Will maybe nuts, but I’m thinking of how many women across all cultures and walks of life, even in highly technological industrial societies where there’s no compelling need for it, really, really, really like to knit, weave and spin fibers into various textiles and clothing, and many are just so amazingly good at it the ability almost seems to be “wired” in.
Is it possible via evolution that natural selection across 100,000 years of weaving fibers would cause a sort of inherent talent for weaving etc. to be a wired in as an innate ability in human women?
I doubt it. 100,000 years (or less: When did the first textiles show up?) is an awfully short time for something like that to evolve, especially since humans have such long generations, and it’s harder for something genetic to show up in only one sex than in both. Most likely, it’s just a matter of culture, that Mom knitted, and Auntie knitted, and Gramma knitted, and Great-Granny knitted, so the new generation of girls grows up seeing that that’s what women do.
As to why so many different cultures associate the textile arts with women in the first place, that’s probably a matter of risk. Biologically speaking, men are more expendable than women, so men will naturally take on the more risky jobs, like hunting and warfare, while women will naturally take on the safer jobs, like making clothing.
I’m not so sure. The first textiles aren’t the first fibres remember. Many HG groups, even those that never wore clothes, commonly made ropes, bowstrings, belts and other tools out of fibre, commonly spun animal or human hair but plant fibres were also common.
Orangs have been observed to make and work firbre tools by chewing in grass or paper, and chimps and baboons both make grass or leaf wicks to sponge up water or dew.
However these sorts of tools don’t leave traces so we don’t know when they were first used. It certainly isn’t inconceivable that hominids have been working fibre for as long as they have been working stone and wood. Nobody seems to doubt that humans are biologically wired to work stone and wood.
So it;s not a ridiculous suggestion to me. It is lacking any sort of evidence, but that doesn’t make it implausible.
Where I lived in Northern Cameroon, it was pretty much exclusively men who wove the grass mats and strings for household use and sale. Women did spin cotton, but I never saw anyone weaving it and I never saw a product made from hand spun cotton, so I really have no idea why they were doing it. It wasn’t a culture with a long history of wearing clothes.
Anyway, I my guess as to why males wove was that it was still a rather pastoral society, so men out with their herds had more idle time to do that sort of thing and more immediate use for the products.
I imagine that women are more likely to weave in societies where woven cloth is used for clothing and where men have busy work outside the home.
The modern interest in knitting probably comes to some degree from the fact that it is one of the few crafts that are portable. People who don’t have time to cook or arrange flowers or whatever can find time to knit while waiting at doctors offices, riding public transport, etc.
Maybe females are or were “wired” to knit but it’s more complex than 100K years= females are automatically good at knitting.
I want to speculate that from an evolutionary standpoint human females tend to look at work with a long term view (e.g. they want to keep their offspring alive), and from an historical standpoint knitting can provide shelter and protection for extended periods of time, and the two instinctively meshed.
However, I don’t think too many women in today’s world are worried about constructing clothing and shelter for their children (I’m being western centric), so I’d speculate even further and say that knitting has become a learned habit with an at least partially genetic original motivation. I could speculate further on why a man knitting is a slight norms violation.
IOW, I’d guess the reason for the greater tendency of modern women to knit can be partially ascribed to genetics, but more to learning.
Just guessing here, but could it be that women did knitting and stuff like that because men were out hunting and doing farm stuff? you know, the more physically demanding work? (I’m not saying women did not do physically demanding work)
The book opens by presenting a hypothesis that fiber crafts are women’s work because women have breasts. Okay, it doesn’t put it quite that way… But because women can nurse children and men can’t, infants and toddlers have to stay with their mothers rather than their fathers. Throughout most of human history, women have cared for young children through much of their adult lives. But their societies wouldn’t have been able to cope with taking so many healthy adults out of economically productive activities. The result is that jobs that can be done while caring for children have become women’s work, and jobs that cannot be done or that are extremely difficult to do while caring for children have become men’s work. The ideal “women’s work” job should be something that can be done in or close to the home, that doesn’t require 100% concentration, that is easily interrupted and taken up again, and that does not present a danger to nearby small children. Spinning, weaving, sewing, and knitting all score well on this list. Hunting and metalworking do not.
I like to sew and to knit. I don’t believe there’s any point in claiming a biological reason for this; I like to display the work of my own hands, I like that the things I make are useful, and I feel connected to uncounted generations of women who have nurtured similar skills (though technology has turned drudgery into a hobby). Knitting in particular is also very relaxing.
One hypothesis I’ve heard goes like this. Typically people ( or animals ) will have instincts that impel them to do things that train and exercise their own particular biological specialties. Like animals play-fighting, who will grow up to really fight, for example. Or human males, who are stronger than females, and tend to enjoy vigorous physical play that helps them build muscle faster, or who typically have a better judgement of ballistics and like games that involve throwing.
And in the case of females, women have better fine muscle control; they are better at delicate tasks. So, they tend to enjoy tasks that require delicacy and precision, like weaving. Which is why so many women still sew and weave and such even in societies where it’s not necessary, while men who sew & such for the fun of it are much rarer.
My baby daughter plays with my wife’s hair all the time.
(My hair is too short for this to work.)
Grooming plays a big part in human bonding, and hair is the usual target for “hands-on” grooming… maybe that’s where our love of long fibres might come from?
My first reponse to the OP was, “Men knit too!” I know numerous men who knit. I do have to say though that the male knitters I know tend to lean toward knitting SOCKS. A lot of socks. Maybe there’s a male sock knitting gene. Or maybe socks are just considered manly. Heh.
I belive this is generally true although it may be not be true for your ppersonal situation. In manufacturing and assembly jobs that require a very fine touch women are overwhelmingly preferred as workers.
I still don’t see a cite. The fact that women are more likely to be administrative assistants or assembly line workers has nothing to do with their INNATE skills as typists or ability to screw a head on an action figure. That is, unless you count all those famous female classical pianists. After all, if women have naturally better fine motor skills, an overwhelming majority of famous painters and musicians should be women.
Ditto for any other female-dominated job. There’s no way to separate geneticly inherited talents from those developed due to job availability or other reasons. If you can point me to a study that does so, I’d love to see it.
Ack, that’s getting really off track from the OP. Sorry. Just a pet peeve of mine.
It’s not even “men knit, too.” Knitting was developed by men. The first knitting guilds were entirely male (new knitters were apprenticed to master knitters, etc.) It was a manly art.
The same was true for weaving in certain parts of the world.
I’m not buying the astro’s idea, but I had a thought in support of it.
As humans moved to colder climes, those that learned to twist and weave fibers were more likely to survive the harsh winters and ice ages. The traits needed to weave were therefore selected over time.