Podcast Summary

Episode Overview

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Mariam Olugodi
Guest: Dr. Nena Vandeweerdt
Book: Women and Work Through a Comparative Lens: Gender and the Urban Labor Markets of Premodern Brabant and Biscay (Leuven UP, 2025)
Date: January 25, 2026

In this episode, host Mariam Olugodi interviews historian Dr. Nena Vandeweerdt about her forthcoming book on the economic roles of women in premodern European cities, focusing on the regions of Brabant (present-day Belgium) and Biscay (northern Spain). Through comparative analysis, Dr. Vandeweerdt challenges long-standing narratives about gender, labor, and institutions, offering nuanced insights into how women navigated urban economies shaped by both formal institutions and informal networks.

Major Discussion Points & Insights

1. Motivation and Research Background

• Dr. Vandeweerdt’s interest in women’s roles in premodern Europe was sparked during her undergraduate studies by the lack of representation in mainstream narratives.

  "I became interested in the topic mainly because of how little I knew about it, and because I was genuinely surprised by how many women I kept encountering in late medieval sources." (03:00, Nena)

• Early work focused on women in craft guilds of 15th-century Louvain (Louvain), revealing the complexity and centrality of women’s economic activity in historical records.

2. The Central Role of Guilds

• Definition and Function: Guilds were not only trade associations but powerful urban institutions that regulated—and restricted—who could participate in specific professions.
• Gendered Access: Guilds were "flagships of patriarchy," with very limited pathways for women, usually only through relationships with male members (widow, wife, daughter).

  "Guilds were male-dominated institutions... they were flagships of patriarchy." (07:30, Nena)

• Most women’s involvement with guilds was indirect; formal membership was rare, reflecting broader social norms and structural exclusions.

3. The North-South Divide Revisited

• The longstanding historical theory held that women in Northern Europe had more economic autonomy than those in the South, attributed to differences in family structure and property rights.
• Dr. Vandeweerdt critiques this as overly general, rarely based on systematic, comparative evidence:

  "The research project behind this book initially started from this debate, but during the analysis I consciously moved away from treating the north south divide as a fixed explanatory model." (11:15, Nena)

• Instead, she emphasizes the need for focused, empirical comparisons between specific regions.

4. Institutional and Individual Factors Shaping Women’s Work

• Institutions: Four main frameworks:

  • Guilds: Powerful in Brabant, shaping access to trades.
  • Households: The base unit of economic activity; women played pivotal roles in maintaining income and operations, especially in Brabant.
  • Informal Markets: Key in Biscay/Bilbao, where guilds were absent from certain trades, women worked in public markets.
  • Town Governments: Urban authorities regulated all economic activities, often responding with restrictions when women’s public roles became visible.

  "The household was the smallest and the most basic economic unit... Each member of the household played a role in its economic organization and in generating income." (15:48, Nena)

• Individual Circumstances: Institutions did not fully dictate women’s opportunities; individual status, marital situation, sector of work, and economic necessity played significant roles.

  Case Study: Toda de la Rea, a grain broker in 1520s Bilbao, challenged occupational restrictions in court, illustrating how necessity and personal circumstances shaped real economic agency—even when formal recognition was lacking. (22:10, Nena)

5. Value of the Comparative Approach

• The side-by-side study of Brabant and Biscay reveals both similarities and striking differences in women’s work:

  • Brabant: Guilds dominate, limiting women’s independent participation and tying most economic activity to the household.
  • Biscay: Informal sectors are more open to women, but lack of institutional protection makes them vulnerable to shifts in policy.

  "The comparative approach works a little bit like placing two maps over one another. Only by aligning them can you see where the structures overlap and where they differ..." (28:25, Nena)

• Outcomes are neither wholly positive nor negative for women in either region—institutional frameworks could both facilitate and restrict.

6. Types of Occupations & Visibility

• Women’s work was highly visible in some sectors, notably fishmongering—especially in lands where commerce played out in public markets (e.g., fish trade in Bilbao and Mechelen).

  "Fishmongering was relatively accessible to women... an occupation that unfolded almost entirely in public space." (31:10, Nena)

• Artisan work, by contrast, often took place in private or semi-private spheres and was less well-documented.

7. Financial Status and Tax Records

• Taxation registers offer a limited but useful lens on women’s financial status, mostly capturing single women or widows as household heads. These records, while flawed, point to significant numbers of women at lower ends of the tax scale in regions such as Bilbao. (33:20, Nena)

8. Implications for Present-Day Understanding

• Direct lines between premodern and contemporary gender dynamics are complex, but historical perspectives underscore the persistence of mechanisms like informal economies, family structures, and intersecting institutional frameworks in shaping women’s economic opportunities.

  "While guilds no longer structure labor markets nowadays, other overlapping frameworks that appear in the book still do..." (35:00, Nena)

• Recognizing the interplay of multiple intersecting factors—rather than searching for singular explanations—remains essential to understanding both past and current gender inequalities.

9. Key Message and Closing Thoughts

• The book ultimately proposes that women’s experiences in the labor market cannot be fully understood through a single lens of oppression or autonomy.

  "Women were neither free economic actors operating without restrictions, nor were they uniformly oppressed and powerless. They navigated constraints, but they also made choices, negotiated, and adapted." (39:30, Nena)

• Historians should move beyond debates over whether women’s situation was ‘better’ or ‘worse’ in different places or times, and focus instead on the lived complexity and agency within structural limits.

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Guilds Exclusion:
  "Guilds were male-dominated institutions... They were flagships of patriarchy." (07:30, Nena)

• On the North-South Divide:
  "One of the main problems with this paradigm is that it is built on broad generalizations and on studies with very different scopes." (11:50, Nena)

• On Institutional and Individual Factors:
  "Only by bringing all of these elements together can we fully understand what structured women's economic positions in the pre modern urban economies." (25:00, Nena)

• On the Comparative Approach:
  "The comparative approach works a little bit like placing two maps over one another. Only by aligning them can you see where the structures overlap and where they differ from each other." (28:25, Nena)

• On Present-Day Implications:
  "Women's economic opportunities have never been determined by a single factor... Recognizing this complexity helps us avoid simplistic explanations." (35:38, Nena)

• On the Book’s Core Message:
  "If the book has one central message, it is that women's work in the past cannot be understood through a single lens." (40:10, Nena)

Key Timestamps

• 02:26 – Dr. Vandeweerdt’s personal motivation and academic background
• 05:36 – The centrality and nature of guilds
• 10:23 – Explaining the North-South divide and its limits
• 15:35 – Major institutional structures shaping women's economic opportunities
• 21:58 – Role of individual circumstances, exemplified by Toda de la Rea
• 26:12 – Rationale and value of the comparative approach
• 29:39 – Types of trades: why fishmongering stands out for women
• 32:59 – Financial status, taxation, and wealth distribution among women
• 34:37 – Relevance of historical research for contemporary gender and work
• 37:02 – Dr. Vandeweerdt’s summary of her book and its key message

Conclusion

Dr. Nena Vandeweerdt’s interview offers a rich, comparative look at the ways urban institutions, informal networks, and individual circumstances together shaped women’s work in premodern Europe. Her work challenges simplistic binaries and underscores the importance of historical nuance in understanding gender, labor, and economic opportunity, both past and present.