2016 Volume 60 Issue 4 Pages 251-262
This paper discusses the mechanism of gender-based division of labor, drawing a case of Ethiopian common bean farming with focus on production, seed procurement, and marketing in order to get a clue to gender approaches in agricultural research. In production, male-sequential farm works were confirmed in ox-drawn plowing and broadcast sowing, while female-sequential farm works were identified in row planting and some harvest and post-harvest activities such as immature harvesting, cleaning of threshing place, gleaning beans after threshing, and winnowing. They tended to have the gender-based division of labor according to their gender-based knowledge, techniques, and tools. In seed procurement, decisions on seed source only for home garden production are recognized as female-specific activity. Male and female differences in way of distributing harvest and saving places were confirmed. In marketing, both men and women tended to have large-scale marketing pattern to a different extent. But small-scale marketing was common only among women. As a principal source of the female small-scale marketing, a unique practice in Ethiopia was found, which men leave some harvest on threshing places for women to glean it. And this habit also seemed to compensate gender gaps between men and women. The study suggests gender inequality in a positive way (positive inequality) in terms of respecting male and female different potentials, supporting diversified needs among women by providing them with options, and a possibility of applying local strategies to overcome existing power relations between men and women. Finally, this paper proposes to respect local gender-based division of labor and the mechanism, and to offer them options as an alternative gender approach in agricultural research.
