Comment by cplease | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cplease | Hacker News Reader

> They empower women. Because chickens are small and typically stay close to home, many cultures regard them as a woman’s animal, in contrast to larger livestock like goats or cows. Women who sell chickens are likely to reinvest the profits in their families.

Uh... this is empowering???

EDIT:

> If you read this article, watch the video above, and answer one question below, I will donate—on your behalf via Heifer—a flock of chickens to a family in poverty.

OMG, it's finally happened for real. Anyone remember this?

"Hello everybody,

My name is Bill Gates. I have just written up an e-mail tracing program that traces everyone to whom this message is forwarded to. I am experimenting with this and I need your help. Forward this to everyone you know and if it reaches 1000 people everyone on the list will receive $1000 at my expense. Enjoy.

Your friend, Bill Gates"

In cultures where it is "considered woman's animal" the chickens provided by Heifer will most likely be raised by them. These woman will help bring in money for their families. That is what is empowering.

I get what the words say. What I am remarking on is that engaging in domestic, socially-acceptable and conventionally female work around the household for the economic benefit of ones family (as opposed to oneself) is a highly strained interpretation of "empowering."

Yes, if the alternative is wallowing in penury and being completely economically dependent, it is certainly better. But empowering?

Why is it not empowering to give women more economic independence, in way that's sustainable in their societies?

Suffragettes in Europe had to fight for more economic rights for fifty years after getting the right to vote, and it was messy, protracted battle. (Until the 1970s, German husbands could dictate whether their wife were allowed to work or not, and kept control over their earnings for even longer.)

It's "empowering" in that sense for anyone to get more money. It's "empowering women" to give them opportunities, including economic opportunities, which they don't already have or to which there are barriers.

What I'm saying is that chickens are not "empowering women" in societies where it is and always has been acceptable, status quo, and already conventional for women to raise chickens; a "woman's animal," small and "close to home," for domestic purposes. They already have that opportunity!

Empowering would be raising goats and challenging the notion of a "woman's animal." Or maybe, you know, getting some education and having a life beyond subsistence farming.

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