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Thursday 13 April 2023 08.30 - 10.30
K-5 LAB05a Housewives or Workers? Domestic Work and Care Work (16th-20th Centuries) I
C22
Networks: Family and Demography , Labour Chair: Celine Mutos Xicola
Organizers: Celine Mutos Xicola, Beatrice Zucca Micheletto Discussant: Beatrice Zucca Micheletto
Cristina Borderias, Raffaella Sarti : Lavori donneschi, amas de casa, sus labores, casalinghe”: the Making of the Housewife in Italy and Spain (18th-20th Century)
The paper presents the first results of a research project which aims to pinpoint the social construction of the role of the housewife in Italy and Spain from the 18th to the 20th century.

First inquires show that the making of the housewife was a rather late phenomenon in Italy; until ... (Show more)
The paper presents the first results of a research project which aims to pinpoint the social construction of the role of the housewife in Italy and Spain from the 18th to the 20th century.

First inquires show that the making of the housewife was a rather late phenomenon in Italy; until the late 19th century, verbs rather than a single word often were used to define women who worked at home for their own households, for instance expressions such as “performing female chores”, “attending to domestic tasks”, etc. Definitions derived from such expressions were used even in official sources such as censuses (ex. “attendenti alle cure domestiche”). The current word “casalinga” (housewife) as a noun seems to have emerged in the 19th century; it was introduced into the censuses as late as 1961.

This particular case makes the use of both a verb oriented method and a more traditional analysis of definitions and “labels” used in the sources especially interesting, because “labels” seem to emerge rather slowly. The paper will therefore stress the cultural and social meaning of such a phenomenon.

As for Spain, the definition “ama de casa” seems to have a longer history than “casalinga”. However, in Spain, too, the idea was present, that peculiar female tasks did exist and could be used as a kind of definition without being a real label. It is the case of “sus labores” (“their tasks”) used in Spanish censuses from 1940 to 1970 in the tables of professions.

Therefore, the aim of the research and of the paper is exactly to compare the two cases, establishing similarities and differences. (Show less)

Alessandra Gissi : The 'Essential Function' of Women: Family, Housewives, Domestic Work and Wages in Italy between Fascism and the Republic
The paper analyses the political debate about the wage for housewives in Italy. It traces the origins of this issue to the Taylorist movement's discussion of the scientific organisation of domestic work, which develops in Italy and elsewhere in Europe from the 1920s. Then, in the post-war period, the discussion ... (Show more)
The paper analyses the political debate about the wage for housewives in Italy. It traces the origins of this issue to the Taylorist movement's discussion of the scientific organisation of domestic work, which develops in Italy and elsewhere in Europe from the 1920s. Then, in the post-war period, the discussion continues while the Constitution of the Italian Republic was being drafted. Its Article 37 reaffirms the 'naturalness' of the maternal function and brings the debate to a halt. The issue of the 'domestic wage' emerges again in the 1970s in the reflections of the transnational Padua feminist group, Lotta femminista. This paper follows the thread of the debate on the 'nature' of domestic work and its hypothetical remuneration by means of a wage, starting from the decisive turning point of the 1920s. Placing this debate in a historical perspective allows us - in fact - to highlight the depth and complexity of its roots in relation to the feminist thematisation of the 1970s. The reconstruction and analysis of this debate allows for the identification of crucial interrelated issues, such as the division of labour (including the immigration of foreign women), the redefinition of what is work and of different 'natural' male and female abilities, the process of developing the concept of citizenship in the 20th century and the difficult balance between equality and difference, the relationship between generations, the welfare model and the 'redistribution' of profit. (Show less)

