Gender, Power and Property: In my own right

Women on farms in Ireland are a subject of feminist analysis for five decades. Salient themes are the constraints of patriarchal agriculture (OHara 1997; Shortall, 2004), the invisibility of womens farm work (Viney 1968; OHara 1998), gender inequalities in ownership of farm assets (Watson et al. 2009) and increasing professionalisation of farmwomen outside of agriculture (Kelly and Shortall 2002; Hanrahan 2007). Most women enter farming through marriage and family ties. Land ownership is identified by Shortall (2004) as the critical factor underpinning male domination of the occupational category farmer and considerable power differentials between men and women in family farming. This is an area that requires further investigation. Our analysis, framed by theoretical models of feminisation and empowerment, explores cases where male farm property ownership in Ireland is disrupted in conventional and non-conventional agricultural settings. Do these cases provide evidence of new opportunities for women to become farm property owners, and in what contexts? What consequences do these opportunities have for farmwomens empowerment and agency? How does womens farm property ownership disturb rural gender relations in the context of the family farm?