The Female of the Species: Women and Dairying in India

As this chapter1 studies the intersection of various subordinate categories, we begin by noting that dairying is itself a subordinate activity in rural India, ancillary to agricultural production and drawing on crop wastes and residues for milchstock nutrition. With male labour in villages usually directed to agriculture and other primary activities, it is generally the subordinate gender which puts labour into the subordinate activity of dairying. Baviskar (1988) discusses the preconditions for household dairying, and stresses the presence of an able-bodied woman, in addition to finance to purchase a milch animal, land to grow fodder or resources to otherwise acquire it, and suitable shelter.