Introducing Gender Awareness to Elementary School Teachers in Rural Bahia,

The introduction of gender equity analysis in rural development projects is not only a very recent public policy being implemented in Brazil, but also one that is bound to face major drawbacks. While state agencies, extension workers, and rural communities are ready to support programs that tend to women’s “practical needs ” (cf. Moser 1989), resistance mounts when it comes to fostering their “strategic needs” (ibid.), that is, to actions geared towards women’s empowerment. In these circumstances, those responsible for implementing the new policies in rural development projects must work on different ‘fronts ’ simultaneously: gender awareness must be introduced not just to project staff and women and men in target communities, but also to key figures in the project area who can be influential in the building of favorable public opinion. In rural Brazil, where illiteracy rates still run rampant, school teachers tend to be regarded highly and should be engaged in the fostering of women’s empowerment. In addition to their direct participation in instilling new values to children in classrooms— and thus to the future generations of local producers—they often are also persons wh