While most agricultural cooperatives in the Region have not overtly excluded women, their membership is concentrated, usually in rather small numbers, in the lower ranks. In many cases, women have no voting power. This is usually vested in the "head of house" or the official land owner. Nor are women eligible to sit on management boards where key decisions are made. In a movement dedicated to improving the lot of disadvantaged workers, cooperative leaders have been slow to perceive, and too often resistant to change, the disadvantaged position of women farmers.
Frustrated at their lack of voice in dairy cooperatives, women in India fought hard and eventually won the right to establish their own all-women cooperatives. In these they feel both welcome and competent. Many are successful in a way that would not have been possible if the cooperative had been mixed. Membership in "mixed" cooperatives may provide access to certain services. But it does not imply meaningful participation in setting the agenda, deciding on services and actions, or participating in management and the distribution of benefits.
By pretending to be "gender-neutral," official policy on cooperatives excludes invisible farmers. If policy makers want to include women they must be explicit in drafting policies that not only encourage women to join, but are "women-farmer-friendly." This implies explicit reference to them in policy and plans, specific policy statements enlisting their participation at both management and membership levels, and favoring their attendance by holding meetings at times and places convenient to women.
The task of translating cooperative elements which impose constraints on the productivity of women farmers away from patriarchal norms and into gender-responsive policy and planning is certainly a difficult one, but this should not be a reason for postponing action. A movement that represents the interests of only half its potential clients and beneficiaries is not a democratic movement. Nor is a movement that concentrates its female membership into its lowest levels of membership and participation. Women farmers and other rural women have lived outside the ambit of cooperatives for a very long time. They can continue to do so, but at a significant loss to agricultural production and to the rural economy in general. In other words, at a loss to all society - men, women, and children.
A gender-sensitive cooperative movement, on the other hand, will have policies that accept female partners as equals, providing for their active and equal participation at all levels. This will not be achieved overnight. It will have to begin with sensitizing the entire membership to gender issues. Then it will have to set up interim provisions, such as quotas at the various levels, and offer training courses and services to its members. The long-term goal, however, should be a political commitment to gender equality as part of the democratic process of cooperative development.