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Women and employment in rural areas
Book Reviews respondents in research, as well as to ‘take’.
and using social research
RACHEL Department of Geography, SDUC,
to ‘give’
WOODWARD Lampeter, U.K.
Refashioning Nature: Food, Ecology and Culture, David Goodman and Michael Redclift, 1991, Routledge, London, f45 hb, f14.99 pb
One of my favourite moments on field work came on a farm in County Tipperary as the farmer explained to our second year undergraduate geographers how he managed his herd of dairy cattle. There were audible gasps of astonishment as some students were confronted for the first time with the knowledge that lactation and calving were linked and that cows did not spontaneously give milk. The farmer responded splendidly and gave a charming outline of the relevant bovine facts-of-life. After which, several students announced their conversion to a strict vegan diet. A few years later, I marked A-level examination scripts which related a sad picture of British farming, so wedded to artificial fertilizers that nitrate levels in beef, milk and diary products posed a threat to human health. A few answers even suggested that fattening cattle on fertilizers was normal practice. These two stories illustrate how in contemporary society agriculture has become divorced from everyday experience and how the link between food as a commodity and as a natural product has become mystified. In this book, Goodman and Redclift seek to reconnect agriculture, the food system and wider society. It is an ambitious programme which they set out. In my department, undergraduate geographers would need to follow seven different courses to study the issues they raise, and even then some of Goodman and Redclift’s insights are rarely encountered in geography degrees. Goodman and Redclift set out to offer an alternative to the usual compartmentalized way in which academics, policymakers and society view the food system. Some of the argument is developed at the structural level, with an exploration of technology-policy links and of patterns of consumption and production at a variety of scales ranging from the global to the household. Much of this, as they admit is within a political economy framework which is hardly novel. The book’s great value is that it builds on this structural level, examining other dimensions and relating them to the basic political economy. Gender roles and their association with food preparation and social attitudes and patterns of resistance to environmental change are two of the more interesting of these. Each of the seven chapters is a closely argued account of many interactions and it would be unfair and unwise to attempt to summarize them in a brief review article. Most readers of this journal will find in the book issues with which they are familiar and others about which they know only a little. None the less, readers will find the argument compelling and stimulating. At its heart is an account of three refashionings of nature. The first has occurred in the labour process, whereby the work of women outside the home has become naturalized. The second is in production where advances in biotechnology and genetic engineering have seen the cornmodification of nature and especially of
125
the food which we eat. The third has seen a spatial segregation of the countryside into areas for consumption, especially for amenity, recreation and aesthetic appreciation, and into areas for production, where the adjective ‘natural’ increasingly loses its meaning. This is certainly one of the most thought-provoking books that I have read for some time and I know that I shall return to it again. I urge readers of this journal to read it for its synthesis of issues too often regarded as separate academic and policy specialisms. I would hope that my undergraduates would read it, but I suspect that many would find the book’s variety and its conceptual, rather than its intellectual challenge, quite daunting. JOHN BRADBEER Portsmouth Polytechnic, U.K.