Maria Papathanassiou : Peasant Women in Early Twentieth Century and Interwar Austria: Housewives of a Pre-industrial European Past in an Industrial European Present?
The paper discusses the notion of “housewife” dealing with rural, mainly peasant, women, in rural Austria during the first decades of the twentieth century.
It draws on (auto)biographical records from the “Collection of Biographical Records”, at the University of Vienna, on writings of contemporary topographers or ethnographers, like the Tyrolian ... (Show more)
The paper discusses the notion of “housewife” dealing with rural, mainly peasant, women, in rural Austria during the first decades of the twentieth century.
It draws on (auto)biographical records from the “Collection of Biographical Records”, at the University of Vienna, on writings of contemporary topographers or ethnographers, like the Tyrolian Hermann Wopfner, as well as on case studies.
At the time under consideration, the notion of “housewife” (“Hausfrau”) dominated official public discourse on marriage, the family and gender roles, in german-language Europe. The notion reflected middle class perceptions on gender roles in bourgeois families, whereby women were exclusively responsible for housekeeping and child raising, and on a clear/ideal separation between gender specific private and public spheres.
This paper argues that, due to pre-industrial continuities, and to the recurring economic instability of the decades under consideration, early twentieth century and interwar peasant women in rural Austria (as well as the wives of very small peasants and cottagers) remained beyond the influence of this middle-class ideal (probably in contrast to urban working-class wives and mothers). They were powerful housewives, whose p?wer was based on the specific character of the peasant household as site of production as well as reproduction, and a place where the lines between production and reproduction were blurred, since household members as live-in servants built most of the workforce, and since agricultural production served to a large extent, or for the most part, self-consumption. Within those peasant households, everyday life consisted mainly in work, work was inextricably connected with other life events, and the structure and uses of the house space were inextricably connected with farm economy.
Farms functioned under the guidance of the peasant couple: Though registered as heads of the household in censuses and other official lists, peasants could not manage households without their wives by their side; they complemented one another, and remarriage, as shown by old historical demographic research, was an economic and social imperative. The work of rural servants was organized primarily along gender lines, whereby female servants, who worked intensively in the house, in its surroundings, as well as in the fields, were under peasant women’s continuous control and guidance. At the same time, in line with transcultural and indeed transtemporal gender practices, peasant women were primarily responsible for the everyday care of the house and the household members; they were primarily responsible for the preparation of food and meals, house cleaning, the laundry, mending clothes and sewing, for childcare, and the care of the sick and the elderly.
Evidence points to households’ and indeed farms’ survival and wellbeing largely depending on peasant wives’ management of everyday life and economy. Their representation and designations in the sources speak for their social power, though this should not make us disregard clear signs of a structural, either theoretical or real, subordination to men. (Show less)

Sofi Vedin : Division of Labor among Swedish Mistresses and Maids 1890-1939
In the Swedish middle- and upper class households during the 19th and 20th centuries, employing domestic servants was custom – every respectable household needed servants, who both functioned as an expression of the household’s social status and class, and performed the practical tasks a household required. However, the average Swedish ... (Show more)
In the Swedish middle- and upper class households during the 19th and 20th centuries, employing domestic servants was custom – every respectable household needed servants, who both functioned as an expression of the household’s social status and class, and performed the practical tasks a household required. However, the average Swedish household did not employ a big staff of multiple servants, but rather had one or two at a time. The amount of domestic servants hired in a home often came down to economics, and few families had the economic capital to employ numerous people. Having servants did not mean per definition that the mistress did not partake in the domestic work. As previous research has pointed out, the role of the mistress was multifaceted. She functioned as the household manager – being responsible for all the purchases and staff – she also had to lead the work, delegate the chores to the servants and sometimes teach them how to perform certain tasks.
However, what has not been mapped out in a Swedish context is what tasks in fact were performed and who performed them. In my dissertation, I study class formation in Swedish households 1890-1939, with a certain focus on the relationship between the mistresses and the domestic servants, also known as maids. The source material consists of work advertisements written by employers and domestic servants in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter and autobiographical texts, also written by both servants and employers. A part of the household bound class formation, I argue, is the division of labor in the home. Who performed the dirtiest and monotonous tasks, who cleaned the nicer areas, took care of the bibelots and who cooked the meals? Except for being relevant when it comes to class formation, mapping the tasks of domestic servants and mistresses is also essential to understanding the profession of the domestic servants and the overall arrangement of the Swedish household, and how this changed over time as the household became modern and more easily managed.
Even though housework sometimes has been labelled as “unskilled”, I argue that in order to run a household during the period, the people performing the work needed real, tangible skills. By mapping out the tasks, and the division of labor in the household, the skills required to be a mistress and a domestic servant can be mapped out as well.
By systematically collecting data concerning work related qualifications and day-to-day tasks from the advertisements and autobiographical texts, the skills, tasks and division of labor can be uncovered, as the household was changing and becoming modern. (Show less)



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