On #WomenFarmersDay, a photo story on the incredible hard yards that women put in each day in agriculture.

The landowner here in Anantapur is standing tall while the row of 9 women workers doubled over, are doing transplantation work on his field. 📷@PSainath_org | 1/n

He said he paid them Rs. 40 a day. The women, all landless workers from Rayagada, Odisha said it was Rs. 25. It is a typical case of visible work, invisible women. In India, even women from landed families have no rights to the land. 2/n

Full story: https://t.co/tbMFQF3NsF
These 2 young girls in the field in Anantapur, AP, are hunting for pests. It’s about all the paid work there is in their village. They get Rs.10 for every kg of red hairy caterpillars from the landowners. This means they have to catch over a thousand to make that much 3/n
Millions of women are not counted as workers contributing to the national economy. Much that rural women do, apart from direct agriculture, is dismissed as ‘household work.’ Lack of direct control over resources like land greatly weakens the position of women. 4/n
She paused, exasperated by the mid-day sun in Vizianagaram. But remained bent over. She knew she would resume work in moments – in that very posture.
Working in the same cashew fields were 2 other groups of women from her village. All were bent over. 5/n
‘Manual’ planting, sowing and weeding involve a great deal of time spent in painful postures. Agricultural tasks show a strong gender divide. Women are barred from ploughing. But they almost exclusively do the transplanting, weeding, harvesting, threshing and post-harvest work.
Most of these activities mean a lot of bending and squatting. In Nuapada in Odisha, the rain did not stop this woman from weeding. Besides, many of the tools and implements used were not designed for the comfort of women. 7/n
There’s also injuries from implements made for men and never refashioned for women. Cuts and gashes from sickles and machetes are common. Decent medical care is rare, while tetanus is a constant threat. 8/n
Such hard work leads to high infant mortality. Prolonged squatting sparks off strains and stresses that often lead to premature births. Also, women workers don’t get to eat enough. Their general poverty ensures this. Serving the family first and eating last worsens it. 9/n
Since women are barred from tilling the land, maybe the old slogan “Land to the tiller” needs reworking. Instead, try “Land to those who work on it.” #WomenFarmersDay [fin]
PS. These rates are circa 1999-2000, they have risen marginally. The women still toil the same way.

More from Society

Tomorrow, January 6th, MAGA chuds, Proud Boys, and white supremacists are planned to descend on Washington D.C. to contest the election. Among them will be NSC-131, a New England based neo-Nazi organization. Let's welcome them by saying hi to one of their members, Eddie Stuart!


Edward Stuart, from Chester, New Hampshire, has been a member of Nationalist Social Club (NSC) since the very beginning and is a staple participant in their actions. He is known in NSC chats as "Carl Jung" and is well connected in the New England Nazi scene.
2/


NSC-131 is a neo-Nazi group that was started in Massachusetts in early 2020 by Chris Hood. You can learn more about NSC and it's members in these threads:


Eddie describes his ideology as "Esoteric Hitlerism" which is an occult form of Nazism that literally worships Adolf Hitler as a god, or, specifically, as an incarnation of the Hindu God Vishnu. Here is Ed holding the RigVeda with some of his occult Nazi pals. Interesting Ed!
4/


Much of this ideological insight was gained from Eddie's Twitter, where he originally used his "Carl Jung" persona and reposts explicit neo-fascist content and racist memes. In one edited picture, Eddie can be seen at an NSC event in late June 2020 holding a Nazi Sonnenrad flag
5
Patriotism is an interesting concept in that it’s excepted to mean something positive to all of us and certainly seen as a morally marketable trait that can fit into any definition you want for it.+


Tolstoy, found it both stupid and immoral. It is stupid because every patriot holds his own country to be the best, which obviously negates all other countries.+

It is immoral because it enjoins us to promote our country’s interests at the expense of all other countries, employing any means, including war. It is thus at odds with the most basic rule of morality, which tells us not to do to others what we would not want them to do to us+

My sincere belief is that patriotism of a personal nature, which does not impede on personal and physical liberties of any other, is not only welcome but perhaps somewhat needed.

But isn’t adherence to a more humane code of life much better than nationalistic patriotism?+

Göring said, “people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”+
Two things can be true at once:
1. There is an issue with hostility some academics have faced on some issues
2. Another academic who himself uses threats of legal action to bully colleagues into silence is not a good faith champion of the free speech cause


I have kept quiet about Matthew's recent outpourings on here but as my estwhile co-author has now seen fit to portray me as an enabler of oppression I think I have a right to reply. So I will.

I consider Matthew to be a colleague and a friend, and we had a longstanding agreement not to engage in disputes on twitter. I disagree with much in the article @UOzkirimli wrote on his research in @openDemocracy but I strongly support his right to express such critical views

I therefore find it outrageous that Matthew saw fit to bully @openDemocracy with legal threats, seeking it seems to stifle criticism of his own work. Such behaviour is simply wrong, and completely inconsistent with an academic commitment to free speech.

I am not embroiling myself in the various other cases Matt lists because, unlike him, I think attention to the detail matters and I don't have time to research each of these cases in detail.

You May Also Like

The entire discussion around Facebook’s disclosures of what happened in 2016 is very frustrating. No exec stopped any investigations, but there were a lot of heated discussions about what to publish and when.


In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.

In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.

This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.

In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.