Food and Gender: Online Discussion blog

Making the food system work for women graphic

Making the Food System Work for Women is a global online policy discussion forum, intended to reframe the discourse on food security from the perspective of women’s rights and women’s agency. Rather than critique the current state of affairs, the discussion seeks to generate bold proposals for building a collective agenda to advance gender justice within the food system.

The online discussion runs November 19 - November 30. Each day, we post an essay by a leading thinker on women's rights and food justice. We invite you to join the discussion: read the essays, post comments and share with your networks!

Oxfam has sponsored this discussion to promote public debate and invite feedback on key development policy issues relevant to our GROW campaign. All views and recommendations expressed here are those of their authors and not necessarily those of Oxfam. Read more.

© Oxfam International November 2012

Day 10: The Recivilization of Men by Women

30 November 2012 | Olivier De Schutter | 13 | Blog channel: Food and Gender: Online Discussion

The agrarian transition to an input-intensive, capitalized form of agriculture is deeply gendered. Food security depends on combating overt discrimination against women, but this shall only be viable...

Children learning in Tanzania. Image: Oxfam

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Day 9: Feminism and Food Sovereignty

29 November 2012 | Pamela Elisa Caro Molina | 5 | Blog channel: Food and Gender: Online Discussion

Food sovereignty offers opportunities to advance women’s rights, but we must also work to change gender relations within rural families and within our own movement. Peasant movements such as La Via...

A small-scale farmer from the Matagalpa region of northeastern Nicaragua. Image: Oxfam

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Day 9: Nutrition Policies that Work for Women

29 November 2012 | Jayati Ghosh | 10 | Blog channel: Food and Gender: Online Discussion

Almost everywhere and across all age-groups, female nutrition indicators are worse than those of their male counterparts. Gender differences in access to food obviously reflect socio-cultural reali-...

Hasina Begum, a woman farmer, in Bangladesh. Image: Oxfam

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Day 8: On the Virtues of Discrimination

28 November 2012 | Sophia Murphy | 10 | Blog channel: Food and Gender: Online Discussion

All things being equal, countries benefit from more open trade. But all things are not equal. For women, the context is almost always one of inequality. To protect and advance women’s rights, it’s...

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Day 7: Seeds and Sisterhood

27 November 2012 | Joanna Kerr | 12 | Blog channel: Food and Gender: Online Discussion

Governments and development agencies need to shift the onus of feeding the world away from time-strapped impoverished women, and instead support their organizing and cultivate their traditional...

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Day 6: Stop Talking About Equality

26 November 2012 | Tinna C. Nielsen | 23 | Blog channel: Food and Gender: Online Discussion

Business leaders change behavior when something is in it for them and their companies. If we want them to change the way they do business, we need to stop talking about justice and gender equality,...

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Day 5: Time for a New Recipe

23 November 2012 | Alexandra Spieldoch | 12 | Blog channel: Food and Gender: Online Discussion

The women’s movement hasn’t been proactive about defining its own platform for action on food justice, and we are noticeably absent from spaces where decisions are made. We need to break out of our...

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Day 4: Women Farm Workers Dying for Food

22 November 2012 | Fatima Shabodien | 20 | Blog channel: Food and Gender: Online Discussion

One of the ultimate perversities of our era is that the producers of food and their children often go to bed hungry. Reform of commercial agriculture is urgent if the women farm workers who grow and...

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Day 3: Seeds in Women’s Hands

21 November 2012 | Dr. Vandana Shiva | 16 | Blog channel: Food and Gender: Online Discussion

Seeds are the first link in the food chain. Yet women seed breeders are invisible in the industrial model of food production and in intellectual property regimes. The roots of food and gender justice...

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Day 2: The Potential of Women Suppliers

20 November 2012 | Elizabeth Vazquez | 19 | Blog channel: Food and Gender: Online Discussion

Food system transformation will require the engagement of women suppliers along entire agricultural value chains. Women need to shift out of labour into business ownership, and women suppliers need...

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Coming soon

Sorry, but there are no upcoming posts in this blog channel yet.