ABSTRACT
Rural women think of themselves as nobodies'. This lack of a positive identity is strongly interwoven, albeit in a highly complex and slowly changing way, with both the livelihood strategies of peasant families and the reigning cultural repertoires that confer meaning to the details of everyday life. The feminization of agriculture is an ambiguous concept. According to Schutter it takes different forms and is dependent on the mode of farming. He observes different modalities through which agriculture is feminized. Women's agricultural empowerment within the domain of agricultural production implies that women's farm work goes together with autonomy in production and having an input into productive decisions. Rural gender studies undertaken elsewhere indicate that an increased involvement in the farm labour process in combination with a greater say in the many decisions that need to be taken tend to empower farm women to some degree.
