Unity is strength: when there is understanding and collaboration, great things can be achieved - by Raquel Santos Soares Menezes

We have a profession besides housework and childcare

We are fighting our battles and conquering our place

A future woman in the world of coffee

The biggest changes in recent years have been related to technology and internet. Social networks connect us and make it possible to share an incredible amount of information about almost everything. We can be stronger if we think together in a more egalitarian and sustainable future to coffee in the world. Together we can build relevant and useful knowledge to promote the empowerment of women along the coffee chain. We can interact, create and tell our history together. This power will be even greater if each one stops “playing alone”.

Let me explain why I‘ve been thinking about this lately...

Recently I had a talk with my 8-year-old cousin when she came to my house to play with my oldest daughter, who is 4 years old, while I was taking care of my baby girl, who is 2 months old. When we arrived home, my cousin took her cell phone and my daughter borrowed mine in order to play with something. Then I said “But it’s not fun for you two to play on the cell phone. Why don't you play these "cell phone" games just when you are alone?” So I took a few "real" games for children that were more creative, more interactive and interesting, like the memory game, painting, telling stories... But my cousin argued “Ok, so we are going to play with dolls. I’m Doll X’s mother, and Bia is Doll Y’s mother. But I’m a doctor and she is a coffee farmer, and both of us need the cell phone to work. So, while our babies are sleeping, we can play on the cell phone.” Then, I lost my argument and left them playing with their cell phones!

This talk brought me to reflect about two issues about women in coffee: 1) sexual division of labor; 2) the impact of technology on our lives.

First, the sexual division of labor implies that there are some more “appropriate” jobs (or at least considered as such) for men and women. So, the housework, and mainly taking care of children are for women. However, the speech of my cousin about work got my attention “I’m a doctor and she’s a coffee farmer”: this means we have a profession, another job besides housework. This voice joins with mine and of many women of my generation in Brazil. We study hard, we fight our battles and we are conquering our place in the public sphere. In this sense, a lot of things have changed. We are doctors, farmers, lawyers, professors, bankers, executives, entrepreneurs...and we still have most of our responsibilities regarding housework and childcare. This means that almost nothing has changed! Isn’t it paradoxical?

Regarding technology, the changes that are being caused are not just related to electronics and communication. The most relevant one is in social relations, and this is perhaps the most related to the Quiet Revolution and coffee industry.

To finish this post, the changes happening in the world of coffee demand a review in the sexual division of labor, opening spaces in professions considered “less feminine” for women – in the field, offices, laboratories, industries, including top jobs at organizational hierarchy; and also opening “less masculine” spaces for men which allow them to accept the new roles women assume at home and at work. With the support of technology we can share this knowledge regarding this transformations and create influences that would be more inspiring and impacting in the world of coffee.

So, let’s play together, shall we?