Description

Research on women and food security in Southeast Asia has been limited. The collection of chapters in Ensuring a Square Meal: Women and Food Security in Southeast Asia is one of the first attempts at providing a lens into the linkages between women and food security at the household, community, national and transnational levels. More broadly, the chapters examine women's contribution to the food security of households, resource distribution to produce food, and the purchasing power to buy food. In analysing the various facets to food security in relation to gender, the analyses focus on women and food security within the meanings of "private" and "public", and the extent to which the effects of the two spheres spill over into each other. Given women's critical role in food and agricultural production and provision, Ensuring a Square Meal: Women and Food Security in Southeast Asia assesses the structural forces that enable women to access productive resources and, in turn, ensure sustainable strategies for food security at the household level.