What Do Men and Women do in Agriculture?

Gender refers to the cultural construction of sexual differences. Male and female are biological sexes that differ in their X and Y chromosomes. Culture takes that biological difference and associates it with varied activities and ideas. Gender is culture in nature and cultural construction moves around male and female e.g. man do not cry as compared to female, man are stronger than female, man are the main bread earner and women are the keeper of household and children etc these are the few examples which we can see in our daily routine life. However, these social classifications distinguish male and female. They taught what the appropriate behavior and attitudes, roles and activities are for them and how they should relate to other people. This learned behavior is what makes up gender identity and determining gender roles.

Beneria and Roldan (1987) beautifully exalted that, “Gender may be defined as a network of beliefs, personality traits, attributes, feelings, values, behavior and activities differentiate men and women through a process of social construction that has a number of distinctive features”. One of these features is “Ranking”. Social or gender stratification is ranking and therefore the formulation of hierarchies. It takes place on almost all levels, or micro/macro sphere of life including household, family and interpersonal relations. Unequal distribution of rewards (socially valued resources, power, prestige and personal freedom) between men and women, reflecting their different positions in a social hierarchy.

Those activities associated with men are normally given greater value or worth as those by women lesser value and public dichotomy of work. Women's make half of the country or world's population has been neglected in the past. So there needs should be brought into the line height as specific group of beneficiaries. The feminist movement challenged the conventional class analysis. Due to the rising female employment rates in modern western societies, a new situation arose in which couples would be dual-career as well as dual-earner, besides the traditional one earner per couple. Women in relationships could financially contribute and no longer were financially dependent on their spouse. Thus it was no longer appropriate to classify wives by their husband's social status or occupation. This was a big start for many women. (Gender and stratification, 2009)
Unequal gender relation gives rise to the feminist that focus on “long run gender goals and interests”. The issue of gender inequality is one which has been publicly reverberating through society for decades. The problem of inequality as we see in employment being one of the most pressing issues today. In order to examine this situation one must try to get to the root of the problem and must understand the sociological factors that cause women to have a much more difficult time getting the same benefits, wages, and job opportunities as their male counterparts. The society in which we live has been shaped historically by males. As we say that it is a male dominating society or patriarchal.

However, in many parts of the world, women receive less attention and health care than men do, and particularly girls often receive very much less support than boys. As a result of this gender bias, the mortality rates of females often exceed those of males in these countries. In some regions in the world, inequality between women and men directly involves matters of life and death, and takes the brutal form of unusually high mortality rates of women and a consequent preponderance of men in the total population, as opposed to the preponderance of women found in societies with little or no gender bias in health care and nutrition.

Women in Pakistan do not form a homogeneous entity; their opportunities vary greatly with the social system that they are part of this society. In rural areas, patriarchal structures often combined with poverty, limit opportunities to women, while women belonging to the upper and middle classes have increasingly greater access to education and employment opportunities and can assume greater control over their lives. The educational status of women in Pakistan is unacceptably low, in fact, amongst the lowest in the world. The problem shows at the primary level, as low participation and high dropouts at that stage prevent females from reaching higher education and equitable opportunities.

As Pakistan is an agricultural country. Pakistani women play a major role in agricultural production, livestock rising and cottage industries. Women often devote more time to these tasks than men do. They participate in all operations related to crop production such as sowing, transplanting, weeding and harvesting, as well as in post-harvest operations such as threshing, winnowing, drying, grinding, husking and storage (including making mud bins for storage). The women in the rural areas of Pakistan make a far greater contribution to the national economy. Rural women in Pakistan carry out these tasks in addition to their normal domestic chores of cooking, taking care of children, elderly and disabled, fetching water and fuel, cleaning and maintaining the house as well as some of its construction. When a family becomes more prosperous and begins to aspire to higher status, it commonly requires stricter purdah among its women as a first social change. Women generate income through various non-farm activities. Cottage industry is one of the major areas of involvement of rural Pakistani women. Weaving cloth and rugs, and sewing constitute important components of rural women's non-routine tasks. Rural women in Sindh are skillful in producing Rilee (hand-made bed sheets) and Sindhi Topees (caps), etc. of export quality.

