Women’s Work. The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times.

by Elizabeth Wayland Barber

As I write this, it is International Women’s Day. It seems fitting to study and celebrate women’s contribution to society from the earliest times.

Of course, the first and most obvious question is “How do we define women’s work?” and this is exactly where Barber’s book begins:

For millennia women have sat together spinning, weaving, and sewing. Why should textiles have become their craft par excelence, rather than the work of men? Was it always thus, and if so, why?

Barber refers to a hypothesis by Judith Brown entitled “Note on the Division of Labor by Sex.” During her research, Brown had concluded that the extent to which a community relies upon women to provide a type of labour depends upon the compatibility of that labour with the necessity of childcare. Brown’s observations…