Yeah women doing the books is a family business tradition bc until the '70s women couldn't start their own bank accounts.

They were bookkeepers of choice bc they literally had no way to embezzle.

Laws are different now but that's v much still the habit. https://twitter.com/ValkyrieLeather/status/1319681510119788549

There's a big difference btwn "having education & important jobs" - "actually being empowered."

"Taking part in decisions" =\\= having authority. "Shared decision-making" is a really common phrase for papering over how women *aren't allowed to just make decisions themselves.*

Farm culture is EXCEPTIONAL at polishing turds esp when it comes to women's status.

Instead of looking at women's job roles, it's a lot more illuminating to look at their degree of autonomy within those roles.

Like, "she keeps the books" sounds amazing until you account for how most farm women do that & it's framed as "helping out" and has to check in w husband before purchasing anything bc he's actually in charge ("shared decision-making").

Having a uni education sounds great, but it's not if it's viewed as the family's property bc they paid for it & now you owe free technical labor and can only use evidence-based farm techniques when it passes gatekeeping muster.

tl;dr glad you had good experiences, and they're far from universal.

also, judging "is this feminist" based on professional achievement falls so so short when it comes to the structures of power in prooertied families & access to land.

Also the practice of pushing bookkeeping onto women leads to one of the most fascinating phenomena in family farming, the NASTY GRANDMA

[pls pardon spelling errors, getting eyes dilated & can't see for shit rn]

The NASTY GRANDMA got put in charge of the books 60 years ago

everyone involved in that decision has since died

she is now the ONLY person in the family who knows where the money is or how much of it exists

and she ain't tellin

doooo yeah nasty grandmas are just living by the same "gatekeep all the family land & resources" playbook that good ol boys always use, & got her on that position in the first place

BUT because she's a woman, everyone actually notices how fuckin shady it is

so you meet a considerable number of dudes from farm country whose take on women is MY GRANDMA is HORRIBLE and HORDES ALL THE PROPERTY and THAT'S WHY WOMEN CAN'T BE TRUSTED and you gotta KEEP AN EYE ON 'EM

cool story Chuck, now go & think about how your life would have turned out different if your grandpa woulda done his own paperwork & not trained the people in his life to DOMINATE OR DIE

you're so close

also there got to be cool nasty grandmas out there but the ones I've met so far really are just mega-karens : /