Research and development experiences have shown the importance of considering the gender of farm and rural people in efforts to understand and influence their behavior and improve the conditions of those in extreme poverty and hunger. Certainly, some statistics indicate that the well-being of women and girls is lower than the well-being of men and boys; however, for many indicators the rural-urban divide is a greater factor in determining well-being. Consequently, information on the unique role played by women in their family and homes is important to understanding and improving the well-being of all rural and agricultural people, regardless of gender. Gender continues to lack significant visibility in statistics for agriculture and rural areas. The extent of visibility varies by country, making it difficult to generalize.

Previously, policies for agricultural development often narrowly focused on agricultural production growth, overlooking the importance of human resources and the social welfare aspects of agricultural development. As a result, agricultural statistics focused mainly on economic activities, large-scale production units and the use of production factors, collecting data on variables like area cropped, and yield and production achieved. Data on the human resources involved to obtain this production were often limited to a few variables relating to the heads of agricultural holdings/households and demographic characteristics of the agricultural population (UN, FAO, 1999, 2000; Tempelman and Keita, 2005).

Almost 70 percent of Pakistan women in the labor force earn their living in the rural economy. Women perform some of the most time-intensive tasks such as cutting fodder and fetching wood and water. Rural women work 12-16 hours a day while men work 2-4 hours less. On the other hand, in one of the report Rogers (1979) states that it is thought “natural” that a woman's place is in the house and that she has a very specific set of tasks which are thought to be universal because they are based on the biological imperatives of sex. The most important role for women, defining their entire life, is the bearing and bringing up of children. A man, on the other hand, is seen as the “natural” head of the family, its representative in the outside world. (1979 p: 11.). As compared to the study by Anwar and Bilquees (1976) in a Pakistani village reveals that apart from playing an intensive role in farm management, rural women are also active in producing goods and services not only for their own consumption but also on a smaller scale for sale and exchange in the local market. Talking about rural women in a Pakistani village they state that the rural woman in Jhok Sayal is an active but unrecognized participant of every economic and social activity inside and outside her home. She performs all the duties of a wife, a mother and a daughter-in-law and simultaneously shares the burden of field work with the husband. The result shows that women are more capable and have more capacity and efficiency to do all the activities social as well as economic.

As we talk about gender equality, it does not mean that women and men are or should become the same. It is based on women and men being equal partners in their home, their community and their society. In the context of local economic development, it means that participation in gov¬ernance, and access to decent employment opportunities and conditions of work, to resources, and to services, are not negatively influenced by the fact that one is male or female. It was hard enough to measure in situations of peace and stability but even more difficult in a conflict-prone context of rapid change. Gender-sensitive indicators can help to warn of, and thus avert, escalating conflict; they can also provide a roadmap for monitoring change towards long-term gender equality in the critical post-conflict period. Appropriate use of gender-sensitive indicators can anticipate the escalation of conflict. Increases in gender inequality, for example manifested through high rates of domestic violence, can be indicators of the escalation of conflict. Attention to gender can therefore strengthen the effectiveness of analytical and preventative models such as risk assessments and conflict early warning systems, as well as highlighting the different capabilities of women and men to engage in conflict prevention (UNIFEM 2006).

All the above discussion does not really mean that we forget the rules and regulations or status assign to us of being a female. As we discussed earlier that we are a part of patriarchal society where male dominates and don't want to subordinate them. Her gender doesn't mean that females only but of course it includes and encompasses men too. Men as the masters of women's destiny in a patriarchal society assume an even critical role and sensitive responsibility in changing the face of a plightful situation. It is better that women and men contribute to the local economy in various capacities and possess distinct knowledge and skills that correspond to these roles. These are the building blocks for realizing the potential of a locality and country.
The need of time is to define, interpret and apply Gender in a purely Pakistani context. Only then we would be able to reduce the disparities and loses in the major areas of national development named as education, economy activity, women empowerment and health. Converting the gaps into gains in such areas would take us as a nation on the path to development. That development would not be reflected in the GDP of country only but in a society marked by gender harmony, sensitivity and human dignity.