The purpose of this paper is to analyze the labor related to the sale of agricultural products in family farms from the viewpoint of gender. In recent years, adjectives like “vivid” and “powerful” have been used to describe farmhouse women. Praising farmhouse women in such a way also has the strategic aspect of helping wipe away negative images of agricultural life. However, is there not a gap between the image of “vivid farmhouse women” and the actual condition of farmhouse women? Moreover, has not such an image served the function of concealing the structure of the gender problem in family farms? In this paper, semi-structured interviews with farm women were conducted, and five of these narratives of their sales-related work were analyzed from the viewpoint of gender. As a result, the following points became clear. First, sales-related work has conventionally been viewed as less important than the work of farmhouse men. Since women have not participated in management decision-making, they are deficient in “fulfillment.” Therefore, women tend to enter into sales tasks in search of “fulfillment”. However, since farmhouse men do not think of sales-related work as important, the women have only acquired mental satisfaction. Second, there are women with excellent sales ability who in fact did not wish to engage in sales-related work. Their entry into sales activities was motivated by the needs of management. Therefore, it is easy to praise that “they are working vividly and powerfully” about women that demonstrate their abilities through sales related work. However, we must not overlook the fact that gender problems in farm management exist as the background to the fact that the women demonstrate their abilities in the sales domain.
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