Creating a Public Space for Women in US Agriculture: Empowerment, Organization and Social Change.

In this article the author focuses on the status of women farmers in the U.S. agriculture. The author remarks that many scholars working within the resource mobilization paradigm take institutionalization for granted, ignoring grassroots organizations where membership is difficult to define and where structures are elusive. They consequently underestimate the role of, and under-appreciate the practical situations of, less-than-totally-institutionalized organizations in challenging the status quo and producing political and social change. The author states that successful domain building in agricultural and non-agricultural rural areas requires representing the interests of women as well as men, allowing greater access by women to decision-making structures and processes, and providing a public arena or forum in which they may develop their collaborative potential. If women bring a different perspective to the table, and farm family and rural community receive better attention when women are at the table, then rural and agricultural institutions that exclude women ultimately disadvantage themselves.