Agriculture, Patriarchy and Capitalism

The present study, Women Work and Technology was completed under the ICSSR women’s studies fellowship and submitted for the PhD degree in economics at the Kakatiya University in 1994. The book may be considered as an attempt to understand “women in agriculture within the framework of capitalist patriarchy which served as an instrument of the international division of labour. The approach emphasises the concrete analysis of class position the gender (sic). ...it highlighted the entrenched structures that perpetuate oppression with subtler forms mediated through technology” (D Narasima Reddy in the Foreword, p vii).

Different aspects of female labour, which form a significant part of the total labour force, are yet to be analysed although women’s studies had long been identified as a major thrust area of research. It is very important to know the dynamics of female labour force in a restructuring agrarian economy, more so in the case of India having sharp regional differences.