men, and most social workers are
women, means the two sets of issues are
intrinsically linked.
Women staff at field level have expressed
their dissatisfaction with the existing
gender divisions between the 'technolo-
gical' and 'social' components of the project,
demanding that they too be included in all
the more 'technological' training courses
offered to staff. One told us: 'we had to
force our way in a training course on goat
tending, but we work in communities that
raise goats' (personal conversation, 1999).
Women staff have also questioned the
unequal balance of power between the
agronomists and social workers, demanding
greater participation in the decision-
making process as social advisers.
Promoting linking between urban and
rural women leaders
In addition to workshops with community
members and project staff, we have also
run a third series for women community
leaders. These aim to sensitise community
leaders to the gender programme and grant
it greater visibility, while offering
leadership training. We have run 13 one-
day workshops, some in county towns.
Although most participants are rural
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Rural development in Brazil: Are we practisingfeminism or gender? 37
community leaders, a significant number of
urban women were also present. They
included women in local government and
union leaders. It is important for them to
listen to what rural women have to say.
We began these sessions by showing a
videotape depicting a 'normal' family day,
but one in which gender roles are reversed:
while the 'man of the house' cooks, cleans,
sews, cares for the children, and realises he
is pregnant, the wife goes to work, drinks
in a bar with her girlfriends, comes home
late, complains about everything, and beats
up the husband. Besides being funny and
creating a relaxed atmosphere, this tape
stimulates discussions on gender relations
and women's roles, in which participants
can share their experience. The rural
women complained of the 'invisibility' of
women's work, even when working side by
side with their male counterparts in
productive activities, caring for the land,
planting, or tending to the animals, let
alone when, as 'drought widows', they
must manage the property on their own.
Conclusion
When we came to the final. workshop with
women community leaders, we were filled
with mixed emotions. It had been a
marathon, in which we covered 13 hinter-
land towns in three months, and many dirt
roads in between, reaching 687 women
who had responded very warmly to our
workshops, and asked us to return. We felt
exhilarated with our accomplishment, but
we were also afraid that this had been our
last trip to the area. Despite the success of
our work among the women, there were
mounting complaints on the part of local
project co-ordinators, who were still
accusing us of doing 'feminism' instead of
'gender'. This complaint might cut short
the entire gender programme.
Since than, the local co-ordinators have
been forced to reconsider our work.
Whereas before, workshops with leaders
were held in the country towns, the Eagle
River project now enjoys increasing support
from the local population, including many
individuals in local government positions.
The field staff report that local residents'
visits to .the project offices - women in
particular - have increased. In the rural
areas, there is increased participation of
women in project activities geared to
production development. In a recent field
day for training in the use of alternative
animal fodder, for example, 80 of the 200
participants were women. There are reports
that in some communities, women are
demanding equal participation in decision-
making; for instance, when a community
has to choose a number of residents to
participate in project activities, they insist
that at least half of them must be women.
Gender equity cannot be achieved
without women's empowerment. This
means women's role in rural production
cannot be seen as separate from actions
which seek to change their status, including
within the project's internal structure. We
shall not be surprised if colleagues continue
to characterise our actions as 'doing
feminism' in order to discredit them. It is
much more comfortable and safer for them
to restrict the aim to 'integrating gender',
ignoring its more political objectives. We
are busy preparing a new series of gender
awareness workshops, this time for public
school teachers in the project area, and
especially in rural schools. Future plans
also include preparing a series of taped
programmes to be aired by local radio
stations, focusing on health and sanitation,
water resources management, education,
and sustainable development, all looking at
the issue from a gender perspective.
Cecilia Sardenberg, Ana Alice Costa, and
Elizete Passos can be reached at NEIM/FFCH,
Universidade Federal da Bahia, Estrada de S?o
Ldzaro 197, Federapao 40.210-730, Salvador,
Bahia, Brazil.
E-mail: cecisard@ufba.br
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38 Gender and Development
Notes
1 This request came as a response to the
demands of the International Agri-
cultural Development Fund (FIDA), the
international co-operation organisation
co-sponsoring the project.
2 Caatinga is common in north-eastern
Brazil; it is characterised by small shrubs
and trees, including some cactus.
3 The usual age for fifth grade is 10-11, but
in rural areas children tend to start school
later.
4 Aged five years and older.
5 Agricultural family schools (Escola Familia
Agrfcola) were set up by a Catholic priest
20 years ago; these schools offer elemen-
tary and high school education for the
children of farming families. There are
two such schools in the project area.
6 The groups that have been formed have
defined the following production
interests: two focus on embroidering,
two on raising chickens, two on goats,
two on pigs, three on garden produce,
two on the cultivation of fruits for
canning, and two are still undecided.
References
B?ittner, Thomas et al. (eds.) (1997) Hacia una
pedagogia de g?nero. Experiencia y conceptos
innovativas, Bonn, Centro de Educacion,
Ciencia y Documentacion (ZED).
Celiberti, Lilian (1997) 'Reflexiones acerca
de la perspectiva de g?nero en las
experiencias de educacion no formal com
mujeres', in B?ttner et al. (eds.) (1997).
Chambers, Robert (1969) Settlement schemes
in Tropical Africa: A study of organisations
and development, London, Routledge and
Kegan Paul.
Costa, Ana Alice and Sardenberg, Cecilia
(1994) 'Teoria e Praxis Feministas nas
Ciencias e na Academia: os nutcleos de
estudos sobre mulher nas universidades
brasileiras' in Revista Estudos Feministas,
Vol. Especial, pp.387-400.
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