REVIEW article
Front. Sociol.
Sec. Gender, Sex and Sexualities
This article is part of the Research TopicGender-Responsive Strategies for Enhancing Resilience in Agri-Food Systems Amid Climate ShocksView all 20 articles
"Empowerment" without Transformation? A Critique of Women Empowerment without a Masculinities lens in gender and agriculture literature
Provisionally accepted
Amon Ashaba Mwiine1,2
Margaret Najjingo Mangheni3,4*
Martha Businge5
Fred Shimali6
Stephen Angudubo7
Brenda Nakyewa8Grace Nanyonjo7
Losira Nasirumbi Sanya6
Elizabeth Asiimwe3- 1Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
- 2School of Women and Gender Studies, Makerere University College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Kampala, Uganda
- 3Gender-responsive Researchers Equipped for Agricultural Transformation (GREAT) Program, Makerere University College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Kampala, Uganda
- 4Department of Extension and Innovation Studies, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
- 5Makerere University College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Kampala, Uganda
- 6Department of Extension and Innovation Studies, Makerere University College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Kampala, Uganda
- 7National Crops Resources Research Institute, Kampala, Uganda
- 8Uganda Christian University, Mukono, Uganda
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Women empowerment in pursuit of gender equality has received much attention in agriculture and development practice literature. At the same time, there is increasing realization of the need for interventions that focus on masculinities in order to ensure sustainable transformation of social/gender relations in agricultural communities. However, a review of literature on women empowerment in agriculture over the period 2010 to 2022, targeting Sub-saharan Africa and Asia revealed that notions of women empowerment and masculinities have been mostly studied and applied in agricultural research independent of each other and rarely in an interconnected manner. We argue that research and interventions on women empowerment without a masculinities lens pause a risk of 'empowerment without transformation' especially when root causes of unequal gender relations in farming communities are not challenged and/or are inadvertently reproduced.
Keywords: Agriculture, Male involvement, Masculinities, transformation, women's empowerment
Received: 28 May 2025; Accepted: 29 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Mwiine, Mangheni, Businge, Shimali, Angudubo, Nakyewa, Nanyonjo, Nasirumbi Sanya and Asiimwe. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Margaret Najjingo Mangheni
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