Trabajo femenino - History Lab

Seasonality of work by sex. S’Estorell, 1658-1673

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:48 +0000

The demand for agricultural wage labour was highly seasonal, limiting the possibilities of converting it into a regular source of income. The development of agrarian capitalism contributed to this, which led to a productive specialisation in which the participation of women was lower than in the manufacturing and service sectors. The s’Estorell estate was located in the parish of Binissalem, at the foot of the Tramontana mountain range, and was the largest estate in the municipality and one of the ten most profitable on the island, with a valuation of 52,000 pounds according to the land registry of 1685. It covered 520 hectares, occupying the Almandrá valley up to the first peaks of the mountain range in the villages of Alaró and Selva. The work roles assigned to men and women could be broken when the concurrence of different work demands for different tasks in the same season demanded it. From September to January, female and child labour was absorbed in its entirety by the carob harvest (September) and later for the olive harvest (October-January). Once the olive season was over, women joined in January or February the spring weeding for cereals, generally in April and May. On the other hand, the men’s work began in August with the clearing of the olive groves (August-October) and continued from November to January with the digging of the olive trees, which was interspersed with the digging of the wheat fields. In February they began pruning the olive trees (February-April) and then grafting the olive trees (May). In summer, the demand for agricultural labour was concentrated on harvesting, although some labour was also assigned to forestry activities such as charcoal production. Seasonality was, however, a notable anomaly. Around 44% of the working days were contributed by labourers and 56% by day labourers. Female labour accounted for 75% of the working days, male labourers for 17% and child labour was absent, at least in the account books.

The post Seasonality of work by sex. S’Estorell, 1658-1673 first appeared on History Lab.

Wage ratios between labourers and the gender gap in the estates of S’Estorell and Son Costa (1658-1680)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:02 +0000

In recent years, there has been an extensive historiographical debate on women’s participation in rural professional markets and on the wage gap between men and women before 1800. At the same time, there is also no consensus on the wage share of farm household income. However, wage studies have shown that women were paid significantly less than men for the same work. This gap persisted throughout the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, although it narrowed moderately during periods of intense labour demand. The S’Estorell estate was located in the parish of Binissalem, at the foot of the Tramontana mountain range, and was the largest estate in the municipality and one of the ten most profitable on the island, with a valuation of 52,000 pounds according to the land registry of 1685. It covered 520 hectares, occupying the valley of Almandrá up to the first peaks of the mountain range in the villages of Alaró and Selva. In the mid-17th century, on the Safortesa estate, salaries were paid in cash, in current money or in kind when they were of a mixed nature. In some years, wages were paid in kind, in wheat at the request of the labourers. Payments for extra work were recorded separately from the agreed wage. On the other hand, the tasks of grafting and pruning were considered the most skilled, as both were paid with a mixed wage consisting of a monetary wage and a supplement in kind called companatge (condumio), consisting of a casserole with vegetables, accompanied by salted fish or cheese, wine, oil and bread. The master was paid 6-8 salaries a day, depending on the type of tree; his assistants received 4 salaries a day. The cost of companatge was 1.5 sueldos/day in the above-mentioned years. In the middle years of the 17th century, pruning was not as important as it became in later periods, when the olive trees were mature and their yield depended on more energetic pruning. The wage in this case was 51% lower than for grafting and 29-39% higher than for digging the roots. However, the range of women’s wages was narrower: seasonal workers received a mixed monthly wage, part in money and part in oil, plus other supplements such as accommodation, firewood, water and transport to and from their residence to the farm. The wage for picking olives was 20% higher than the one for digging in the pedios. In short, the wage gap for similar work (digging cereals) in the highlands and plains was still very high, with women’s wages representing less than 40% of men’s, figures very similar to those of the mid-16th century.

The post Wage ratios between labourers and the gender gap in the estates of S’Estorell and Son Costa (1658-1680) first appeared on History Lab.

Women and Everyday Life in the Modern Age

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:28:16 +0000

Audiovisual capsule on the daily life of women in the Hispanic Monarchy in the Modern Age by Rubén Castro Redondo (University of Cantabria). Duration: 8.13min. This teaching product, designed for university students (Degree in History, Master and PhD in Modern History), is one of the results of the teaching innovation project “History and Art Capsules II. History, with gender and in feminine”, funded by the University of Cantabria through a competitive public call (2020). This teaching project was coordinated by Begoña Alonso and Benita Herreros Cleret de Langavant (PIs), with the participation of Tomás A. Mantecón Movellán and Rubén Castro Redondo, together with the two aforementioned researchers

The post Women and Everyday Life in the Modern Age first appeared on History Lab.

