Awra Amba RJ 300612 EN - Contacter un comité local d'Attac

Women
(%)
Adults
Men (%)
Women /
men
Children
(%)
Sample (person number) 80 80 80
4. Social organisation
Children
/
adults
Land cleaning 99 100 0.99 21 0.21
Ploughing 15 100 0.15 0 0
Sowing 99 98 1.01 0 0
Weeding 99 100 0.99 9 0.09
Harvesting 94 99 0.95 11 0.12
Transporting the harvest 94 99 0.95 0 0
Threshing 51 98 0.53 6 0.08
Storing 94 98 0.96 4 0.04
Non weighted average 80 99 0.82 6 0.07
Table 6:
Participation rate in % to different agricultural activities according to sex and age acc.
to data by Atnafu (2005/77). Colours show the most inegalitarian cases.
These results are apparently answers to a questionnaire and not counts of the tasks done really by
men and women. A limited count we have done in 2010 (Jo10b/4) showed that:
- For the traditionally female tasks, out of 51 people carrying water from the spring (and
therefore carrying about fifteen kilograms), 35 were still women (2.2 times more than men),
that out of ten spinners in the cooperative, eight were women (4 times more than men), and
out of fourteen spinners during the development day on the village square, twelve were
women (6 times more than men);
- For the traditionally male trades, out of eleven weavers in the cooperative, eight were men
(2.7 times more than women), and the five ploughmen we saw were all men.
These figures measured on very small samples and therefore few representative show a greater
difference in the tasks per sex than the difference measured by declarative survey by Atnafu.
Furthermore, 4 % of the male heads of house hold have no access to media (radios, newspapers), but
14 % of the female ones according to Ya08/93: we could have here a slight inequality between the
sexes, but this conclusion must be put into perspective because of the small sample and the non
taking into account of other possibly explanatory factors.
Gender equality in the various tasks seems therefore not fully reached, but we also have to consider
that the tasks are also attributed according to capacity: spinning is an easy task, ploughing is
physically very difficult, some tasks more dangerous for women. In comparison with the allocation
of the tasks according to the sex in the Amhara society, a large part of the objectives seems to be
reached, which is considerable.
We can therefore say there is equality in couple as producers, as consumers, as responsible of tasks
and works and as responsible of the family, although Mekonnen (2009/45) considers it is without
doubt exaggerated.
Symbolically, as long as the father lives, he is considered as the head of the family. This is due
partially to the automatic acknowledgement by the neighbours and related people external to Awra
Amba of the father as the head of the house hold (At05/39-40). But the head of the house hold does
not play really the role of a head... Father's name is the middle or parent name of children (Yi07/60).
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