In medieval England, a spinster was a woman who worked at spinning, not at weaving. (A woman who worked at weaving was a "Webster" while a "Baxter" was a baker; yes, there are matrilineal occupational surnames in English! Women have always worked.)
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While medieval spinsters were commonly single women, a married woman could also be a spinster. The term only begins to acquire the current connotation of "never-married woman" around the 17th century.https://books.google.com/books?id=SPQTDAAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&lpg=PA142&dq=medieval%20spinster&pg=PA142#v=onepage&q=spinster%20was%20an%20acceptable%20one%20as%20was%20every%20other%20addition%20of%20any&f=false …
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Pre-industrial textile production was laborious. Many people worked many hours to make a length of cloth. Spinning (twisting clean, combed wool fibres into yarn) was usually woman's (group) work, while later stages of textile production were men's work. (BL Royal 16 G V f. 56)pic.twitter.com/XqTfn7djoT
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If you've ever tried to use a drop spindle, let alone a spinning wheel, you'll know that this woman's work is skilled work. But just because work takes skill doesn't mean that it's socially valued (true then and now). (L: BL Royal 10 E IV, f. 147; R: BnF Français 874 f. 132v)pic.twitter.com/6b5XGGT85j
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You need to be good at spinning for your yarn to be usable. But what did it mean for a spinster to be "financially independent"? The tweet I quote above frames this as an achievement, and some medieval women were successful entrepreneurs who became wealthy.
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In Paris, women silk workers had their own guild, ran workshops & employed apprentices; London "silkwomen" were recognised for their expertise. However, they were still treated as second-class participants in the economic life of their communities.https://daily.jstor.org/the-silkwomen-of-medieval-london/ …
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Most women earned a lot less. Since unmarried spinsters were paid so poorly, they often lived communally and needed charity to make ends meet. "Independent", yes, but in the same way that someone trying to get by on minimum wage today is independent. https://books.google.com/books?id=ud_BAAAAIAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&lpg=PP1&dq=helen%20jewell%20women%20in%20medieval%20england&pg=PA109#v=onepage&q=although%20living%20and%20working%20independently&f=false …pic.twitter.com/XWryeDy9EM
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This was compounded by pay inequity. A male weaver in medieval Normandy earned 10d for weaving an ell (just over 1m) of cloth. All the women who prepped & spun the wool collectively earned 6d. It took 8-10x longer to spin yarn than to weave it into cloth.https://books.google.com/books?id=QThLAAAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&lpg=PP1&vq=ell%20of%20cloth&pg=PA311#v=onepage&q&f=false …
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It's possible to recognise all the ways in which women's work was an indispensable feature of past societies without conjuring up fictive, hidden Golden Ages for that work. Patriarchy is a system, not a conspiracy. (Morgan Library MS M.917)pic.twitter.com/e9HS4lLWja
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1/ Re "Patriarchy is a system, not a conspiracy." (part of this thread) https://twitter.com/yvonneseale/status/1220712627170693121?s=20 … I did not see the original Tweet (now deleted), but I would say that patriarchy is most definitely a conspiracy. Proof: --Hundreds of years of church pronouncements (Catholic, etc.)
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2/ --John Adams (responding to his wife's request to "Remember the ladies"): "Depend upon it, We know better than to repeal our Masculine systems.” (April 1776) --Union busting in 2020 (teachers, nurses, etc.) If I missed something, please advise.
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