ABSTRACT
In this chapter we return to whiteness studies as introduced in Chapter 2. We use this lens to explore the narratives of twelve members of an Australian farming women’s organization. The group, established in the early 1990s, is part of a broader ‘rural women’s movement’ that occurred in the late twentieth century in nations such as Australia, Canada, the United States of America, Norway, and Ireland (Liepins 1998a). The emergence of such a movement has been attributed to a range of coalescing factors, including the impact of the second wave women’s movement, the downturn in agriculture, and women’s frustration with the continued male dominance of agri-political spaces. This organization, like its international counterparts, is quite distinct from the more traditional rural and farm women’s groups that have typically focused on women’s domestic and familial roles. Its intent, instead, is to increase women’s participation in the public sphere of agriculture (Teather 1996). To date, the organization, along with others throughout western nations, has been the subject of signifi cant academic attention. Writers have noted the differences between the contemporary and more established farm women’s groups (Teather 1995, 1998); observed the new gender and farming discourses emerging from the groups (Fincher and Panelli 2001; Grace and Lennie 1998; Panelli 2007); explored the relationship between these groups and the state (Panelli and Pini 2005; Pini, Panelli, and Sawer 2008); questioned how such groups could be classifi ed (Shortall 1994); and described the backlash against such groups by male members of farming bodies (Pini 2008; Wells 1998). In one commentary, Liepins (1998b, 135) notes that one of the characteristic features of the ‘women in agriculture movement’ is that the majority are ‘AngloAustralian women from owner-operator farm units.’ This holds true for the organization being studied. Like the ‘older’ style, well-established farm women’s group in Australia (Country Women’s Association), its six hundred members are typically Anglo-Saxon. It is this whiteness we scrutinize in this chapter.
