Women, Work and the Sea in Galicia

During one of our trips to Cambados, a former mariscadora explained to us what the job actually involves. One sentence in particular stayed with me.“The work is very hard, yes,” she said, “but at least it allowed me to be there for my children, to be a present mother and grandmother, to keep the household going.”

While men, called out by the open sea, head off on their boats to fish or work on the bateas harvesting mussels, women traditionally remained closer to shore, gathering what the tide leaves behind: clams, cockles, razor shells, all bent over in mud and saltwater for hours at a time. Not because the work was easier — anyone who has seen a mariscadora knee-deep in freezing Atlantic water knows better — but because it allowed them to stay close to home. Children still had to be fed, laundry still had to be done, old relatives still needed looking after. And if the catch sold well, maybe there would even be a little extra money at the end of the week.

Today, shellfishing in Galicia remains overwhelmingly female. In some cofradías men are still a minority, and according to regional fisheries data, women make up more than 70% of Galicia’s shellfish gatherers (www.pescadegalicia.gal).

But this is where foreigners often misunderstand Galicia. There is no “weaker sex” here. No delicate femininity carefully protected from hard labour. Galician women have spent centuries carrying half the world on their backs, often while pretending they weren’t.

People here sometimes joke about Galicia being a patriarchal matriarchy, which sounds contradictory until you actually spend time in the region. Officially, perhaps, men were the heads of households. In practice, everybody knew who was really keeping things together.

Galician history — or at least Galician mythology about itself — is filled with formidable women. María Pita became a symbol of resistance after helping defend A Coruña from the English fleet. Pepa A Loba supposedly led bands of men through the mountains. María Castaña entered local folklore by standing up to ecclesiastical power. Whether every detail is historically accurate almost feels secondary: what matters is that Galicia remembers women this way.

There are historical reasons behind the stereotype too: some historians believe pre-Roman Galician societies may have had matrilineal elements, with inheritance passing through the maternal line in certain communities. That does not necessarily mean women ruled society in the modern sense, and political power still appears to have been largely male. But throughout Galician history — especially during periods of male migration and maritime labour — women frequently became the ones holding together the social and economic fabric of everyday life.

A century ago, the sculptor Francisco Asorey portrayed the Galician woman almost as a saint: isolated, burdened, exhausted, yet impossibly resilient. A woman expected to work the land or the shore, raise children, run a household, care for everyone else, and somehow still endure in silence. Galicia has always admired strong women, although not always in ways that made their lives easier.

But what about in 2026? Do Galician women still identify with this stereotype?

In 2023, a film called Matria tackled exactly this subject. It was shot in the Rías Baixas and follows Ramona, a “woman trapped in a tense and unpredictable working and personal life, constantly sacrificing everything for her daughter’s future until she is finally forced to look inward and wonder whether there might be something else to live for” (avalon.me).

I don’t know whether a film — no matter how compelling or realistic — can really be taken as evidence of anything. The truth is that maybe there simply isn’t a reliable way to measure what the situation is today. Or at least, I don’t have one.

In larger cities like Vigo or A Coruña, I met women who could easily fit into the broader European stereotype: confident, career-oriented, outspoken, ready to fight for their rights. In villages and rural areas, though, I found women who seemed even more self-assured — women who use retranca as both shield and weapon, who fight not only for themselves, but also for their land… and for their sea.

And they do defend the sea fiercely.

Mariscadoras are not simply shellfish gatherers; many have become environmental guardians of the estuaries they work in. They monitor tides, pollution, invasive species, water quality. They know every corner of the mudflats better than any tourist with a drone ever could. The work is physically punishing, poorly paid, and increasingly threatened by climate change, contamination and overexploitation. Yet many continue because it offers something rare: a degree of independence and a profound connection to place.

“Today was hard: rain, wind, huge waves. But that’s nothing compared to the satisfaction of managing to reach the quota despite the weather.” (by Mariscadora2.0 on Instagram).

And you do see them out there: under rain that would keep most people indoors, under brutal sun, bent against the Atlantic wind as if arguing with it personally.

Maybe that is what stayed with me most from that conversation in Cambados. Not the rhetoric about resilience or matriarchy or identity. Just the simple idea of a job that allows someone to remain close to home, help sustain a family, and still say — without irony this time —“We have the most beautiful workplace in the world.”

Chiara Montemagno, Fundación Condado de Taboada