Las cigarraleras. Madrid, City of Women

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:27:41 +0000

The video, which is chronologically long, is part of “Madrid, Ciudad de las Mujeres”, a cultural and tourist application where the traces of women in the city of Madrid are recovered http://madridciudaddelasmujeres.es/. As indicated in the presentation on the website, to which we refer for this description, the Real Fábrica de Tabacos de Madrid was originally built as the Real Fábrica de Naipes y Aguardientes until 1809, when Joseph Bonaparte decided to transform it into a tobacco factory. Initially, snuff was produced for the grinding of which male labour was employed, but with the popularisation of the so-called burning tobacco, women began to enter these factories, as they proved to be more skilful and quicker at rolling cigars, they were cheaper labour, and they were supposed to be more docile and submissive. Women gradually replaced the men, making up almost the entire workforce. The tobacco factory became the first feminised industry in Spain and the one with the largest workforce in Madrid. Initially, production was manual, which allowed the cigarette-makers a flexibility in their work that made it easier to combine their working day with all their household chores and care work. Thus, the workshops were at the same time a nursery, a breastfeeding room and a dining room. But the arrival of mechanisation in 1887 transformed everything that had gone before. With a pleasant and informative tone, this 3.35 minute video, like other content on the website, fulfils the objective of learning collective and personal stories, anecdotes and emblematic places in Madrid through the women.

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The incluse. The wet nurses. Arturo Barea Square (Madrid)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:27:41 +0000

The video, which is 4.48 minutes long and chronologically presented, is part of “Madrid, Ciudad de las Mujeres”, a cultural and tourist application where the traces of women in the city of Madrid are recovered http://madridciudaddelasmujeres.es/. As indicated in the presentation on the website, to which we refer for this description, the Inclusa de Madrid was a charitable institution dedicated to collecting abandoned children that in 1807 was installed in a large house located in the Plaza de Arturo Barea. The institution, founded two centuries earlier, took in an average of a thousand children a year. Some were abandoned in the adjoining Casa de la Maternidad and others in the lathes that were scattered around Madrid. According to its statutes, the objectives of the Inclusa were to “prevent infanticide and save the honour of mothers” as well as to collect “all children born of illegitimate conception”. Although it could function as a place of temporary abandonment or a place of redistribution of abandoned children among the families of the neighbourhood in exchange for a small amount of money, with the construction of this building it was planned to house them up to the age of seven. The wet nurses of the incluse are a clear example of how care has historically been entrusted to women, especially those from the most fragile economic strata, who made their milk available externally. Women who practised the so-called “mercenary breastfeeding”, a widespread custom among the middle and upper classes. Their working conditions were not good, and not only because of the possibility of falling ill, but also because of their low economic compensation. The Inclusa became a privileged setting in which to debate about care, payment for care and its impact on women’s lives.

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The washerwomen. Segovia Bridge (Madrid)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:27:41 +0000

For centuries, the job of washerwoman was one of the most arduous professions carried out by women. In Madrid, after collecting clothes from private homes or convents and hospitals, they had to take them to the Manzanares River in large sacks to be washed. There they spent long days completely soaked, kneeling on benches placed in the riverbed and exposed to the harsh winter weather. Chilblains and respiratory diseases did not prevent them from handling the wet clothes, sheets and towels. Garments were lathered with soda or potash, beaten and brushed, rinsed and hung, making this a heavy mechanical job. This female work was key to the subsistence economies of the time, to such an extent that the Madrid City Council reserved an important part of the washing benches for poor families in the 18th century, although it was the neighbouring towns of Madrid, such as Hortaleza, which were mainly in charge of cleaning the Court’s clothes. In the middle of the 18th century these banks in Madrid became private, leased for years to a few businessmen, and in order to access them the laundresses had to pay. In 1750, in the part of the river shown in the video there were around 1,142 washing benches, which gives an image of the concentration of workers in this place. The washhouses were small buildings made of reeds and poles for hanging clothes that grew to accommodate a large number of workers to whom the tenant also sold soap. The misery of the washerwomen’s work was hidden by the liveliness and colour of the place, where their children were also present, which attracted the attention of all travellers visiting the capital, especially romantics. The video, 3.51 minutes long, is part of “Madrid, Ciudad de las Mujeres”, a cultural and tourist application where the traces of women in the city of Madrid are recovered http://madridciudaddelasmujeres.es/ and to which we refer for this description.

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