Gender, Farms, and Inheritance

As I'm thinking about Carla Spivack's conference on "trusts and estates meets gender, race, and class" -- and also testamentary practices in the Shenandoah Valley in the pre-Civil War era -- I see Hannah Alsgaard's "Rural Inheritance: Gender Disparities in Farm Transmission."  (Thanks to Gerry Beyer).

Farmers are farmers’ sons. Notable in our modern day, heralded by many as a gender-neutral society, it is farmers’ sons, not farmers’ daughters, who become farmers and take over ownership and management of the family farm. It has long been true that agricultural knowledge and land have passed through generations of men. In contrast, daughters, even today, are neither considered to be farmers nor likely to inherit family farmland. This Article begins by chronicling how farmland is inherited (by sons) then discusses why the pattern of excluding women continues. There have been substantial legal changes in the United States impacting land inheritance and ownership, culminating with the Equal Protection Clause’s extension to gender discrimination and the gender-neutral Uniform Probate Code. Social changes have also been tremendous, but even legal and social developments have been unable to correct gender disparity in farm inheritance. After exploring many legal and social factors, I conclude it is grooming – at the familial, governmental, and social levels – that plays the most vital role in training future farmers and mainly accounts for the gender difference in farm inheritance and the farming profession. This Article ultimately proposes girls must be groomed to farm in order to rectify the vast gender disparity in the ownership and management of family farms. A three pronged approach will be needed to remedy the situation, specifically: changing the role of lawyers, educating girls and women, and educating testators. What remains most important is that daughters are given the same opportunity as sons to farm based on merit, rather than being excluded from farm inheritance merely because of their gender.

The illustration is a farm in southeastern Pennsylvnia.

Comments

[Lurkinglawprof]

But what are the odds that a law review article will affect who gets groomed to take over the family farm?

[Alfred Brophy]

The article might reach lawyers -- and it's certainly reached this trusts and estates teacher. Alsgaard has identified a series of issues that need to be addressed. Part of addressing those issues is educating lawyers (or raising their consciousness as we used to say).

Thanks for commenting, Lurking.

[Ann Tweedy]

There are interesting contrasts between the traditions among Anglo-Americans in the U.S. and tribal traditions in the U.S., in many of which farming was traditionally a female activity, much to the chagrin of early missionaries and settlers. For a modern example, see Riggs v: Estate of Attakai, No. SC-CV-39-04 (Navajo 2007).