The Feminization of Farming
That is the title of Professor Olivier De Schutter's op-ed in the New York Times today , but it reminds me of another catchy (if depressing) phrase feminists coined a few decades ago: the feminization of poverty . As it turns out, De Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on the the right to food, brings together issues of gender equality and food security in his op-ed in a way that shows the link of both to, you guessed it, poverty. As most of us know, women are more likely than men to be living in poverty, wherever they are in the world. Turns out, according to De Shutter, as women get more and more responsibility for growing food in the developing world--partly as a result of male migration for work--women's poverty and hunger, along with that of their families, is exacerbated, not eliminated. Specifically, De Schutter discusses a report released today to the United Nations Human Rights Council in which he calls for a "comprehen...