Travel reveals many layered encounters, I’m no longer surprised to see women still doing the bulk of labor in the less mechanized world.

Carrying firewood and daily drinking water seems to be a common chore. Minding children while tending vegetable gardens, farmers markets or feeding livestock is a typical task. Girls learn early on that they are contributors to keeping a home intact.

Bhutan revealed a remarkable panorama of striking women in native dress involved in everyday responsibilities. Women in the 1980s played a significant role in the agricultural work force, where they outnumbered men, who were leaving for the service sector and other urban industrial and commercial activities. In the mid-1980s, 95 percent of all Bhutanese women from the ages of fifteen to sixty-four years were involved in agricultural work, compared with only 78 percent of men in the same age range. In 1981, the government founded the National Women’s Association of Bhutan, primarily to improve the socioeconomic status of women, particularly those in rural areas. 

• 

• 

• 

• 

For a photo bug, a four-basket day was the ultimate in a photo journal!

In Praise of Strong Women all over the World.