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Bending Borders of Gendered Labour Division on Farms: the Case of Finland
Author(s) -
Silvasti Tiina
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
sociologia ruralis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.005
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1467-9523
pISSN - 0038-0199
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9523.00236
Subject(s) - peasant , successor cardinal , daughter , division of labour , everyday life , sociology , gender studies , construct (python library) , position (finance) , family life , work (physics) , life course approach , political science , business , psychology , law , social psychology , engineering , mechanical engineering , mathematical analysis , mathematics , finance , computer science , programming language
The son as a successor is a strong cultural model (script). It is intertwined with the script of gendered division of labour. If there is a son in the family, daughters are usually brought up according to these two models of the traditional role of woman on farms. Since the management of the farm is ‘men's work’, daughters seldom obtain the skills needed to take over the farm. Even if the everyday life of farmers is organised through the traditional scripts, attitudes of farmers are changing. More often parents hand a farm down to the daughter. Successing women usually work as independent farmers. This means that women break away from the traditional script of gendered division of labour. Here the position of woman is studied by analysing two exceptional autobiographies. It is shown how these women construct their identities as farmers and, by doing so, reconstruct a peasant way of life. However, it is not necessarily enough for a daughter to take over the farm even if she is supported by her family: it is still possible that a female successor's life is more strongly determined by body than life politics.