Farmer or Housewife: A Study on Transformations in the Roles and Social Identity of Rural Women

Developmental interventions have been making lots of changing and transformations in rural women's daily life. The study attempts to answer the question of "How these changes may effect rural women’s social identity and social roles". An ethnographic research has been conducted on three villages of Gohardan, Rameh, and Kouhzar. These three villages belong to different climate features. Data gathering implemented by observation and unstructured interviews. Findings showed that rural women’s social roles changed and their identity transformed from being farmer to housekeeper. Women in Rameh and Gohardan prefer to be educated and also marry with a man who lives in town and is not a farmer. Educated women usually have left the village. Besides, the younger women prefer not to be skillful about traditional agricultural affairs. In Kouhzar women’s traditional roles like baking at home, making handicrafts like carpet is extinct. Women of all three villages prefer to use modern home appliances. Their social roles has changed in rural community. It seems they follow the urban middle class housewife’s life style.