LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – A large group of male husband-vegetable planters in Benguet swore by their forebears last week during a merry chat session that a woman’s vocabulary when scolding, can be acidic like vinegar, but sobered up upon describing that when it comes to keeping house, tending kids and helping at the farm, a woman’s touch is indispensable, if not sublime.
Asked to further elucidate what they meant by “women’s scold vocabulary,” one of them, Gideon Felimon, a holder of BS in Agriculture and with more than 30 years of planting highland vegetables under his belt, momentarily paused then scratched his rough-hewn but handsome face.
Then he said, “Well, farmers wives — or simply wives – when irate can often be capricious, envious, hardhearted, ill-natured, jealous, keen, obstinate, passionate, quarrelsome, raging, tantalizing, vexatious, bitter, disagreeable, fierce, grating, gross, hasty, boisterous, unpleasant, waspish . . . “Then Felimon momentarily paused for a breath.
Members of the group, thinking Felimon was finished with women’s scold vocabulary, grinned wolfishly when he continued, saying, “When wives get angry, they can be tart, acrimonious, discontented, inattentive, noisy, odious, perverse, rigid, severe, teasing, unsuitable, hectoring, incorrigible, mischievous, offensive, pettish . . .,” Felimon paused again to gather his thoughts.
Then he went on, saying, “Angered wives for that matter can also be sharp, snapping, snarling, sour, testy, tormenting, touchy, boorish, churlish, grumbling, huffish, screaming, irascible, murmuring, outrageous, overbearing, sullen, suspicious, tyrannical, troublesome, yelping, wrangling, spiteful, splenetic, stern, combative . . .”
Boy! But Felimon’s adjectives about angry wives went on and on to the merry guffaws of his group. Felimon was pressed further about a woman’s touch at the garden being indispensable, if not sublime.
Felimon, still keeping his humorous description about women wrapped around his thoughts, squinted at the sky and solemn yet merry appeal to the Great Planter in the Sky, said: “Oh Lord, touch the hearts of all women and wives, whether they be wives of gardineros or not, the mother, the sister, the aunt, the Lola, the daughter, the widow! Thou knowest, Oh Lord, that the hearts of these women are indeed, very touchable.”
Then Felimon turned to his group and exclaimed, “By women being sublime, when a man of sense comes to marry, it is a companion he wants, not an artist. It isn’t merely a human who can paint and play; she is a warm soul who can comfort and counsel a husband, one who can reason and reflect, feel and judge, discourse and discriminate; one who can assist a husband in his affairs, lighten a husband’s sorrow, purify his joys, strengthen his principles and educate his children.”
Felimon ended by saying, “Such is a woman’s touch indispensable and sublime, who is fit for a mother and mistress of a family.”
Felimon’s humorous and serious characterization of women – working alongside them on vegetable fields of Benguet and other areas in Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) – underpins one neglected and understated fact: that more and more women are taking on farming chores.
Unfortunately, women’s time and effort working on the fields are not recognized statistically, showing an undermining of women’s role in agricultural development which is an important part in economic development.
A study titled “Relations of Feminization of Agriculture and Women’s Occupational Health – The Case of women Farmers in the Philippines,” by Jinky Leilani Lu and centered mostly in Cordillera provides a wider interpretation of women farmers contribution to agricultural productivity and the relations between feminization of highland agriculture.
In a nutshell, the study found “Cordillera women “play a key role in farming activities including land preparation, seeding, weeding, pesticide application, harvesting and marketing of crops,” the latter very evident from farm gate to market.
It also emphasized that the health of women farmers greatly affects trends and processes in the highland vegetable agricultural sector, meaning production levels go down when feminization in the agricultural sector is disturbed by health ills.
In other words, when women farmers tending the fields become sick, the level of production slides.
It’s for this reason that “women are regarded by men in Benguet as integral partners in farming, and they hold and control agriculture-derived incomes,” the study emphatically stated. Women’s health should be then understood within the context of economic production and relations of production.
Gender-based norms vary across cultures. In Cordillera, women in agricultural production is an aspect very essential when understanding rural economic development and lack of statistical data of women labor force runs contrary to women’s interests.
In CAR, it is an agricultural landscape that, while dominated by the men, agriculture can be hobbled without women’s help.
