Women on the Assembly Line

     It has been interesting to me that in most of the farm related site visits we've made, if not all, there has been a clear delineation of gender grouping according to task.  The blueberry sorting process at iBerry was predominantly done by women.  Also the oranges being sorted at COPAG were done seemingly by all women.  It was mentioned by one of our guides multiple times that it is not discrimination against women at play, but that women are just better at these tasks than the men.  It can be off-putting for someone from the United States if our cultural filter suggests to us that women are being relegated in some way to a job and disallowed to advance. Especially knowing that "the number of women entrepreneurs stands at around 10 to 12per cent of the total number of entrepreneurs and is mainly concentrated in large cities like Rabat and Casablanca" (Aligod, 2023).  In the situations we were shown, it was also emphasized that the women receive the same pay as the men in such roles.

At the argon coop, I inquired of one of our guides as to why it is for women only. The response was that working in Argon is traditionally a women's job in Morocco just as being a shepherd is generally seen as a role for men.  He also said that many husbands would be uncomfortable with their wives taking a job knowing they would be working with men. Therefore maintaining gender uniformity in such a coop keeps the doors open for any women who want to become involved. In further conversations surrounding such topics, the explanation from a Moroccan man's point of view was more focused on protecting women's dignity than my cultural bias might originally perceive such distinguished gender roles in the workplace.

References

Aligod, S. (2023). The Gender gap in Morocco’s Entrepreneurial Process: Towards a Typology of Female Entrepreneurs. Fez, Morocco; Euromed Business School, Euromed University.