ABSTRACT
Introduction This chapter examines how differential access to resources by gender influences food production and distribution and, consequently, patterns of hunger and malnutrition.
Numerous categories may be employed to analyse malnutrition and food insecurity, from the very general, ‘the poor’, to the more refined ‘landless’ or ‘refugees’. What is the rationale for devoting a chapter to the category ‘gender’? There are three justifications: the relative invisibility and neglect of women as bread-winners in the literature about food security and hunger; their prominence in statistics on malnourishment; and their crucial role in influencing the nutritional status of children. It may be justified therefore with reference to production and consumption factors.
