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Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how Zimbabwean rural women have been adapting and surviving within the constraints and limitations of a patriarchal society. The women are the major producers in agriculture but their importance as producers is rarely recognised.

Paper long abstract:

The study sought to understand the role of women in rural development strategies in Zimbabwe. The paper seeks to investigate the contribution of women to development strategies and how they have been treated in development. IBRD(1975 ) defines rural development as strategy designed to improve the economic and social life of a specific group of people ,it involves the benefits of development to the poorest among those who seek a livelihood in the rural areas and the group includes small scale farmers, tenants and landless. Rural women in Zimbabwe are not given the financial assistance they require to be efficient farmers in the agricultural sector. The women are not recognized and marginalized by the patriarchal society. Curiously, it is observed that most of the agricultural surplus was produced by female labour but controlled by men. According to Ester Boserup (1970), women in Sub-Saharan Africa, which includes Zimbabwe, formed "female farming systems" where women comprise well over half of the agricultural labour force. Whilst women were valued for their agricultural labour power, their work did not confer commensurate economic status on them. Their low socio-economic status was both a reflection and a cause of women's position in regard to the main means of production. This also influenced their ability to produce and have adequate access to food for consumption or for selling. The study reveals that Land Reform as a development strategy failed to cater for a gender balance and hence marginalized women in Zimbabwe.