ABSTRACT

This chapter describes the development of gender research on agricultural and rural development in the Netherlands since the 1950s. In the Netherlands academic research on gender issues in agriculture and rural society has mainly developed within the field of rural social studies, rural sociology in particular. The chapter analyzes how the concept of gender appears in different periods of rural research. The liberation from hard farm labor would enable farm women to develop themselves as active agents in civilizing process. Farm women had lot in common with housewives, who formed the massive group of the unpaid domestic and likewise invisible labor force. Academic studies on agriculture and rural life generally ignored women, focusing on structural and social problems related with farm modernization. Dutch rural studies seems to be most adept at playing a role in a discourse coalition, where policy-makers, academics, civil society and ordinary people debate the usefulness of policy alternatives, leaving less space for intellectually challenging projects.