A (; plural: ; from the verb , meaning 'to peel', 'to husk', or 'to clean') is a

seasonal A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...

rice Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima ''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...

paddy female worker, especially in Italy's

Po Valley The Po Valley, Po Plain, Plain of the Po, or Padan Plain ( it, Pianura Padana , or ''Val Padana'') is a major geographical feature of Northern Italy. It extends approximately in an east-west direction, with an area of including its Venetic ex ...

from the late 19th century to the first half of the 20th. The work of (weeding) was widespread in northern Italy in that era. The work consisted of removing the weeds growing in rice fields that hindered the healthy growth of young rice plants. It took place during the flooding of the fields, from the end of April to the beginning of June every year, during which the delicate shoots needed to be protected, during the first stages of their development, from temperature differences between the day and the night. It consisted of two phases: transplanting the plants and pruning the weeds. The was an extremely tiring task, carried out mostly by women of the poorest social classes from

Emilia-Romagna egl, Emigliàn (man) egl, Emiglièna (woman) rgn, Rumagnòl (man) rgn, Rumagnòla (woman) it, Emiliano (man) it, Emiliana (woman) or it, Romagnolo (man) it, Romagnola (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title ...

Veneto Veneto (, ; vec, Vèneto ) or Venetia is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about five million, ranking fourth in Italy. The region's capital is Venice while the biggest city is Verona. Veneto was part of the Roman Empire unt ...

Lombardy Lombardy ( it, Lombardia, Lombard language, Lombard: ''Lombardia'' or ''Lumbardia' '') is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in the northern-central part of the country and has a population of about 10 ...

and

Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

, working in northern Italy, mostly around

Vercelli Vercelli (; pms, Vërsèj ), is a city and ''comune'' of 46,552 inhabitants (January 1, 2017) in the Province of Vercelli, Piedmont, northern Italy. One of the oldest urban sites in northern Italy, it was founded, according to most historians, ...

Novara Novara (, Novarese: ) is the capital city of the province of Novara in the Piedmont region in northwest Italy, to the west of Milan. With 101,916 inhabitants (on 1 January 2021), it is the second most populous city in Piedmont after Turin. It is ...

and

Pavia Pavia (, , , ; la, Ticinum; Medieval Latin: ) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy in northern Italy, south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It has a population of c. 73,086. The city was the capit ...

. The workers would spend their workdays with their bare feet in water up to their knees and their back bent for many hours. To protect themselves from insects and the sun, the workers would wear a scarf and a hat with broad brim and shorts or large panties so as not to wet their clothes. The atrocious working conditions, long hours and very low pay led to constant dissatisfaction and led, at times to rebellious movements and riots in the early years of the 20th century. The struggles against the supervising ''padroni'' (patrons) were even harder with the abundance of clandestine workers ready to compromise even further the already low wages just to get work. They are described as ''crumiri'' (strikebreakers). The practice of the strikebreaking resulted in popular protests. The demands of the protesting rioters was finally satisfied between 1906 and 1909, when all the communes of

Province of Vercelli A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outs ...

were required to abide by the eight-hours restriction.

Popular culture

The strike breaking practice also resulted in protest songs like "Se otto ore vi sembran poche" aimed at limiting the working day to eight hours or "" aimed at the work patrons and supervisors. The work of the ''mondine'' also inspired many popular songs such as "Alla mattina appena alzata", popular since the late 19th century, which is considered the origin of the anti-fascist song of the Second World War " Bella ciao". The fate of the mondinas was also displayed in literature works and later in cinematographic works, the most famous being the 1949 film ''

Bitter Rice ''Bitter Rice'' ( it, Riso Amaro ) is a 1949 Italian film made by Lux Film, written and directed by Giuseppe De Santis. Produced by Dino De Laurentiis, starring Silvana Mangano, Raf Vallone, Doris Dowling and Vittorio Gassman, ''Bitter Rice'' was ...

'' (''Riso Amaro'').

Bibliography

* F. Castelli, E. Jona, A. Lovatto, ''Senti le rane che cantano. Canzoni e vissuti popolari della risaia'', Donzelli, 2005 * M. Minardi, ''La fatica delle donne. Storie di mondine'', Ediesse, 2005 * B.Bassi, ''La mia vita'', Negretto, Mantova, 2009

References

Women in Italy Labour movement Agriculture in Italy {{Italy-stub