Phasing Out the Farmer Stereotype

When someone asks what I do for a living, my response is always the same, dairy farmer. Yes, I know the name of my blog is “The Farmer’s Wifee“, but I do not go around introducing myself as a farmer’s wife. I am a dairy farmer. Regardless, the responses I receive from folks when I let them know my occupation are very interesting.

• “Where is your overalls?”- I know, folks just cannot help themselves. A I explained earlier, you do not have to own overalls to be a farmer.
• “Aren’t you too young to be a farmer?”- This is typically tied into folks assuming the farm was our parents. We started the farm, we have friends that started their own farms. Yes, the average age of the U.S. farmers is up there, but there is a younger generation more than capable of feeding this great nation.
• “Thought I smelled something.”- I will be honest, comments like this are just rude.
• When I reply as a woman that I am a dairy farmer. I do not want to hear,“Isn’t that a man’s job?” No, it is not just a man’s job. Now I am certainly not a raging feminist. I think men and women have very distinct differences and roles. That however does not apply to driving the truck, driving the tractor, feeding livestock, caring for a sick animal, milking cows and so on. Those are an “any able body regardless of gender” get it done now type of job! I have actually met a large amount of women that are the farmer and their husbands work off the farm. Women have always played an important role on the farm.

I guess what I am trying to say is farmers are people just like you. Our farms are a business. Some folks take over the family business and some folks (like us) started a business from scratch. There are businesses that are ran by men and businesses ran by women. You don’t make remarks about age, gender or clothing to a doctor or teacher, let’s extend the same courtesy to farmers.