"Gender orders in German agriculture: From the patriarchal welfare state to environmental liberalism"

Prugl, Elisabeth. (2003) "Gender orders in German agriculture: From the patriarchal welfare state to environmental liberalism". In: UNSPECIFIED, Nashville, TN. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

In this paper then, I combine the insights from the feminist welfare state literature, feminist IR literatures and Women In Development (WID) literature, in order to develop the notion of agricultural gender regimes. I take these literatures, to make three basic propositions. First, gender regimes are encoded in national policies and laws, but also in the policies and laws of international agencies (welfare state literature; feminist IO literature). Second, gender regimes are supported through rhetorical constructs and embedded in larger discourses of intergovernmental and non-governmental institutions (feminist IR literature). Third, gender regimes are visible in the differential economic outcomes for women and men (WID literature). I proceed in two steps: First, I describe the gender regime of the patriarchal agricultural welfare state that developed in the post-World War II period with its characteristic construction of housewives and breadwinners and its rhetorical anchoring in family farming and and-communism. Second, I describe the currency emerging regime of environmental liberalism that has drawn women back into farming as housewifized rural entrepreneurs employing a rhetoric of "multi-functional" agriculture. It seeks to expand organic farming and diversity rural incomes to cope with international competition.

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