New Essays on Women’s Labour History in Europe: Gender, Work and Activism
Edited by Leda Papastefanaki and Eszter Varsa
“I Am a Farmer and Do Other Chores of Womenfolk”: Uncovering Women’s Work in Rural Southern Europe: The Case of Nineteenth-Century Urbino, Italy
Cora Benetti and Raffaella Sarti
Women’s work in the past has long attracted scholarly attention, yet many aspects remain unexplored or contested. This is due to the methodological challenges of studying the theme, to the very definition of work for people in the past and contemporary scholars, to the under-recording of female activities in the sources and the inadequacy of occupational labels to capture multiple activities. This article contributes to current debates about the best methods for obtaining accurate data on women’s work, by presenting results from a research project based on nineteenth century criminal trial records from Urbino, Italy. We focus on the self-presentations of the people questioned by the judges in relation to work. We also use the “verb-oriented method” to gather data on the activities mentioned in the testimonies. Our results show the inadequacy of traditional dichotomies (domestic/non-domestic, unpaid/paid, reproductive/productive labour), for understanding pre-industrial societies and gender roles. By providing accurate data which challenge the assumption that Italian women were not involved in the labour market and in paid productive activities, this article also contributes to the debate on the “little divergence” between the economic development of northern and southern Europe and the role of women in economic growth.
The Maritime Labour Market and the Appearance and Disappearance of Women as Dock Labour in Spanish Ports c. 1870–1930s
Jordi Ibarz and Mònica Borrell-Cairol
The participation of women in dock work in northern Spanish ports during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries reveals significant regional contrasts, particularly when compared to the absence of female labour in Mediterranean ports. Traditionally framed as a masculine occupation, cargo handling was occasionally opened to women under specific sociodemographic and institutional conditions. The analysis traces the evolution of women’s involvement, situating it within broader debates on supply-side limitations, such as reproductive responsibilities, and demand-side factors, including labour market needs and institutional transformations. The decline of Ancien Régime structures and the emergence of liberal capitalist port organisations created new labour opportunities that challenged existing gender norms. Female participation was most prominent in regions with limited male labour supply and few alternatives beyond domestic service, tobacco factories, or food industries. Mechanisation and male-dominated unionism later curtailed women’s roles. By uncovering these dynamics, the study contributes to the historiography of dock work and gendered labour market structures.
Cécile Brunschvicg (1877–1946) and the Politics of Women’s Work in France, Europe and Beyond
Anne Cova
This article analyses the trajectory of Cécile Brunschvicg (1877–1946), an activist involved in two major feminist organisations in France during the first half of the twentieth century. Brunschvicg was a representative of reformist feminism, active in middle-class feminist organisations, who engaged in cross-class activism, addressing the working and living conditions of women workers. Brunschvicg’s activism took various forms: although it operated mainly through the organisations in which she participated and held prominent positions, she was also a prolific writer who published numerous press articles and participated in many feminist congresses. The author argues that Brunschvicg was a significant feminist figure whose activism extended transnationally and influenced the politics of women’s work in France, Europe and beyond. Her reformist strategy of gradual progress aimed to establish links with MPs and leading social figures in order to achieve feminist demands. In doing so, she consistently defended women workers and their unionisation, particularly during the two world wars when women replaced men sent to the front, and during the attacks on women’s right to work provoked by the economic crisis of 1929. This article contributes to a gendered global labour history through the lens of an intersectional and inclusive biographical perspective.
How to Liberate a Female Proletarian: Women’s Emancipation and (Un)paid Work in the Czech Socialist and Communist Women’s Movements in the Early Twentieth Century
Marie Láníková
This article analyses the Czech socialist and communist women’s movements and their approaches to paid work, housework, and care. I argue that despite diverse opinions and changes in the labour discourse over time, socialist and communist activists always understood class inequality as intersecting with gender inequality. This article also demonstrates that the women’s socialist movement did not consider socialism merely as a solution to economic inequality. The aim of the movement was broader in that it sought to ensure a balance between public and private life by means of co-parenting or the collectivisation of care and housework. The socialist avant-garde called for gender-neutral socialisation and the involvement of men in raising children and housework. In contrast to socialists, female communists of the late 1920s viewed care and housework through a gendered lens as women’s work. They also advocated for collectivised care and housework and argued that women should be paid for this labour as a means of recognition and liberation.
Women’s Voices from La Proletaria: Work, Solidarity and Women’s Emancipation in a Post-World War II Italian Consumers’ Cooperative
Anna Pellegrino
Italy today is a country with many cooperative enterprises in goods production and services, but most women workers are found in consumer cooperatives. This article analyses the role of women in one of Italy’s largest cooperative enterprises, UniCoop Tirreno, from its birth as La Proletaria in the immediate post-war period until the late 1990s. Findings are based upon archival evidence and an extensive series of interviews with the women who played key roles in La Proletaria. Very interesting results emerge, both in terms of women’s access to work and in their relationships with their husbands and families; how they balanced reproductive, domestic and care work with work at the cooperative. Women also reveal how they were affected by their environment, what it meant to belong to a “working-class city,” a milieu characterised by very strong, deep-rooted practices of solidarity, which sometimes ended up taking precedence over women’s emancipation.
