ABSTRACT
The impact of colonialism and integration into the world economy, together with increasing populations, have all served to weaken women’s access to land, labour and capital at the same time that they have increased women’s responsibilities for agricultural production. In some systems crops and tasks were highly sex segregated, in others they were not, but women had important responsibilities for food production in most. Control of labour became a defining characteristic of wealth and women were valued not only for their own labour, but for the potential labour of others which they could create through childbearing and rearing. Traditional agricultural systems are under tremendous pressure to increase their productivity. Improvements in public health such as vaccinations have reduced child mortality and increased life expectancy. The African women reflected in the cases are struggling mightily to fulfill their obligations to family and community in an increasingly impossible situation.
