{"id":445,"date":"2020-06-26T15:48:39","date_gmt":"2020-06-26T14:48:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/?p=445"},"modified":"2020-06-26T15:55:27","modified_gmt":"2020-06-26T14:55:27","slug":"gender-arts-and-farming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/2020\/06\/26\/gender-arts-and-farming\/","title":{"rendered":"Gender, arts and farming"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Centre for Rural Economy artist in residence Joanne Coates has been exploring reasons for gender bias as part of her residency. Although the Covid-19 lockdown has halted her artwork, here she highlights how feminism and women\u2019s leadership are viewed in farming and further afield.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Close up of crops. Credit: Joanne Coates<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the art historical\nworld, gender bias is not a secret. Ever since stories have been told, they\nhave been told through the voice, seen through the eyes, and felt through the\nexperience of the masculine. As recently as 2012, only 4% of artists in The Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/a>\n(MET) were women. In my own medium, photography,\nonly 15% of photographers are women. In the industry, women earn on average 40%\nless than men[1]<\/sup><\/a>. The situation is no\ndifferent in agriculture. according to the UK Department for Environment, Food,\nand Rural Affairs, with only 14.9 % of registered farm holders in the UK being women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have\nrecently begun working with Professor Sally Shortall at the Centre for Rural\nEconomy, and our conversations about gender bias get my mind racing marathons.\nOne discussion brought me back to a time when I told a high-up middle-class\n(obviously) man in the arts that I was dating a farmer, and his exact words\nwere, \u201cyou\u2019ll just end up a farmer\u2019s wife<\/em>.\u201d I can\u2019t think of many jobs\nwhere you just end up somebody’s wife. I think of my partner\u2019s Mum, the work\nshe does for the farm, the behind-the-scenes running of farms women have done\nfor centuries. Are these women \u2018just farmers\u2019 wives<\/em>\u2019? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Farmer Izzy Credit: Joanne Coates<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Since December I\u2019ve\nbeen immersed in research, preparing myself to move to rural Northumberland for\nthe practical side of my residency. Lockdown was announced the day before I was\ndue to move. I stayed put, in the lowest part of the North East, in the\nfurthest-up part of North Yorkshire. A bleak rural landscape, my dog for\ncompany, (slow) internet, and my partner, a farmer. It is definitely a\nchallenge to how I usually work. I\u2019ve found solace in online conversations with\npeople I\u2019m yet to meet through email chains, talking about gender roles with\nwomen who are living the farming experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On one of\nmy lunchtime escapes I was listening to the WNYC<\/a> podcast \u2018Dolly Parton\u2019s America\u2019 and two and two finally added\nto four. One moment in particular helped to explain much about the gender\nimbalance in farming and how portrayals of feminism link within this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dolly\u2019s\nfans hail her as the original third wave feminist icon. However, Dolly doesn\u2019t\nview herself that way. When the podcast presenter asks if she thinks of herself\nas feminist, her response is clear: \u201cNO I\nDO NOT. I think of myself as a woman in business. I love men, I have a brother,\na dad, a lot of cousins. I look like a woman but I think like a man, but I\nthink like a woman to<\/em>o.\u201d[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\npodcast goes on to hear from Sarah\nSmarsh, who wrote a book called Heartland, and writes a lot about Dolly and\nClass. Coincidentally, Sarah grew up in a rural area, on a farm in a poor area\n40 miles outside of Wichita, Kansas. She highlights how femininity has changed\nwithin the portrayal of feminism, with Dolly Parton paving the way in breaking\ndown these stereotypes. To quote: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe feminism of the 1970s and 80s, it’s where you had\na lot of women start with traditional roles in both the workplace and the home.\nThat’s a moment. When women who had business ambitions were being encouraged to\nsort of downplay their own quote unquote femininity. You don’t need to wear makeup.\nYou can cut your hair short and put on the pants. During the second wave Dolly\nis one of the first to represent the future third-wave. She went, like, in the\nopposite direction which was like you have a problem with my tits then here.\nThey are hanging out. She played it up and was like, you can deal with it. I\nthink I’m more kind of a millennial spirit of approach to feminism\u2026<\/em> There’s this idea of what feminists are\nsupposed to look like. Feminism can be whatever that it is you wanted to be as\na woman. You want to have big hair and big boobs and wear rhinestones then do\nit<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What she said next also struck a chord with me. Sarah explained\nhow women live feminism in different ways: \u201cLet me put it through my own\nexperience. I had a very complicated relationship to the term feminist when I was\na teenager. In America they choose to sort of like feel this backlash (to\nfeminism) that is full throated now. It was like burgeoning when I was a\nteenager and I could feel it. Certain words have a different life in those two\nworlds, but there are women who as we speak are living the tenets of feminism\nmore strongly and in a more badass manner than women who wear the word on a\nT-shirt and March in the marches<\/em>.\u201d[3]<\/sup><\/a>\nThis struck a chord with me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Country landscape Credit: Joanne Coates\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sarah is from a farming community, and I\u2019m part of a\nfarming community. They can be closed communities, with outsiders not fully\nunderstanding their complexities. Rural villages and\nhamlets are not big cities, universities or towns. The language used is\ndifferent, the way communities engage is different. Women have worked on farms for hundreds of years, they have\nsupported and pioneered. The female shepherdess isn\u2019t a new phenomenon. The\nlanguage around being a woman in a traditional role, and the more recent trend\nof using \u2018feminist icon\u2019 as a term for a leader, makes many feel uncomfortable.\nThis, however, doesn\u2019t mean they are not. It is in their actions. We still have\nto look at and deal with the lack of female leaders within the farming\nindustry. From conversations I\u2019ve had to date, I have noticed a clear tendency\nto downplay their roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m a\nkeen advocate of voices. For women to see themselves as farmers or leaders,\nthey need to literally see themselves as farmers and leaders. To make space and\ncreate space for this. That\u2019s not as simple as it sounds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it is safe to meet, I will take my interviews from screen to face-to-(covered) face. I will chat with women in different roles within agriculture. Together I am hoping we will look at and challenge attitudes currently held within the industry. For now, here\u2019s to those women that have been leading the way in farming but not speaking about it. In the words of Sarah, those \u2018Badass\u2019 women of agriculture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Footnotes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/sup><\/a> Figures \nfrom Women Photograph https:\/\/www.womenphotograph.com<\/a> https:\/\/theconversation.com\/women-were-photography-pioneers-yet-gender-inequality-persists-in-the-industry-today-119056<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/sup><\/a> https:\/\/www.wnycstudios.org\/podcasts\/dolly-partons-america\/episodes\/sad-ass-songs<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/sup><\/a> https:\/\/www.wnycstudios.org\/podcasts\/dolly-partons-america\/episodes\/sad-ass-songs<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/theconversation.com\/women-were-photography-pioneers-yet-gender-inequality-persists-in-the-industry-today-119056<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.gov.scot\/publications\/women-farming-agriculture-sector\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.wnycstudios.org\/podcasts\/dolly-partons-america<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our ‘post-truth’ world and unconscious gender bias: Sally Shortall<\/a><\/blockquote>