“No One Has Raised Their Voice in Support of the Gypsy, Who Works Honestly”: An Intersectional Analysis of Romani Activist Mária László’s Labour Agendas and Repertoires in 1950s Hungary
Eszter Varsa
This article focuses on the labour activist biography of Mária László (1909–89), the first secretary general of the Cultural Association of Gypsies in Hungary (1957–61). It addresses silences in László’s activist history and examines two of her core labour agendas in the 1950s: creating employment opportunities for Roma, and combating racial discrimination. Employing an intersectional perspective that considers gender, class, and race/ethnicity, and drawing on recent research in feminist labour history that takes an inclusive approach to women’s labour activism, this article shows that these two agendas were inherently linked in her labour activism. It argues that László used the institutional frameworks created around the ideologies of cross-ethnic class solidarity, antiracism, and gender equality as related to the imagined emancipation of Roma and women in state-socialist Hungary to formulate her own agendas and cooperate with representatives of state institutions and Roma. The article explores these aspects of László’s activism through the concepts of negotiation and manoeuvring and contributes both to scholarship on facets of racism in antiracist state-socialist contexts and to the history of women’s labour activism in Eastern Europe.
“How Equal Are We?” The Feminisation of Labour in the Yugoslav Retail Sector, 1950s–1970s
Ivana Mihaela Žimbrek
This article analyses the feminisation of the Yugoslav retail sector from the 1950s to the 1970s, demonstrating that this process began as a deliberate attempt by the Yugoslav trade unions to increase the retail workforce in cooperation with Yugoslav women’s organisations, interested in ensuring good working conditions and living standards for women workers. The modernisation and expansion of the retail sector in the 1960s intensified the feminisation process, and by the 1970s women formed the majority of workers in department store chains, thereby strengthening the perception of both retail and consumption as “female” activities. Department store chains provided women workers with various welfare benefits, including direct access to consumer goods, which made a significant impact on their socio-economic status, educational levels, social mobility, and everyday life. The article also argues, however, that the growth of Yugoslav consumer society and economic liberalisation from the mid-1960s increased the workload of the retail workforce, reinforced traditional notions and bonds between femininity and consumerism, and decreased governmental support for institutions and services aimed at socialising housework and care-work. The “double burden” of paid and unpaid labour particularly limited women retail workers’ employment to low-paid positions and prevented their professional advancement and socio-political engagement. The consequent gender segmentation and pay gap in the labour market by the late 1970s resulted in increasing criticism of the feminisation process. The article highlights the diverse, often ambivalent agendas in the gendered politics of labour organising in state-socialist Europe, as it shifts scholarly attention to a sector outside of industrial production, to the feminised workplaces of (retail) labour in socialist Yugoslavia.
What Kind of Health? Mobilisations and Reflections of Italian Working Women on Workplace Health Issues from the 1960s to 1980s
Giorgia Sposini
This article offers a preliminary reconstruction of the evolution of Italian women workers’ health activism from the early 1960s to the early 1980s. While trade unions had largely overlooked gender-specific health and safety issues, pioneering activism by the Unione Donne Italiane (UDI – Union of Italian Women) in the early to mid-1960s drew attention to female working conditions. From the late 1960s to the mid-1970s, workers inquiries involving women workers gathered data on physical and mental health, workers’ conditions and the impact of the so-called “double burden” – the combination of wage labour and domestic responsibilities. These inquiries were part of (often successful) campaigns for change. From the mid-1970s, the rise of women’s coordination units in unions and access to “150-hour courses” reshaped the boundary between public and private spheres. The article traces a significant transformation: the shift from women workers as passive subjects of inquiry to active agents of change. In so doing, it contributes to a more nuanced understanding of labour, gender and health in twentieth-century Italy and underscores the relevance of past struggles in shaping contemporary debates on occupational safety.
Experiencing Live-In Domestic Work Through Bodies, Emotions and Subjectivity
Olimpia Capitano
The article examines the experiences of Cape Verdean, Eritrean, Ethiopian, and Filipino women who worked in Rome as live-in domestic workers between 1970 and 1989. In the first part, it outlines the historical, theoretical, and methodological contexts. It then explores the materiality of domestic work, highlighting its impact on workers’ bodies and exploring power relations through the body as a visual and analytical lens. It also investigates coercive disciplinary practices deeply intertwined with affective relations, as well as the connections between public and private forms of coercion and the (im)mobilisation of domestic workers. In conclusion the article demonstrates that the intersection of public and private, along with the conditions of living and working in the same environment, influences the materiality and representation of domestic work as well as workers’ self-perception, contributing to the construction and legitimation of their subordination.