Without rural families' participation in self-subsistence agriculture, the reproduction of

rural society would not be viable.

 Women in rural areas have had direct access to the land as mean of production. As

abundant literature suggests, rural women have traditionally had an active role in the

household economy. They are effective household managers, with a wide degree of

decisions making power over the tasks under their care. This role is stronger in

indigenous populations where even after a long history of cultural distortions, women

generally possess a clearly defined role in the household. Chapter 3 of this thesis shows

how the active role of women in the household is part of cultural identity in several cases

in the Andean world, including the Ecuadorian area.

 Deere's (forthcoming) comments on a survey on the participation of rural women

in subsistence agriculture in Ecuador confirm the importance of women in household

agricultural activities. The results of the study show that 70% of rural women in the

Andean area, and 20% on the coast, are involved in that kind of agriculture. Moreover,

agriculture was the primary sector of activity for 72% of women in the sierra compared

with only 47.5% on the coast.

 In the more specific situation of indigenous families, although some of them were

part of the obsolete hacienda system labor relations, in that context women were also

important agents of household reproduction. Women's role in the huasipungos2 were

directly associated with the economic sustenance of the household, while their husbands

were laborers on the hacienda's land.


2 As explained in Chapter 1, huasipungos were a small land parcel (about 1 2 acres) that indigenous
people were assigned from big landowners (hacendados), as part of the wage labor in the haciendas.
Huasipungos were used to grow agricultural products and domestic animals for indigenous family
sustenance. The huasipungo system was part of indigenous household and was mainly carried out by
women, while men were working in the hacienda's land.