Women and Employment in Rural Areas, a Report Rural Development Commission by the Royal cultural Society of England, 88 pp., 1991
to the Agri-
This report is a welcome addition to the small body of work on rural women’s participation in the labour force. It addresses the lack of empirical information on this topic through the collection of a wide volume of original primary data. Using these data, the report explores how spatial factors affect both the nature and extent of rural women’s participation in the labour force. However, this analysis is not ample. A strength of the study is its recognition of the diversity of social and economic characteristics of rural areas in England. The study was conducted in three rural areas, namely East Wiltshire, North Cornwall and North East Derbyshire. The first of these is an area which is experiencing urban generated population growth, is close to many urban centres and has low levels of male unemployment. The second study area is remote from urban centres, has an economy which is largely dependent on agriculture and tourism, but which has shown some signs of population growth in recent years. The final area was dependent on coal mining in the past and is characterised by high levels of male unemployment. The selection of these study areas allowed for the exploration of variations in the experiences of rural women and for the examination of locality specific influences. In each study area, two surveys were conducted. The first survey consisted of interviews (350 in total) with women both in and out of paid employment. The second survey, which supplemented the first, was a postal survey of employers in the three study areas. The response rate to this survey was low (19%), so the researchers were reluctant to make generalisations from the data. The main findings l
l
of the study are as follows:
The rates for women’s participation in the labour force in the rural study areas was found to be considerably lower than rates for women nationally. Compared to a national rate of 68%, only 54% of the total sample were engaged in paid labour. Even though there was variation between the three study areas, the participation rate in each case was significantly lower than the national rate. The ratio of part-time to full-time paid workers in the rural areas compared unfavourably with the national
126
l
l
l
l
l
Book
ratio of 455.5. In the three study areas, part-time workers consistently outnumbered full-time workers. Findings in relation to the working conditions of rural women compare unfavourably with national patterns. There is a sharp contrast between the proportions of women nationally who receive holiday pay (88%) and sick pay (67%) and proportions in the study areas. In Derbyshire, for example, fewer than half of the respondents received either sick pay or holiday pay. These poor working conditions were matched by minimal levels of trade union membership. The data on wage levels are somewhat confusing and no clear patterns were identified. A high incidence of self-employment was identified in the study. More than one-quarter of the total sample of women were self-employed. Lack of access to high quality and affordable childcare was identified as a chief constraint to rural women’s participation in the labour force. The vast majority of women in the sample who had children and who were in paid employment relied on informal networks of family and friends for the provision of childcare. In addition, many of the respondents spoke about the stigma attached to being a mother in paid employment. Difficulties with childcare were exacerbated by problems of access to transport. This was identified as a second major constraint to rural women’s participation in the labour force. A high dependency on private transport emerged from the study, where access to a car during the day was regarded as a crucial factor in women’s employment. Findings in relation to rural women’s formal qualifications and the experiences of rural employers in recruiting paid staff suggest a mismatch between the skills of the female rural work force and the staff needs of rural employers.
Arising from these findings, the researchers make a number of policy recommendations in relation to accessibility, childcare and training. This study certainly achieved its goal in terms of collecting a body of primary data on rural women’s involvement in paid labour. Indeed. the account of some of the difficulties experienced in collecting these data is of relevance to other researchers in this field. The report, however, does not fully exploit the potential for analysis of these data. ORLA O’DONOVAN University College Galway, Republic of Ireland
Laura Ashley: a Life by Design, Anne Sebba, 207 pp., 1990, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, f4.99 pb
Laura Ashley is almost a byword for an English middleclass style and fashion which draws upon a mythical Victorian golden age of (rural) living and cultural values. More so than individual signifiers such as the (green waxed-cotton) Barbour jacket and (green) Wellington boots in which Ashley is pictured on the cover of this book, Laura Ashley seems to encompass a whole life-style that draws strongly upon particular notions of rurality and rural life. Whilst Sebba’s book, a relatively straightforward biography of Ashley the co-founder of the company of the same
Reviews name, is not an academic text it does seem to offer a particularly rich source of insight into the idea and nature of contemporary rurality for a significant group in British society. It could be argued that Laura Ashley is a key resource drawn upon by an influential mainly English middle class to interpret and reproduce versions of rural life and rural localities. What is particularly interesting about Laura Ashley is that it forces the analyst to be concerned with the transformation of material culture, not simply linguistic or photographic representations of it. The fact that material culture is notoriously difficult to analyse, for example the relative importance of context or the ‘thing’, does not diminish its significance. It is tempting to slip into a rather simplistic analysis of ideology and to dismiss the Laura Ashley world view and the practices that sustain it as ‘false’. However, this will not do as it relies upon there actually being a ‘rurality’ that we can undisputably identify. If nothing else, the ‘rurality debate’ carried on