Women and Work in Rural Areas Flashcards
What kind of jobs might a woman have?
In domestic service or laundry, brewing, petty retailing, carding and spinning for the textile industry.
Did women have careers?
Not as such. They didn’t work throughout their whole lives, and took whatever work was conveniently done at any time that would bring in extra money for the household - they had to juggle kids and the household.
What political and demographic factors impacted work?
War, invasion, battles might cause devastation or starvation. The Black Deathkilled 1/3 to 1/2 of the population - this may have increased employment opportunity and marriage postponement for women, but opinion of historians is mixed.
How were women involved in agricultural labour?
They might help their husbands or might on their own become a wage labourer. At harvest time both men and women were expected to work. If the holding a family lived on was too small to support them, both husband and wife took turns working elsewhere as labourers.
In England, the wife was responsible for garden, dairy and poultry.
What agricultural jobs might a woman undertake?
weeding, carrying corn, driving plough oxen, spreading manure, thatching and breaking stones for road mending. Harvest work. Sheep shearing.
Was their a division of labour on farms between man and woman?
No, whatever needed doing was done by whomever.
Who got paid more: man or woman
Man. Local labour situation, skills, strength, urgency of work, and gender factored into the wage.
