Technology Change and Gender: Irrigated Agriculture and Peasant Women in Eastern Uganda

Abstract

Within the past two decades or so gender, and the women’s question in particular, has taken on a new significance. In Uganda, and Africa in general, studies dealing with the women’s question and the role played by women in agricultural production have been undertaken.¹ These studies have some common underlying assumptions. First, the advent of colonial rule and the penetration of capital enhanced the exploitation of women’s labour. Second, women’s role in capitalist agricultural production has not been sufficiently recognised. Third, capitalism consolidated the social and ideological structures that exacerbate the oppression of women. Sexual and social division of labour, control over productive resources, control over benefits from productive labour, and reconstruction of marriage and kinship institutions have enhanced the exploitation of women. Fourth, women’s struggles against oppression and exploitation are primarily struggles against capitalist exploitation of women’s labour and the resultant social structures, which have denied them a share of the productive resources.