Rural gender relations and landcare

[Extract] Farming in Australia is constructed as a very male business. Farm men are 'farmers' while farm women are 'farmer's wives'. Cattle and sheep sales see rings filled to capacity with farm men watching the fate of their year's work, while farm women go off to do the shopping. Examination of the membership of farm organisations reveal these to be male dominated. This masculine hegemony, which has implications well beyond the construction of gender roles, is under challenge from a number of directions. Rural women's networks and conferences, for example, bring together large numbers of rural women, researchers and bureaucrats to put issues of concern to rural women on the public agenda, and to remind women of the important contributions they make to agriculture and rural life. Another area of particular interest- in. that it brings women and men together in what may have been viewed as a traditionally male area - is Landcare