When Farm Couples Break Up: Gendered Moralities, Gossip and the Fear of Stigmatisation in Rural Communities

What is it about?

This article draws on interviews with farm women and men, who have experienced a family break up, to analyse their experiences of gender expectations in family farming, their fear of stigmatisation and their receipt of help from the rural community. The interviews illustrate their compliance with dominant constructions of rural gendered moralities. Men struggled to live up to the ideals of rural masculinity, which centre on hard work, self-sufficiency and mental strength. Women, who were strongly influenced by the moral norms of rural womanhood, managed to retain their feminine dignity as being caring and considerate of the family.

Featured Image