I didn't just make it up, but a report in the Economist of London claims that the outlook of society towards working women depended greatly in ancient farming techniques – mainly whether they used the plough or the hoe in their farming.
A French historian by the name of Fernand Braudel wrote about a remarkable transformation of ancient Mesopotamian society around the fifth millennium BC when society at large turned from worship of an “all powerful mother goddess” to one of male gods and priests.” He writes that this period coincided with a change in agricultural techniques when society switched from using the hoe (predominately used by women of the time to sow grain and cereals) to the plough (which was very heavy and thus relegated for use by the men).
Use of the plough which required significantly more upper-body strength than hoes did gave men and advantage over women – thus relegating womenfolk in said societies into jobs closer to the home and not outside it.
“Long after most people have stopped tilling the land for a living, the economists find, their views about the economic role of women seem to line up with whether their ancestors ploughed or whether they hoed. Women descended from plough-users are less likely to work outside the home, to be elected to parliament or to run businesses than their counterparts in countries at similar levels of development who happen to be descended from hoe-users.”
According to the Economist report it seems that even in countries with industrialised economies and higher overall rates of female participation in the workforce, “economists find that variations between countries in the fraction of adult women who work outside the home can be explained rather well by the farming practices of their ancestors.”
There you have it.
If such research findings are plausible, all chauvinistic men can safely proclaim that working women were hoers.
[All others can just laugh or accept my apologies for being mean and condescending and for bad taste, but it's such a lovely pun. And yes, pun was intended!]
A French historian by the name of Fernand Braudel wrote about a remarkable transformation of ancient Mesopotamian society around the fifth millennium BC when society at large turned from worship of an “all powerful mother goddess” to one of male gods and priests.” He writes that this period coincided with a change in agricultural techniques when society switched from using the hoe (predominately used by women of the time to sow grain and cereals) to the plough (which was very heavy and thus relegated for use by the men).
Use of the plough which required significantly more upper-body strength than hoes did gave men and advantage over women – thus relegating womenfolk in said societies into jobs closer to the home and not outside it.
“Long after most people have stopped tilling the land for a living, the economists find, their views about the economic role of women seem to line up with whether their ancestors ploughed or whether they hoed. Women descended from plough-users are less likely to work outside the home, to be elected to parliament or to run businesses than their counterparts in countries at similar levels of development who happen to be descended from hoe-users.”
According to the Economist report it seems that even in countries with industrialised economies and higher overall rates of female participation in the workforce, “economists find that variations between countries in the fraction of adult women who work outside the home can be explained rather well by the farming practices of their ancestors.”
There you have it.
If such research findings are plausible, all chauvinistic men can safely proclaim that working women were hoers.
[All others can just laugh or accept my apologies for being mean and condescending and for bad taste, but it's such a lovely pun. And yes, pun was intended!]
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