Womens, gender relations and sexual division of labor in Minas Gerais (Brazil): black womans, settled of land reform and solidarity economy in Lavras, Guapé and Prados

Abstract

Among the challenges of contemporary society, the understanding of why and how women organize themselves into collective represented a password for the orientation of research work in C interfacewith extension, developed from the project “Gender Relations: Settings and reconfigurations Labour Sexual Division of Negro Women, Settled Land Reform and the Economy SoSolidarity “.The main purpose of this article is to support the understanding of labor relations and gender from research and extension activities conducted with three organized groups woman: “Olhos d’Água produzindo e preservando” coordinated by the MST in the municipality of Guapé, black women of the Municipal Council of Racial Equality Policies of Lavras, and Womens of Solidarity Economy in the ditu of Prados, all three located in the state of Minas Gerais. The configurations and reconfigurations Labour Sexual Division were identified in the three groups such as dimensions that can help or limit the organizational empowerment of women. We seek to build information about the reality in which they operate, the dialogue-form, which sign sometimes specific activities with each group, sometimes involving the three groups, and interacting in sequence with other women’s groups. The methodology used during the two years of project implementation included quantitative and qualitative methods of obtaining information, with educational workshops, two intermunicipal meetings, visit to a women’s group called “Noiva do cordeiro” in city of Belo Vale, the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte, participation in organizing the II Municipal Meeting of Solidarity Economy meadows and the Black Youth Meeting in Lavras: Violence in Focus. Simultaneously, we conducted a survey of work in order to identify and understand the relationships between reproductive and productive space for groups that maintain dialogues with social movements, among them the Black Movement, the Rural Workers Landless Movement - MST and the Solidarity Economy Movement. As one of the main results, we can list the organizational requirements of each group dealing with different mediation processes, which guide the importance of women’s work and all dimensions to it correlated is still female task. In the private sector, negotiations for the division of reproductive tasks open a range of possibilities family sued the performance of women in the public space, whatever the specific economic dimensions to each collective. Taking care of the house and gardens, of the children and elderly as still a primarily female, with few exceptions. Even so, we understand that participation in women’s collectives contributes significantly for different empowerment processes, whether cognitive, political or economic these women.