Old McDonald Might Be A Lady

Today, I read an interesting article on NPR entitled "Old McDonald Might Be A Lady: More Women Take Up Farming." The article was about American women in agriculture. More and more females are joining the agricultural field. According to the article, 300,000 women own their own farms and around a million more women help run farms. As a female, this is an empowering statistic. Too often, we overlook the farm wife and her role on the farm. Even more often, we adopt a mindset that she can not escape this role, and that she must always simply remain the "farm wife." She is placed subordinate to the male. We learn this from a young age, as is shown in the song, "The Farmer in the Dell." 

In the song, "the farmer takes his wife." However, her place on the farm is just as essential as his. "When a farmer buys a cow he looks at her long and carefully, goes over her point by point and weighs his pocketbook against her virtues and her faults. He should be no less calculating when he takes a wife. A young farmer should keep in mind that he will rise or fall on his choice of a wife." - R.J. McGinnis

According to the NPR article, however, this is all changing. While most female agriculturists run small operations, nearly 2,000 have been listed with sales of $1 million or more. 

Merriam-Webster defines the glass ceiling as "an intangible barrier within a hierarchy that prevents women or minorities from obtaining upper-level positions." I can only hope that the world will someday see the agricultural glass ceiling shatter.

Read the NPR article yourself here.