ASRB Extension · Unit 10 of 10

Unit 10: Gender Sensitization & Empowerment

Gender in agriculture: the work women actually do, the resources they are denied, and the programmes intended to close the gap.

What this unit covers

Unit 10 is the shortest to read and among the easiest to write badly. Gender questions attract general answers, and general answers score poorly. What earns marks is the specific: the gender division of labour in Indian agriculture, the gap between women's participation and women's landholding, the named analysis frameworks, and the named programmes. Feminisation of agriculture and access versus control are the two ideas most often asked directly.

The unit is broken into 10 syllabus areas, listed below. ASRB has set 18 descriptive questions from it that are on record, and there are 100 practice questions for it on this site.

Syllabus areas in this unit

  • Sex and gender; gender roles, gender division of labour
  • Women's participation in agriculture and allied enterprises
  • Gender analysis frameworks: Harvard, Moser, Gender Analysis Matrix
  • Access to and control over productive resources
  • Feminisation of agriculture in India
  • Empowerment: concept, dimensions and measurement
  • Self Help Groups and women's collectives
  • Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana and DAY-NRLM
  • Gender mainstreaming and gender budgeting in agricultural programmes
  • Drudgery reduction and gender-friendly farm tools

Key concepts

Gender division of labour. The socially assigned split of tasks between women and men, which in Indian agriculture leaves women doing much of the transplanting, weeding, harvesting and post-harvest work.

Feminisation of agriculture. The rising share of women in the agricultural workforce as men move to non-farm work, usually without a matching rise in land ownership or decision-making power.

Empowerment. Expansion of a person's ability to make strategic life choices where that ability was previously denied.

Previous year questions from Unit 10

Descriptive questions ASRB has actually set from this unit, with the year in brackets.

  • Dimensions of women empowerment (2014)
  • What is the gender sensitization (2021)
  • Write gender budgeting (2021)
  • Difference between gender mainstream and gender stereotype (2021)
  • Difference between gender equality and gender equity (2023)
  • Different indicators of Pro-WEAI (2023)
  • Roles of SHGs in women empowerment (2023)
  • Write salient features of SHG's (2016)

18 previous year questions from this unit in total. The full list is on the PYQ page.

Practice for this unit

  • 100 descriptive practice questions across 5, 10 and 15 marks, in the Mains section.
  • Objective practice for this unit in the MCQ section, with ASRB marking and full analysis.
  • Full-length tests that draw on this unit alongside the other nine, in the mock tests.

The other units

Continue

Unit 9: Agricultural Innovation System & Extension Approaches The previous unit All unit notes Study material for every unit ASRB NET Extension hub Pattern, strategy and resources