Stereotypes of the African farmer as backward and subsistent have marred the discussion on land politics in Africa. This seems to be the case with Zimbabwean land reform program. The narrative in most media reports focuses on a Zimbabwe that has moved from being the “breadbasket of Africa” to a basket case. These dominant debates have detracted from key issues of land as not only occupying a political but also a gendered space. This paper foregrounds gender as a key dimension in land reform and discusses the realities and experiences of resettled elderly women farmers in Shamva District, Zimbabwe, and their trajectories within the debate of land reform as an economically empowering tool. A talk through their own life herstories has shown how different phases of this program affected their lives since the initial phase after independence in 1980 through to the current post 2000 phase. In analysing their life herstories, I concur with Patricia Kambori-Mbote who asserts that land reform is a critical avenue through which black women farmers in former colonial states obtain legitimate ownership of land in their own right. However, this assertion is bleak in patriarchal societies where men, who are inclined towards gender neutrality in policymaking, mostly lead the governing institutions. This implies ignoring issues of male privilege that hinder rather than promote gender equality in access to and control of resources. I argue for collective action by women farmers in addressing their context specific issues. As land is highly politicised in Zimbabwe, collective women’s voices need not shy away from the political structures to open gates for negotiations. This calls for investment in negotiation skills, time and effort to build strategic relationships for engaging with institutional gatekeepers to address the structures that constrain women. Such participatory processes enable women to exercise their own agency in articulating their constraints to the relevant stakeholders and ways in which these constrains can be removed. Empowerment becomes a conceited effort by women farmers to not only engage their individual constrains but also the wider social, economic, cultural and political barriers. The power of group buffers against individual risk. It strengthens women’s voices such that where they were once deemed invisible they become an audible and visible force that cannot be ignored. This is not a once off process but requires long-term commitment by women farmers to strive for institutional change and for that change to be implemented. In the case of the elderly women farmers in Shamva district, this process is still ongoing since 1980. This busts the myth of land reform as a quick fix to women’s empowerment problems.