Mondina

: mondine; from the verb mondare, meaning 'to peel', 'to husk', 'to clean', or 'to weed') is a seasonal rice paddy female worker, especially in Italy's Po Valley from the late 19th century to the first half of the 20th; though this practice traces back to about 600 years.

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.

The monda was an extremely tiring task, carried out mostly by women of the poorest social classes from Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Lombardy and Piedmont, working in northern Italy, mostly around Vercelli, Novara and Pavia.

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.

[2] 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.