Gender, Identity and Women’s Involvement in Livestock Production: The Case of Greece

Research and policy increasingly recognize women’s role in sustaining pastoral societies in the Global South, yet women pastoralists in the Global North have received scant attention. In Greece, like other countries in the Global North, their actual social integration and appreciation as pastoralists can be questioned. In many cases, livestock families promote their female members as heads of the farm but in reality the male members of the family own and have the decision making power over the farms. Albeit this development women are still being treated as an invisible force, housekeepers and mothers in addition to the acceptance of their role as real pastoralists. This social challenge manifests itself in many rural territories especially those with cultural characteristics of male dominance and patriarchal structures as in the case of Crete in Greece. Drawing on qualitative research (e.g. one focus group, two group interviews and six in-depth interviews) this research addresses the empirical gap in studies of women pastoralists in the Global North by investigating Greek women pastoralists’ roles and identities. It focuses on 3 levels of social organization: the private and domestic level, the livestock enterprise level and the local community level. Although interviewees revealed that their role within the family and local community significantly improved in the last decades, the analysis also revealed key contradictions in women’s material and discursive practices shaped by age and family socio-economic status. It is recommend that future research and policy take a more deeply intersectional approach to analyzing the diversity of Greek women pastoralists’ experiences to include a more explicit focus on the experiences of women of different age and socio-economic and cultural factors and how these factors interact to shape their realities and decisions.