Ann recommended this book to me when I first expressed an interest not only in spinning, but in the technology of cultures, and in learning how to do things from the ‘ground up’.  I got it just in time for Gulf Wars, and started reading it aloud to Gabrielle on the way there.  That was March.

I’ve just finished Women’s Work last week, and it’s fantastic.  I’m actually glad that it’s taken me so long to get through it, because it’s just chock full of fabulous information, each little bit that just shifted my worldview.  Rather like the archaeological finds that the book is based on.  Some of my favorite parts:

• Introduction – Barber explains how she learned the importance of assumed laziness from a 3000-yr-old plaid twill fragment.  The warp colors repeat regularly, but the weft stripes are sized by eye, so the numbers of threads there vary.  It took mistaking the warp for weft, painstakingly warping the loom (wrongly) according to those varied numbers, then recognizing that the weft was repeating regularly for Barber to realize what she’d discovered.  Women’s work has to be fairly mindless, to allow for simultaneous childrearing.  If your recreation is too picky – maybe you’re doing it wrong.
• How time-consuming (31) and yet quick (154, 293) cloth production can be.
• Pg 32 – Why is it men who are known for new inventions in ‘women’s’ fields?  Because women are too busy doing today’s work, and have no free time to think about how it might be done better at the risk of not having what we need now.  It’s a treadmill of safety.
• Pg 36-41 – Great explanation of the physical mechanics of spinning and weaving; then the chapter ‘String Revolution’ places those threads in the archaeological time line, all the way down to modern camel herders who apparently rub a tuft of camel hair in their palms when they need a bit of string.
• Pg 216 – The relatively late but completely successful advent of wool: Knossos processed 70,000 sheep one year.  Not shorn, but combed, in spring.  Carding not invented until the middle ages.
• Chapter ‘Island Fever’ – If I lived in the ancient world, I’d hope to have lived on Crete – where the men worked the sea, and the women the land.  This put the women in charge and gave everyone a terrific lifestyle.  Homer records it in the Odyssey – a great bit of comparative analysis on literature.
• Pg 135 – World’s oldest preserved body garment, 3000 BC – an Egyptian long-sleeved linen shirt, with pleated shoulders for an elastic fit, and a v-neck trimmed with the fringed end of the cloth.  Amazing.
• Pg 145 – Shoes with turned up toes are practical for navigating rocky terrain.
• Pg 156 – The real story about the ‘willies’ – I’ve been one in Les Sylphides, and it’s nice to know that "in Ukraine, although they are touchy and you have to be nice to them, they are extremely beautiful and are likely to favor your crops and might even do your spinning for you.  By the time you get up into southern Poland and eastern Germany, they are terrifying and often ugly creatures that will harm pregnant women and will dance or run to death and men unlucky enough to see them out in the forest at night.  (This was our job.)
• Chapter ‘Cloth for the Caravans’ – Fascinating portrait of caravan life, from yogurt culture to feminine textile entrepreneurship.  I appreciate Barber’s inclusion of the ‘price beyond rubies’ quote from Psalms:
  • Who can find a virtuous woman?  for her price is far above rubies.  The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her…She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.  She is like the merchants’ ships; she bringeth her food from afar.  She riseth also while it is yet night, and giventh meat to her her household, and a portion to her maidens.  She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard…She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night.  She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.  She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.   She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.  She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is [fine linen] and purple…She maketh fine linen, and selleth it,; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant.  Strength and honour are her clothing and she shall rejoice in time to come.

Sounds like good women’s work for me.