Constructing and Reconstructing Rural Women in Australia: The Politics of Change, Diversity and Identity

Abstract

This paper examines the politics of change and the politics of identity evident in the recent history of Australian rural women’s organizations, including the blurring of the categories ‘farm women’ and ‘rural women.’ Drawing on various sources, including our own current research, we identify several different ways in which rural women’s identities are being constructed in feminist scholarship, in rural women’s own (various) discourses and in the mass media. Rural women’s diverse activities and identities are seen to cross boundaries. Contradictions and paradoxes inherent in these constructions and their implications for the politics of gendered social change are discussed. We argue that while a less urban‐centred approach to feminist theory is needed, rural women would benefit from a greater understanding of feminism. Online conversations involving rural and urban women are seen as a useful means of developing such new understandings.