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Tammmalng onicelalles oc e e l o ce t dore in o en Wt mania ie ns ie e o oeed attetna ies upa o arne sipne auze *T a e ie c n o n n inene n nrier ooo oootemrnennaimemesseneneme ie ces ie e To P i @ & o y c j i C .. s s s Bb css Ne a r e C O l , , p O l J l , d e d w%@‘fibww 7 Lo | € : s y s y Wl o m â€"â€"â€"â€"â€"â€"â€"â€"â€"C~ _ a high degree of stress." Traditionally, sc s cce § By Gord Wainman many farm operations supported father C stt The writer is Free Press agriculture reporter _ and sons (or daughters) and their families. _ | sz‘~ L222 22â€" â€" And farm women also feel frustrations *{3 . They may be running a bit behind their _ related not only to their changing role but _ | _ || _ _\ %&‘*&* | city cousins, but farm women now are deâ€" _ to the community at large, the report says. _ | &u&a?&‘ w l i manding their voices be heard on inequiâ€" They feel more isolated than their city Xé’\"*"& ties they suffer as women and more parâ€" counterparts not only because of geograâ€" es css ticularly as members of a diminishing phy but also lack of job opportunities and | rural society. ' services available in the city. Day care oo f If urban wives can be called "super poses a larger problem in rural areas than _ _| _ ‘\“wgfi _ mom" for holding down two jobs â€" runâ€" cities â€" due in part to lack of public transâ€" â€" | _ . \»\‘V%@“‘?N s ning a family and working outside the portation and dayâ€"care facilities e s “?) £ l homeâ€" it would be difficult to hang a tag , themselves. f o s ‘ on many farm wives who often hold down Compounding adjustment to the farm lc A ’;&%&“&wé additional third and fourth jobs â€" farm woman‘s changing role is the growing genâ€" â€"|__â€"||â€" } _ & _ manager and laborer. eration gap between younger women workâ€" _| [\ | _ (J ; [ Activist farm women‘s groups such as ing off the farm and the more traditional 3 P se M«}%gv | z: the Concerned Farm Women and Women _ stayâ€"atâ€"homegeneration of farm mothers _ _ |â€"||â€"â€"â€"â€"â€"â€"â€"â€"â€"| /J For The Support Of Agriculture have who raised these working farm wives. ts e c s $ popped up in the past three years in reâ€" "Older women in six locations suggested _ | \aé‘f"(v¢ ~â€"_ sponse to recession stress on the farm that if women stayed at home and learned _ | "ar"“‘"’@ community. The provincial agriculture to accept a lower standard of living initialâ€" _ _ i iprein**~phromennmnmcttiminctirmnronssmersemmemnmrettnienirnmapennnn + | ministry last year sent adviser Molly ly, their economic ills would be cured," Molly MG{@ hee s s { McGhee to study the changing rural womâ€" _ McGhee says. "Younger women made it y2 â€" s an in a series of 48 public hearings in 24 loâ€" _ plain they wanted a standard of living _ _ ,A;“Exampf(}s_r of discrimination against cations across Ontario. . similar to their urban and suburban ~women‘ifmagriculture by the lending instiâ€" | The result is a 72â€"page study â€" Women. _â€" colleagues." ‘tutions, agriâ€"business, commodity boards in Rural Life: The Changing Scene â€"reâ€" This generation split, along with declinâ€" _ and the media generated much discussion. . leased earlier this month. On its release, ing rural population in general â€" from Lending institutions, especially the banks, , the study got some media attention as a 702,800 in 1951 to 288,700 in 1981 â€" could acâ€" â€" came in for the harshest criticisms," she ~â€" news story, but not much inâ€"depth reportâ€" _ count in part for the declining membership â€" says. *"*While loan officers may assert that 1 ing has surfaced to date. It‘s somewhat in the traditional Women‘s Institute, they are nonâ€"discriminatory, their actions t ironic because one of the findings of the McGhee says. "As members of the Womâ€" _ ~belie their claims." } study, rightly or wrongly, says: "In generâ€" _ en‘s Institute become older, a further deâ€" And McGhee cites a testimonial by a ; al the media foster the outdated stereotype _ crease in their numbers is anticipated." woman who runs a swine operation herself of farm women and their families as living And as farm women â€" both by necessity _ while her husband works in the city. The | a peaceful, pastoral life, free from worry and choiceâ€" intrude into