wp6@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Walter Pohl) (03/01/91)
I just wanted to throw out an idea about "women's work" which could easily be wrong. It is also incredibly general, in that it is a statement about all of Western history (and thus is bound to have a bunch of exceptions). As far as I know, it is generally held true that in most Western societies, work traditionally done by women has lower status within the society than work done by men. Now, obviously, Western societies are patriarchal, in that the highests positions of power are held almost exclusively by men. But within the lower classes, was men's work within that class of a higher status than women's work within the same class? Could it be that both were of equal status at the time, but it is only the bias of historians, who were originally of the upper class, who inscribed their own notions of higher male status on the historical record? Walt Pohl "alt.walt? It has a certain ring to it, no?"