ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses several issues concerning gender politics within food sovereignty discourse and practice. Redistributive agrarian and land reforms form a key underpinning of food sovereignty strategies and a strong demand of many rural communities but their impacts on smallholder women have been little discussed. The analysis of studies of gender within agrarian reforms summarised here, indicates the risks involved. Agrarian reforms along household lines have often led to negative outcomes in terms of household power and control over land, especially for married women. Thus, food sovereignty must address the idealised notions of peasantries upon which land reform programmes rest, including gendered divisions of labour, heteronormativity in household relations and gendered land allocation practices.
