SERICUL TURE AND THE PROCESS OF CHANGE - Institute for ...

sericulturists, these women assume only an auxiliary role. Such women
have been predominantly found to be either the daughters or the wives
of the main sericulturists. The main sericulturist women in most of the
cases are exceptions as in the cases of widows or separated, or women
with incapacitated husbands.
A general observation from almost all sericulture villages in this
region is that there is a clear sexual division of labour in sericulture as
could be seen in table 6.7. There are some crucial activities in sericulture
involving relatively less labour but are considered skillful. These include
brushing, moult setting, chawkie rearing and disease-identification.
These are, in most of the cases, kept within the domain of the males.
This, in turn, dictates the significance of male labour over that of
females, for the work that women do are considered to be less important
andlor less strenuous.
In one of the areas in Salem district, sericulture itself has been
introduced as women's activity. In this area, however, the skill of the
activity itself is undermined lest the womenfolk get the credit of
managing a skillful and productive activity. The implication here is that
the skillfulness of the activity itself is judged not by its own standard but
based on the gender of the persons engaged in it.
As for work contribution, male members of the family have an
edge over the females. This is mostly due to the increasing recognition
of the heavier work load by women, especially in nuclear family
households, where they have to carry out multi-pronged responsibilities.
However, women do carry a heavier work load, as compared to men,
particularly in sericulture households. In some areas, women are
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