This paper contributes an ethnographically informed understanding of multi-dimensional inequalities in rural mountainous communities through a gender lens that focuses on the roles women perform as biologically, culturally, economically and geographically marginalised actors. It is based on a four-month study in a rain-fed agricultural region of the Kumaon Himalayas, and spans two districts of the Indian state of Uttarakhand with different farming profiles. The study employs qualitative methods to examine the impact of globalisation on women within changing rural contexts, identifying several crosscutting gender-related issues. Data analysis follows a grounded theory approach and reveals sets of intersecting inequalities which disadvantage these women, who are in vulnerable circumstances, through processes of globalisation that work in an exclusionary manner. By explaining these inequalities in a situated manner while emphasising their multi-dimensional nature, we present a nuanced account of women’s roles in these changing rural societies, and thus foreground the material conditions of gender difference in everyday life.