within the pages of this journal has established the fruitlessness of such a position. Perhaps a more helpful strategy is to develop an understanding of how such cultural representations and practices are woven into social and economic reproduction. Furthermore, if we take such a proposition seriously then the analysis of what might be termed the ‘discourses of rurality’ should not properly be confined to ‘rural localities’ but should also be found in, and be crucial to the understanding of, a wide variety of social formations. It is in the pursuit of such an understanding that I read this book. The structure of this book is a relatively straightforward historical narrative; from birth to death. The chapters are organised not so much on temporal grounds as around places: South Wales, South London, Kent, Mid-Wales, America, Southern France, Brussels and the Bahamas. These places seem to serve more as place holders rather than serving any particularly significant role in the narrative. To present the book in such a way does nl*; capture the complexity both of a life and of a Tr:.nsNational Company. One insight that can be usefully drawn from recent developments in literary criticism in recent years is the demotion of the single all encompassing discourse. I believe that this book yields most from a reading sensitive to the multiple discourses within it, and most crucially the tensions between them. It goes without saying that none of these discourses will reveal the ‘real’ Laura Ashley or the ‘actual’ ideology of ‘rurality’. An interesting confusion exists throughout the book such that when Laura Ashley is referred to it is sometimes unclear whether it is the company, its products or the person who bore that name who is being signified. A dominant and popular discourse concerning Laura Ashley trades upon such an ambiguity. A main characteristic of the company is perceived to be its integrity, its care for its workers, its paternalism, and most centrally the ‘inspiration . . . [of] rural life as it can be lived . we expect that women will want to cook and sew and launder even if they are also reading Homer .’ (p. 106). This view is personally identified with Laura Ashley the woman and her personal history. This personal history makes much of Welsh ancestors and Welsh life which is drawn upon to embroider the Laura Ashley style product and corporate. An interwoven discourse emerges in the telling of this story, that of the ‘rags to riches’ (sic) entrepreneur who along with her husband and through the perceptive use of
and using social research
RACHEL Department of Geography, SDUC,
to ‘give’
WOODWARD Lampeter, U.K.
Refashioning Nature: Food, Ecology and Culture, David Goodman and Michael Redclift, 1991, Routledge, London, f45 hb, f14.99 pb
One of my favourite moments on field work came on a farm in County Tipperary as the farmer explained to our second year undergraduate geographers how he managed his herd of dairy cattle. There were audible gasps of astonishment as some students were confronted for the first time with the knowledge that lactation and calving were linked and that cows did not spontaneously give milk. The farmer responded splendidly and gave a charming outline of the relevant bovine facts-of-life. After which, several students announced their conversion to a strict vegan diet. A few years later, I marked A-level examination scripts which related a sad picture of British farming, so wedded to artificial fertilizers that nitrate levels in beef, milk and diary products posed a threat to human health. A few answers even suggested that fattening cattle on fertilizers was normal practice. These two stories illustrate how in contemporary society agriculture has become divorced from everyday experience and how the link between food as a commodity and as a natural product has become mystified. In this book, Goodman and Redclift seek to reconnect agriculture, the food system and wider society. It is an ambitious programme which they set out. In my department, undergraduate geographers would need to follow seven different courses to study the issues they raise, and even then some of Goodman and Redclift’s insights are rarely encountered in geography degrees. Goodman and Redclift set out to offer an alternative to the usual compartmentalized way in which academics, policymakers and society view the food system. Some of the argument is developed at the structural level, with an exploration of technology-policy links and of patterns of consumption and production at a variety of scales ranging from the global to the household. Much of this, as they admit is within a political economy framework which is hardly novel. The book’s great value is that it builds on this structural level, examining other dimensions and relating them to the basic political economy. Gender roles and their association with food preparation and social attitudes and patterns of resistance to environmental change are two of the more interesting of these. Each of the seven chapters is a closely argued account of many interactions and it would be unfair and unwise to attempt to summarize them in a brief review article. Most readers of this journal will find in the book issues with which they are familiar and others about which they know only a little. None the less, readers will find the argument compelling and stimulating. At its heart is an account of three refashionings of nature. The first has occurred in the labour process, whereby the work of women outside the home has become naturalized. The second is in production where advances in biotechnology and genetic engineering have seen the cornmodification of nature and especially of
125
the food which we eat. The third has seen a spatial segregation of the countryside into areas for consumption, especially for amenity, recreation and aesthetic appreciation, and into areas for production, where the adjective ‘natural’ increasingly loses its meaning. This is certainly one of the most thought-provoking books that I have read for some time and I know that I shall return to it again. I urge readers of this journal to read it for its synthesis of issues too often regarded as separate academic and policy specialisms. I would hope that my undergraduates would read it, but I suspect that many would find the book’s variety and its conceptual, rather than its intellectual challenge, quite daunting. JOHN BRADBEER Portsmouth Polytechnic, U.K.
