Prehistory of Patriarchy: Why do Women Weave and Cook?

Like many teachers, I wrestle with how to help students make sense of the near-omnipresence of patriarchy throughout history.  Even as I try to help students make sense of that fact, I continue to try to make sense of it myself.  I would greatly value any insights people may have when it comes to the history of male dominance, and how to teach it.

I hope this following piece I put together contributes a meaningful drop to that bucket.  I wrote it using information from Elizabeth Wayland Barber's wonderful book Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years.  I think it helps to make sense of patriarchy in a prehistorical setting - and may also complicate the notion of patriarchy at that stage in human history.  I would cherish resources that present solid discussions of patriarchy at different stages in history.      

Why did Women Weave and Cook?

In prehistorical times, all over the world, it was usually the mans job to hunt and perform other dangerous tasks, such as practicing metallurgy.  Many people assume this is because men are faster and stronger.  While it is true that male and female bodies differ in important ways, women can hunt and perform other dangerous tasks quite well.  If we look around us, we can observe with our own eyes that although the fastest and strongest people in the world are men, there are many women who are faster and stronger than most men.  Very few men on this planet can outrun the fastest women or out-lift the strongest.  Why haven't fast, strong women been given the role of performing dangerous tasks throughout history?  Why haven't men who are less fast and strong been given roles such as weaving and cooking? 

The answer doesn’t have to do with one genders body being tougher than the other.  It has to do with raising children.  Before modern times, most women in the world breastfed their children for two years, and often three, which is far longer than we do today.  Women had to do types of work that allowed them to care for their children at the same time.

Scholar Elizabeth Wayland Barber, in her book Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years, describes four things that most women’s work had in common, all across the globe:
 

1)  Women’s work usually doesn’t require focused concentration over long periods of time.  Imagine that you’re out hunting. You would have to stay very still and quiet for a long time.  You couldn’t do this with children.  They might not stay quiet.  And if they needed help you would have to break your concentration.   

2)  Women’s work can be easily interrupted and easily resumed. This is true for cooking and sewing, but not for hunting or other dangerous tasks.

3)  Women’s work does not place children in danger.  This is why men would do work like casting melted metal into weapons and farm tools.  Notice that this kind of metal work is also not interruptible and requires a great deal of focus! 

4)  Women’s work usually does not require moving far from home.  This not only means that women did not hunt, it also means that women did not usually trade. 

These four features of women’s work were true all over the globe before civilizations, but also after.  Once civilization started, what kinds of work could women do, and what could they not do based on these four points?  How might women's roles in the world be limited by these four?  Do you consider some of them more limiting than others?