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T he aim of this paper is to explore how cultural constructions of masculinity in a French farming community in southern France are articulated around ideas of masculine power as symbolised by agricultural machinery -notably tractors. This paper is centred around three main points. First, it is shown how male farmers use agricultural technology to reproduce and reinforce patriarchal ideologies which marginalise and exclude women from farming. Second, it is argued that tractors have become a symbol of masculine power and domination over women and nature. Third, it is shown that tractors can however become the site for contestation of patriarchal gender relations.Research has revealed that even though wider processes of agricultural and rural restructuring in the West have led to changes in gender relations, farm women are still marginalised from agricultural production (Barthez

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There have been significant social, economic and cultural changes that have impacted on practices of mothering in Western societies (Crompton and Harris, 1999;Jarvis, 1999;McRae, 1999;Scott, 1999). There has been a sharp increase in women's paid employment, changes in marriage and partnering affecting the ways in which people view intimacy, parenthood and domesticity, a decrease in fertility rates including an increased tendency to AbstractThis article is based on a recently completed study of fertility decision-making in Victoria, Australia. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 100 women, it explores how dominant discourses of mothering influence women in their life decisions about children. While much research indicates that all women negotiate dominant ideals of good mothering, our findings suggest that such stereotypes need to be further broken down, since women with and without children respond to different aspects of such ideals. For women who have children, images of the 'good mother' are less prevalent than pragmatic concerns about how to manage mothering. Women without children, in contrast, understand mothering as all-encompassing and potentially overwhelming. These findings suggest that Australian women share ideals and assumptions about mothering with their counterparts in the United Kingdom and the United States, but they also point to an increasing gap between how mothering is viewed and how it is practised.