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Enset and Gender Issues

Why is it important to consider gender roles and the contribution of women?

Gender roles (in terms of the division of labor for all aspects of enset production and marketing) are of critical importance (Tensaye et al, 1995; Spring et al, 1996). Without women to process enset, there would be no food produced and it would simply be an ornamental plant, as it is in other parts of Africa and Asia. But women's work is often relegated to lesser significance than men's. Both researchers and farmers often believe that women are involved "only" in processing and cooking of the enset, and rank these tasks below cultivation tasks. Women, in fact, do participate (in some areas and in some households) in production activities (e.g., manuring and varietal selection), and in households where there are no women knowledgeable about enset clones and processing, enset is not eaten unless others are paid to process and cook it.

Women in wealthy households became labor managers by hiring poor women to process and poor men to cultivate. Women in middle income and poor households exchange labor for processing. Men are believed to be banned from enset processing areas, but were observed helping among the Gurage. Locally, women market small amounts of kocho, bulla, and amicho to obtain money for household consumables (e.g., kerosene and salt). They strategize as to the amount of surplus kocho and bulla they can sell off and still have enough for the household. Both sexes sell non-food enset products (e.g., leaves, mats, rope, and other construction materials). Men keep cash from the sales of cash crops. By contrast, little is known about the ownership or remuneration received from the bundles or "jumps" of enset sold for the market in Addis Ababa. Do wealthier women have surpluses to sell? Do wealthier men plant extra gardens and hire labor to process the plants? Is there joint decisionmaking and profit-sharing between the sexes on planting and processing? Additional research on marketing, both locally and in urban areas, is required.

Are there gender issues in clonal variation, in both selection and usage?

Habte-Wold et al (1996) argue that women farmers know a great deal about the different varieties of enset, and that "when men and women of the same household were interviewed together, women tended to dominate discussion about varieties, contrasting and comparing them and saying what should be harvested at different ages. Men played a greater role in discussing the cause of 'drop-out' other than harvesting . . . men . . . stressed the desirability of harvesting at maturity and . . . the varieties which are normally harvested later, whereas women were more concerned with a balance of varieties which can be harvested at different ages."

In addition to the gender division of labor, there are gender issues concerning varieties selected for planting and time of harvesting. Both women and men farmers categorize the varieties of enset into two categories, each with different characteristics, and they distinguish each clone in terms of its "maleness" or "femaleness" (Habte-Wold et al, 1996; Alemu and Sandford, 1996; Spring, 1996a; Tibebu et al, 1993). This categorization has nothing to do with the biological or reproductive parts of the plant, but with a set of qualities and characteristics related to desirability, time of harvesting, fiber and food content, softness and hardness, palatability, length of fermentation period, size, growth rates, and resistance to disease and pests. The so-called "male clones" mature later, and are harder but give a larger yield, while the "female clones" mature earlier, are softer, less fibrous, and more delicious. Men have a preference for the "male" enset, because they say "there is less temptation for the women to harvest the plant before maturity for the sake of eating the delicious boiled corm," (amicho) as in the case of "female" plants (Alemu and Sandford, 1991). However, in some regions farmers do plant more "female" than "male" plants (see below). Whether or not there are gender-specific reasons for these choices or if women manage to prevail in their own preferences needs to be investigated.

As a result, farmers, depending on their own circumstances (in terms of location, land holding size, and wealth), strategize and maintain different numbers of clones by "sex" and age, with a slight preference for the "female" plants. Data from Habte-Wold et al (1996) show that farmers tend to plant a ratio of 56:44 "female" to "male" plants. Absence of men from the homestead to engage in off-farm work is believed to restrict varietal diversification, but the reasons for this, and why the wealthier have greater clonal diversification, are still unclear and require further research. In terms of such research, there is often a tendency for researchers to focus on yield as the major criterion, while other variables may be of greater concern and factored into varietal selection by the farmers themselves.

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