The gendered dimensions of an ‘herbicide revolution’: a feminist analysis of herbicide adoption in central India

• Herbicide adoption transforms women’s labor and rural gender relations. • A feminist lens reveals trade-offs in “labor-saving” agricultural change. • Herbicide use can erode women’s social spaces and ecological expertise. • “Drudgery” is context-specific and can devalue women’s unpaid labor. • Labor-saving tools like herbicide may not reduce women’s total workload. Across much of the world weeding has primarily been a form of feminized agricultural labor. As such the rapid spread of herbicides