Sweet Femininities: Women and the Confectionery Trade in Eighteenth-Century Barcelona

Abstract

This article examines the intersections between sweetness, femininity and the confectionery trade in eighteenth-century Barcelona, at a time of growing consumption of sugar and slavery. Drawing on a range of underexplored archival material, this study traces the stories of women of different social groups, namely, elite housewives, nuns and tradeswomen, who engaged with the production and trade of sweets in ingenious ways. This article argues that in the period when women were culturally diminished through their portrayals as ‘sweet’ and barred by guild structures, many women exercised social and economic agency in the confectionery trade in Barcelona.