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Ethiopian Rural Women and the State This chapter documents changes in the relationship between the Ethiopian state and rural women's work over time; particular emphasis is placed on experiences under the revolutionary government (1974-91) and during the transitional period that followed. Of concern here is the way rural women's work, as well as their perceptions of it, has varied as other ideological changes have occurred within the state. The Ethiopian state has undergone several transitions, but throughout history it has effected laws and institutions that have had a major influence on women's use of time, labor, and resources. During the twentiethcentury, this influence was channeled through legislative agencies: the Parliament that held office until 1974; the shengo (i.e., assembly) of 1974-91; and, more recently, the Council of Representatives (CR). The CR now has proactively tried to legitimize the transformation of the state from a despotic monarchy to a democracy. Particularly since 1974, the legislative processes have been shaped by preconceived notions about women and about what constitutes popular participation in politics. Consequently, neither an effective legal process nor an adequate bureaucratic framework has emerged to allow women's (and grassroots) initiatives,voices,and abilities to come to the fore in the developmental and political arenas. My point here is that very little will be achieved in developing and democratizing societieslike that of Ethiopiaunless the state takes into account the range of rural women'sworkinitiatives. Within development circles,discussions of rural women'sworkhas usuallybeen couched in terms of gender roles, but insufficient attention has been paid to the lifestyles and needs of the rural women whose occupational initiativeshave been the backbone of communities. In Ethiopia, these women include the much-discussed peasant women aswell as members of the despised occupational potters ofEthiopia . Gender analysts,aswell asgovernments, have ignored the importance Introduction Tsehai Berhane-Selassie Chapter 7 of such marginalized groups because they are perceived to function in the "traditional," and not in the "modern," sector of society. Ethiopian women as a whole have been marginalized even in the midst of the drastic reforms and government changes toward democratization that have occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. Using as an example a government institution that addressed rural women's issues during the 1970s and 1980s, we can examine this general process of marginalizing rural women: specifically, we can analyze how the government units were set up and staffed, and the process bywhich government agents translated the existing development plans to rural women. These analyses show that the agents, intermediaries, and rural women were deprived of the chance to make suggestions that were derived from the experiences of working with rural women. In the following discussion I provide, first, some needed background on the history of the "modern" Ethiopian state, and this is discussed from the gender perspective. Second, I provide a sociopolitical overview of women and work in rural Ethiopia, with particular reference to developments within the women'sunit of the Ministry ofAgriculture, the main agency that works with rural women. Finally, there is a critique of these experiences based on the perceptions of rural women in southern Ethiopia who have expressed opinions about their work and about the role of the government, as well as the possible roles they might play in economic change and decision making. Ethiopian Rural Women and the State 183 Anthropologist I. M. Lewis (1961) used the Ethiopian state as an example of a highly evolved traditional African state with a clear separation between the institutions of religion, the state, and the army. He and other social scientists have pointed out that the monarchs of" the first five decades of the twentieth century (especially Emperor Haile Selassie, or "Ras Tafari") were despotic. Nevertheless, they were able to create legislative and executive agencies that helped them centralize and control the state while retaining the traditional values of militaristic and top-down relations of power between themselvesand the public (Lewis 1961; Markakis 1973; Levine 1974). The Ethiopian state is the oldest in Africa, with dynasties in existence since 2500 B.C. Seat of the Coptic Christian religion, this state declined after the period of Axumite control and waslater revived during the reign of the Zagwe rulers. The most famous of the Zagwe dynasty was Lalibila, who, to fulfill a heavenlyinjunction, built eleven cathedrals at this capital of Roha. During the Islamic conquest between the eighth and the eighteenth centuries A.D., the Ethiopian state was relatively isolated from its European counterparts, but the...

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