Farmers in England: women cultivating gender and work identities in the field

Research has shown that farming is a male-dominated occupation which is bound by patriarchal practices of succession. However, as the involvement of women in farming in England increases, it has become timely to understand the extent to which gender remains salient to their experiences. This research examines the ways that women achieve visibility and legitimation within a context that has traditionally positioned their work and gender identities as in tension. Existing approaches tend to rely on a narrow definition of ‘a farmer’ which excludes women who are a spouse, farming part time, or without ownership. As a result, they fail to recognise the diversity of work which farming encompasses, and which is underpinned by gender performance. Drawing upon thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 22 women in Norfolk and Yorkshire who self-define as farmers, this thesis explores what it means to be a farmer today. The ethnographic elements of interviewing within farm spaces and conducting observations at agricultural shows develops an agile understanding of the entanglements of non-human animals, working rhythms and family structures that shape farming identities. The analysis illustrates the complex ways that farming is embodied by women as they reproduce and/or resist the dominant gender paradigm that situates women’s bodies as unsuitable. Despite them often viewing the presentation of their bodies for farm work as a masculine endeavour, women farmers can construct a female sensibility through the way that they do farming. In the face of an environment in which criticising the farming community could be counterproductive for forging belonging, women farmers often used identity management strategies to overcome marginalising encounters. Identity negotiation is shaped by the presence or absence of a farming background, as well as by the positions the women adopt in relation to farming masculinities and femininities.