From peasant to housewife. Feminine roles and agriculturaltraining in Franco's Spain

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to outline the ideal that the Franco dictatorship pursued for the case of rural women and analyze its evolution during the almost forty years that the dictatorship lasted. For this purpose, we have analyzed the official curricula of the female agrarian training schools, where the women who were to be ‘models’ for the peasant women were trained. The press and reports from the Ministry of Agriculture and women’s magazines of the time were consulted. We conclude that this specific education sought to turn them into housewives by erasing the traces of their peasant identity and that this process entailed the creation of a space that could be called ‘home’ and the assignment to them of specific tasks within it.