For many of us who work on academic calendars, late October is a busy time of grading midterm examinations and research papers. We thought it would be a perfect time to highlight recent web content related to rural women:
Our own Carolyn Sachs, a rural sociologist at Pennsylvania State University, has shown that female farmers lead the sustainable farming movement. Sachs argues that “it is a feminist move for women to identify as farmers.” She recently lectured on this research at the University of Georgia.
The New York Times published a photo essay exposing the realities of “child brides” in Latin America.
Two PhD students working in Guatemala wrote a blog challenging views of early marriages for rural girls/women, including those in Stephanie Sinclair’s photo essay. They argue that “Conversations about ‘child brides’ need to go beyond the stereotype of “poor and immature” girls/women if we really want to enable young women to access the resources and occupational possibilities that they need and want.”
“Planned communities” in the United States are typically upscale suburban neighborhoods featuring amenities like golf courses and swimming pools. But pushing back against stereotypical images of communities featuring white picket fences surrounding carefully manicured lawns, so-called “agrihoods” are appearing across the nation. Some 200 agrihoods, which center around functional farms, currently exist nationwide.
Black women in the rural American South are falling further behind as the country recovers from the Great Recession.
After a 20-year campaign, a victory for historians, and particularly historians of rural women: oral history, journalism, and biography will no longer be regulated by university institutional review boards.