Democratizando la democracia. Estrategias de género de las trabajadoras agrícolas españolas (1977-1990)

This article draws attention to the feeble historical interest exhibited in traditional historiography towards the study of Spain’s rural women. It also aims to break the completely stereotypical and antiquated images that still govern the explanatory paradigms of historical analysis, inherited from historical literature. In contrast with images of passivity, backwardness or ignorance, our purpose is to show rural women as a «strategic collective» and as potential «agents of change», endowed with indisputable relevance in the social and political realms of the agrarian economy. To fulfil these objectives, this article presents the importance of rural women in the implementation and development of democracy in Spain. We discuss the strategies deployed by rural women in order to harmonise the asymmetry of gender relations that carried over into the current democratic system. The frequent demands and mobilisations of peasant women opened a gender perspective in the concrete and highly masculinised activities of agriculture, favouring the adoption of public policies aimed at achieving a more egalitarian rural society.