The Chasm Between Sexes in Accessing Land and Its Produce: The Case of Rural Women in Zimbabwe

Abstract

In Zimbabwe, much of the focus by the state was on the equitable land redistribution to redress racially-based inequality and historical injustice, leading to the jettisoning of ‘who actually gets the land’. This automatically subjects societal resources under the dictate of patriarchy leading to the discrimination against women in respect of land ownership and use. The social and economic contribution of women has been hugely overlooked by international and local leaders. Women do not have much decision making power and lacks property rights over the produce of their own toil. This is more prevalent among the illiterate principally because of the issue of ‘lobola’ (bride-price), which further reinforces gender inequality in accessing land. The hostility between men and women is not based on the scarcity of land, but on the equitable distribution of land between men and women. Therefore, the chapter illuminates the long-lasting imbalances that exist in the land reform programme and the produce of the land thereof. The chapter utilized exploratory and descriptive approach and adopted the feminist viewpoint to reveal how women are marginalized in relation to their property rights (Government of Zimbabwe 2002, Lipton 2002).