traditionally story involves an encounter with a patronâ€" _ | ; and stress." . maleâ€"dominated activities, as have their izing farm supplier: | If urbanitesâ€"do harbor those stereotypes, _ city cousins, they too have become more "I had asked the company to send someâ€" 1 they‘ll have to rethink their opinions in one to see me. . . The representative arâ€" | light of the study finding that 73 per cent of /f____\\\ 2 rived, saying his car had gone into the farm women aged 20 to 44 years work off 7ZZ fi ditch. He wanted my husband to pull him the farm â€" well above the 56 per cent genâ€" /\â€"â€"./fi? & out. I explained that my husband worked eral average for Ontario women in the f /" o in the city and I ran the farm. I got out the. work force. f / \ tractor, hitched the car to it, and pulled it "A depressed agricultural economy has U / Y onto the highway. He thanked me, jumped forced more wives to contribute to the N /z fl"\ into the car and drove off, saying: ‘I‘ll farm income by working off the farm," Y / ds j( Â¥ phone and see when your husband will be McGhee says. Between 85 and 90 per cent f ‘ V‘% 4 0 home.‘ Needless to say, I don‘t buy from of farm women help in the operation of the i t { that company anymore." total farm enterprise, and between 80 and \ ( And women tobacco producers not only 90 per cent in the business aspects of the : f Gord complained about discrimination in the farm. : \ " e auction warehouses by male classifiers The majority of farm wives, like their 7 Wainman and graders, McGhee says, but "harrassâ€" city counterparts, told the hearings they m3 ment of a sexual nature also occurs." worked offâ€"farm to improve the economic i Farm women also censured the advertisâ€" status of their families, but they had the ing industry for either ignoring women or â€" added burden of gaining needed capital for tz : depicting them incorrectly. the farm gnteri)rise. f F 7 McGhee‘s report ends with a list of 33 : Escalating along with the added finanâ€" § recommendations which will be discussed cial burdens is stress, the study found. ' . at a conference of farm women at Toronâ€" Concerns over stress accounted for 45 per _ politically active and demanding of equalâ€" _ to‘s Constellation Hotel June 21. cent of the hearing submissions. McGhee ity, McGhee says. / It will be a chance for Agriculture Minisâ€" cites findings of a university and governâ€" "Historians and social scientists will ter Dennis Timbrell, who is throwing this ment supported study â€" The Farmer _ probably credit the recession of the 1970s conference, to hear from a group which Takes a Wife â€" published by Gisele Ireâ€" and ‘80s as the beginning of society‘s has only recently begun to speak out about land of Teeswater, a director of the activist _ awareness of rural women as a political its common problems and exercise some _ _ Concerned Farm Women group. and social force," she says. "Unitil fairly > political clout. "‘The study found that the main factor recently feminism‘s effects in rural areas During the early part of the recession, _ > contributing to stress was a lack of profit, _ were popularly considered to be nonâ€"exisâ€" __ Timbrell let it be known he preferred dealâ€" ? followed by financial difficulties, a lack of . _ tent and the common notion of rural womâ€" _ ing with the reasonable Concerned Farm leisure time, and lack of money for vacaâ€" en as a content and grateful homemaker / Women Group of Bruce and Grey counties tion," McGhee says in her report. and helpmate persisted throughout North _ to dealing with their more rowdy husâ€" «‘Many Ontario women contended that fiâ€"_ America." ' bands, many of them members of the miliâ€" nancial problems extend beyond dollars A complaint of many farm women, most _ tant Canadian Farmers‘ Survival and cents. Fatigue from long hours of work . of them involved heavily in the financial Association. \ strains family relationships,"" McGhee decisionâ€"making of increasingly complex The farmers, male and female, will have _ â€" found. "The inability of the family farm to _ farming operations, is their access to credâ€" to be careful they don‘t end up with the agâ€" | support more than one family today causes it, McGhee says. * riculture minister standing between them. _ | ; $ E |