Wondim, A.K. and Kefale, E. (2018) “Gender and youth challenges and opportunities in rural community: The case of goregora, West Dembia District of North West Ethiopia,” Journal of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, 10(6), pp. 108–114.
The study’s purpose was to assess gender roles, gender, and youth opportunities and challenges in Goregora, North West Ethiopia. The article explored qualitative and quantitative focus group discussions, key informant interviews, household interviews, and observations from a total of 60 respondents (32 male and 28 female) of the study participants. The interviews were analysed in the form of description and narration, respectively. In the study area, reproductive roles were assumed to be the responsibility of women, with men’s involvement being minimal but flexible.
The study found that women performed the majority of the activities such as washing cloth (76.7%), brining water (68.3%), preparing food (75%), cooking (78.3%), and cleaning activities (78.3%), while the participation of men in reproductive activities was below average. The paper states that men and women divide the work at home depending on social structures, household income, and geographic locations. However, domestic work and unpaid labour were typically seen as the domain of women.
In investigating gender-based discrimination, respondents mention the patriarchal system, low pay for the same work, and the design of technologies as discriminatory practises, and the paper argues that women suffer mainly at the household and societal levels because, for a very long time, women were subjected to harmful effects because of traditional practises like men’s dominance. The findings showed that 68.3% of the sample respondents thought that rural women faced a variety of issues in the community, including a lack of time, a lack of freedom to move outside the community, a workload related to household activities, and other issues encountered in the community.
The study also revealed that community management activities were performed by both sexes in percentage: males (71%), both males and females (27%), and females (2%); this shows that the participation of women in social development was low in this case. Community management is crucial for the social development of the community, but women are found to have limited chances to join institutions compared to men. In this finding, Wondim and Kefale should have studied what caused the low participation of women and instead recommended ways to engage them more in community management.
The paper concludes by stating that there is an unequal division of labour between men and women and that, as a result, governmental and nongovernmental organisations should offer awareness-creation training for both sexes of the community as well as organise events for households to share their experience and scale up best practises.