Women and Employment in Rural Areas, a Report Rural Development Commission by the Royal cultural Society of England, 88 pp., 1991
to the Agri-
This report is a welcome addition to the small body of work on rural women’s participation in the labour force. It addresses the lack of empirical information on this topic through the collection of a wide volume of original primary data. Using these data, the report explores how spatial factors affect both the nature and extent of rural women’s participation in the labour force. However, this analysis is not ample. A strength of the study is its recognition of the diversity of social and economic characteristics of rural areas in England. The study was conducted in three rural areas, namely East Wiltshire, North Cornwall and North East Derbyshire. The first of these is an area which is experiencing urban generated population growth, is close to many urban centres and has low levels of male unemployment. The second study area is remote from urban centres, has an economy which is largely dependent on agriculture and tourism, but which has shown some signs of population growth in recent years. The final area was dependent on coal mining in the past and is characterised by high levels of male unemployment. The selection of these study areas allowed for the exploration of variations in the experiences of rural women and for the examination of locality specific influences. In each study area, two surveys were conducted. The first survey consisted of interviews (350 in total) with women both in and out of paid employment. The second survey, which supplemented the first, was a postal survey of employers in the three study areas. The response rate to this survey was low (19%), so the researchers were reluctant to make generalisations from the data. The main findings l
l
of the study are as follows:
The rates for women’s participation in the labour force in the rural study areas was found to be considerably lower than rates for women nationally. Compared to a national rate of 68%, only 54% of the total sample were engaged in paid labour. Even though there was variation between the three study areas, the participation rate in each case was significantly lower than the national rate. The ratio of part-time to full-time paid workers in the rural areas compared unfavourably with the national
126
l
l
l
l
l
Book
ratio of 455.5. In the three study areas, part-time workers consistently outnumbered full-time workers. Findings in relation to the working conditions of rural women compare unfavourably with national patterns. There is a sharp contrast between the proportions of women nationally who receive holiday pay (88%) and sick pay (67%) and proportions in the study areas. In Derbyshire, for example, fewer than half of the respondents received either sick pay or holiday pay. These poor working conditions were matched by minimal levels of trade union membership. The data on wage levels are somewhat confusing and no clear patterns were identified. A high incidence of self-employment was identified in the study. More than one-quarter of the total sample of women were self-employed. Lack of access to high quality and affordable childcare was identified as a chief constraint to rural women’s participation in the labour force. The vast majority of women in the sample who had children and who were in paid employment relied on informal networks of family and friends for the provision of childcare. In addition, many of the respondents spoke about the stigma attached to being a mother in paid employment. Difficulties with childcare were exacerbated by problems of access to transport. This was identified as a second major constraint to rural women’s participation in the labour force. A high dependency on private transport emerged from the study, where access to a car during the day was regarded as a crucial factor in women’s employment. Findings in relation to rural women’s formal qualifications and the experiences of rural employers in recruiting paid staff suggest a mismatch between the skills of the female rural work force and the staff needs of rural employers.