A look at by province contribution of women in CAR. In Benguet, men and women folks plant vegetables in their so-called “gardens,” which actually refer to farms, Lu found out in her study. Gardens or farms in Benguet are usually family-owned, relatively small parcels of land and none under tutelage compared to other farm areas in the Philippines.
There is this prevailing agricultural humor merrily told in different dialects but possesses the same message in Benguet and other provinces of women possessing muscular legs, whether in the upper or lower leg.
Partly true because women, aside from doing other farm activities, also do the chore of carrying heavy loads like hauling sacks of fertilizer up the trails to their gardens.
In the humor, it’s said Cordillera bachelors state with conviction that they would not hesitate one moment to drag these single women before the church altar for marriage as their sturdy legs show guarantee of industriousness of women which is embedded in those muscled but beautifully-crafted legs.
On the other hand, it’s said jovially that a Cordillera unmarried maiden, who upon being wooed by bachelor and seeing the suitor “not pogi” in looks, would then inspect the hands of the bachelor. Seeing his hands calloused as a result of hard work, she may prefer him, by explaining, “Uray saan nga guwapo isuna, ngem taraki! Pagan-anom ngay ti guwapo, nu saan nan tu met laeng ammo ti ag-gabion wenno ag-trabaho. Sadot met!”
It’s also been bandied how Cordillera unmarried maidens when being wooed would also inspect feet of Cordilleran bachelors and if they find males with splayed feet, they’d exclaim, “Ayos! Dayta a ti saka ti nagaget, ta uray nu lubnak saan na atrasan nga aradu-en!”
In a survey of women engaged in agriculture in CAR, almost 70 per cent have been found directly involved in capital procurement. They borrow more than the men as they are directly managing household and production expenses and income derived from agriculture is held mostly by the women.
Household responsibilities do not restrict CAR women to participate in agricultural activities. In fact, women adapt by wisely managing their time for workload on household activities and agricultural participation, according to the study.
In Bontoc, Mountain Province, women play a vital ceremonial role in agriculture. An elderly woman has the role of first planting a few seedlings in her field, implore with ancestor spirits for bountiful harvest before other community members can start planting.
An important feature in traditional agricultural activities is the ug-ugbo work that still happens in highland Cordillera. To facilitate planting and harvesting, both sexes work from one field and move to the other, particularly during times when the owner of a field cannot work due to illness. The advantage of ug-ugbo is, tasks are done on time or even earlier.
Activities such as plowing, repairing fields and building granaries and other agricultural structures are mainly male domain. However, other component activities in the context of making these structures socially and economically resilient are shouldered by the women.
One important aspect often overlooked is the health of women engaged in agriculture and how it’s understood within the context of economic production. Many women, in their economic or productive role, are characterized by participation in two overlapping areas: First, they hire out as laborers in farm-related operations and second, or work in family-owned lands.
But their work also holds risks. Literature on rural women’s health indicates that reproductive health risks, occupational accidents and ergonomic-related problems directly stem from the nature of the work they perform, including nutritional problems that appear to be influenced by their intertwining productive and reproductive roles.
Another serious problem is their exposure to pesticide as they take on the indispensable workload of applying these chemicals for crop production. While all agricultural workers are equally at risk from pesticide exposure, women face what is called the “gender-specific” reproductive health risks.
Persistent organic pollutants tend to accumulate in fatty tissues, making women biologically prone to their toxic effects since females tend to possess more fatty tissues as compared with males.
Epidemiologic and occupational studies have proven that toxins stored in women’s bodies predispose them to various reproductive health disorders. Moreover, there is a tendency of pesticide residues passed on by mothers to their babies through breastmilk.
In particular, women workers who are hands-on with pesticide while pregnant or breast-feeding are among those at really great risk, the study emphasized.
Other complicating factors overlooked are the multiple kinds of activities during pesticide use and the blurred distinction of what differentiates working areas from living areas in an agricultural setting.
Most often, pesticide use is understood as mere spraying or application of the chemical. However, what is not fully realized are the activities handled by the women from pre-application or mixing of the chemicals to post-application activities.
These range from cleaning the pesticide equipment/tank, disposing of excess pesticide mixture and pesticide receptacles, storing unused pesticide and tank, placing and monitoring pesticide traps around the field and washing pesticide-soaked clothing.
Even when it is the men who do the spraying, a number of said activities are shouldered by the women as part of their domestic obligations.
