By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent

OXFORD, Ohio — Stories of women farmers facing discrimination are many. Debra Bowles raises goats; years ago, she visited a feed store to ask for information about feed and nutrition. The men there, sitting on stools and eating peanuts, nearly laughed her out of the room.

Bev Roe, fresh out of college with a degree in agricultural communications, was hired by a livestock association only because she far out-qualified the male applicants. She later learned that they had not wanted to hire a female.

Joan Zellner, a grain farmer in Hamilton, went to buy a truck, but it was priced high. She asked a male cousin to visit the dealer. He was given a price $1,000 lower than her price.

Bowles has been in farming all of her life. The discrimination with the goats was exceptional; people wrongly think that all goats are smelly, nasty creatures, said Bowles, who strives to educate people out of those misconceptions.

She also commented on the excellent help she received from the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) when she built a cheese room so she could legally sell goat cheese. She mentioned this to an ODA inspector, and he said, “We’re trying to make it possible for you to do what you want to do.”

Roe, who grew up in farming and now owns Pedro’s Angus with her husband, Bill, said any discrimination she recently experienced was in situations where she lacked knowledge and background – as in dealing with an insurance company or something about a new building.

“I think what sometimes happened is that women are thrust into that through divorce or death of a husband, and it takes them a while to get the knowledge,” she said. “They are taken advantage of because of their inexperience, more than the fact of their gender.”

It was in 1995 that Zellner was given the price on a truck with a V-10 engine (“I would not have ordered it, but I am not opposed to power,” she said). A female salesperson quoted her the higher price.

She later bought the truck from another salesperson at the price given to her cousin, yet the saleswoman was given the credit. “I thought that was ridiculous,” Zellner said.