Invisible, yet Indispensable. Peasant Women in Socialism

Project Code: J6-70230

The phrase in the title of our project, Invisible, yet Indispensable, captures the paradoxical position of peasant women in socialist societies. Marginalized in terms of recognition, rights, and power within both state and family structures, they played a crucial role in agricultural production, family life, and rural communities. Following World War II, rapid industrialization in state socialist countries created a high demand for industrial labor, which primarily employed men. As a result, women assumed a larger share of agricultural work while continuing to shoulder household and childcare responsibilities due to persistent traditional gender roles. Despite their essential contributions, peasant women were among the last to gain equal access to social rights, including healthcare, pension insurance, and maternity leave. Those formally employed often remained in poorly paid agricultural jobs, while non-employed women faced even deeper invisibility, excluded from both social and official recognition.

This marginalization extended into academic research, where peasant women have been largely overlooked. Our project aims to challenge this neglect. We will compare Slovenia and Hungary, which represent distinct versions of socialist agricultural policy and different contexts for the emancipation of peasant women. Slovenia was characterized by private family farms, where most women worked informally while their husbands found employment in industry. In contrast, Hungary underwent complete agricultural collectivization, employing a higher proportion of peasant women in the collective sector.

Despite these differences, both countries gradually formalized social rights for peasant women, though they lagged behind men and women employed in industry in achieving emancipation within society and the family. Rare studies often treat rural women as a homogenous group, overlooking diversity shaped by family backgrounds, local traditions, and access to social rights. Our research will develop an innovative typology, considering their varying levels of emancipation based on work roles, family contributions, and social rights access.

A bottom-up approach is essential given the frequent invisibility of peasant women in official records. Interviews and life stories will illuminate their experiences, contextualized within broader socio-political frameworks. At the meso level, we will analyze cooperatives, agricultural publications, and media as spaces where individual and collective dynamics intersect. The project will pursue both temporal and spatial comparisons. Temporally, it will trace changes over time in agricultural and social policies and examine generational shifts. Spatially, it will compare Slovenia and Hungary. Our multidisciplinary approach, combining history, anthropology, and oral history methods, will address key research questions:

• How did peasant women balance agricultural work and household responsibilities?
• When and how did they gain access to social rights?
• How did they perceive their roles within their families and communities?
• What strategies did they use to improve their positions in agriculture and society?
• How did access to social rights correlate with different subgroups of women?
• How did agricultural policies impact their lives and roles?

This project brings an innovative approach by developing a typology of peasant women, moving beyond traditional research frameworks in women’s history. Through a bottom-up approach, it ensures the inclusion of stories often lost in official records. The project also addresses a still-relevant issue: many women who worked under socialism continue to face the consequences of limited social security entitlements, leading to minimal pensions. By amplifying their voices, this research will provide a deeper understanding of their contributions and challenges, enriching both historical scholarship and contemporary social discourse.

Sodelujoče raziskovalne organizacije:

• Institute of Contemporary History
• University of Primorska, Faculty of Humanities
  • Polona Sitar
• Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE)
  • Zsuzsanna Varga
  • Ágnes Eitler
  • Eszter Lengyel
  • Máté Bacsa