This article discusses the significance of the so-called "feminization of agriculture" both to
policymakers and to feminist theory. It first highlights the various meanings that, depending on
the context, such "feminization" refers to. It then examines the situation of women as
independent food producers. Though women play a greater role than ever as food producers,
they face obstacles such that they are often relegated to a form of agricultural production that
is characterized by its low productivity and that is geared towards own consumption. Such
homestead-based production can represent an important contribution to food security and
deserves support. But it also presents the risk of confirming existing gender roles and it does
not favor the economic independence of women ; nor does it truly expand women's choices.
The article also reviews the situation of women as farmworkers, which represents another
manifestation of this "feminization of agriculture".
Feminist theory has always been divided between the recognition of the specific position of
women and their assimilation into existing institutional structures. We confront a similar
dilemma in the agrarian transition. The position of this article is that we should not have choose
between supporting women's roles as food producers by taking into account the existing
gender roles and the time and mobility constraints that women are imposed, or instead
challenging those roles and ignoring those constraints, to make women more like men and
ensure that they have the same opportunities as their male counterparts. The constraints are
real, and they will take time to be removed. As long as they subsist, we must ensure at least
that the choices of women within the food systems can expand. Whether they decide to act
within the existing gender roles or whether they seek to escape the constraints these roles
currently impose on them, the choices they make in the various contexts in which they operate
should not be choices by default: only by removing the constraints they face, and by shaping
pathways towards alternatives to the current situation in which they face multiple barriers, can
this be ensured.