Arising from these findings, the researchers make a number of policy recommendations in relation to accessibility, childcare and training. This study certainly achieved its goal in terms of collecting a body of primary data on rural women’s involvement in paid labour. Indeed. the account of some of the difficulties experienced in collecting these data is of relevance to other researchers in this field. The report, however, does not fully exploit the potential for analysis of these data. ORLA O’DONOVAN University College Galway, Republic of Ireland
Laura Ashley: a Life by Design, Anne Sebba, 207 pp., 1990, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, f4.99 pb
Laura Ashley is almost a byword for an English middleclass style and fashion which draws upon a mythical Victorian golden age of (rural) living and cultural values. More so than individual signifiers such as the (green waxed-cotton) Barbour jacket and (green) Wellington boots in which Ashley is pictured on the cover of this book, Laura Ashley seems to encompass a whole life-style that draws strongly upon particular notions of rurality and rural life. Whilst Sebba’s book, a relatively straightforward biography of Ashley the co-founder of the company of the same
Reviews name, is not an academic text it does seem to offer a particularly rich source of insight into the idea and nature of contemporary rurality for a significant group in British society. It could be argued that Laura Ashley is a key resource drawn upon by an influential mainly English middle class to interpret and reproduce versions of rural life and rural localities. What is particularly interesting about Laura Ashley is that it forces the analyst to be concerned with the transformation of material culture, not simply linguistic or photographic representations of it. The fact that material culture is notoriously difficult to analyse, for example the relative importance of context or the ‘thing’, does not diminish its significance. It is tempting to slip into a rather simplistic analysis of ideology and to dismiss the Laura Ashley world view and the practices that sustain it as ‘false’. However, this will not do as it relies upon there actually being a ‘rurality’ that we can undisputably identify. If nothing else, the ‘rurality debate’ carried on within the pages of this journal has established the fruitlessness of such a position. Perhaps a more helpful strategy is to develop an understanding of how such cultural representations and practices are woven into social and economic reproduction. Furthermore, if we take such a proposition seriously then the analysis of what might be termed the ‘discourses of rurality’ should not properly be confined to ‘rural localities’ but should also be found in, and be crucial to the understanding of, a wide variety of social formations. It is in the pursuit of such an understanding that I read this book. The structure of this book is a relatively straightforward historical narrative; from birth to death. The chapters are organised not so much on temporal grounds as around places: South Wales, South London, Kent, Mid-Wales, America, Southern France, Brussels and the Bahamas. These places seem to serve more as place holders rather than serving any particularly significant role in the narrative. To present the book in such a way does nl*; capture the complexity both of a life and of a Tr:.nsNational Company. One insight that can be usefully drawn from recent developments in literary criticism in recent years is the demotion of the single all encompassing discourse. I believe that this book yields most from a reading sensitive to the multiple discourses within it, and most crucially the tensions between them. It goes without saying that none of these discourses will reveal the ‘real’ Laura Ashley or the ‘actual’ ideology of ‘rurality’. An interesting confusion exists throughout the book such that when Laura Ashley is referred to it is sometimes unclear whether it is the company, its products or the person who bore that name who is being signified. A dominant and popular discourse concerning Laura Ashley trades upon such an ambiguity. A main characteristic of the company is perceived to be its integrity, its care for its workers, its paternalism, and most centrally the ‘inspiration . . . [of] rural life as it can be lived . we expect that women will want to cook and sew and launder even if they are also reading Homer .’ (p. 106). This view is personally identified with Laura Ashley the woman and her personal history. This personal history makes much of Welsh ancestors and Welsh life which is drawn upon to embroider the Laura Ashley style product and corporate. An interwoven discourse emerges in the telling of this story, that of the ‘rags to riches’ (sic) entrepreneur who along with her husband and through the perceptive use of