This Bulletin covers a range of themes including research on rural women's economic activities, power relationships between men and women, women's consciousness, solidarity and divisions among women, women's capacity to organise and struggle for a more just society, and the effectiveness of policy measures to promote gender equality in both employment and the family. Most of the articles here originated as papers discussed at two workshops funded by the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, and held at the IDS in Spring 1982 under the rubric 'rapid appraisal of the situation of rural women'. One workshop concentrated on a critique of the dominant concepts used in both research work and development policy-making relating to rural societies (most fundamentally, the prevailing definitions of 'work' and 'the household').

The second workshop focused on research techniques. Our aim was to ask a number of leading researchers in the field to summarise the experience of their investigations in a way that would be of use for those undertaking policy oriented research, which often has to be carried out under tight time constraints.