I’m pissed that this world has me so jaded I immediately spotted the “logic” behind this. Because of course it has its roots in traditional gender roles that made sense when they developed but are now so outdated that everyone still clinging to them should be stripped of every post-industrial comfort and luxury.
When you can divide your jobs into “can be done around the house while keeping an eye on the kids, the stew and your pregnant sister” and “requires you to walk out to some acre and tend to the crops”, pottery and textiles both fall into the former category. When you divide the people into “Can do walk-out-to-the-acres jobs year round” and “needs to stay at home while pregnant or nursing”, the second group are obviously going to be doing the first type of job more. Hence, when a medieval peasant woman makes a nice vase, it’s a craft (that also happens to have some art to it, because people liked nice things).
When you’re in a modern, industrialised world where making cups and sweaters is a pastime rather than necessity, many jobs don’t require a lot of physical labour and medicine has made pregnancies both safer and less frequent, none of those distinctions matter any more.
Hence, when you make a nice piece of pottery that happens to double as something functional, what’s in your pants doesn’t matter. You’re an artist (whose art happens to have a function).
I’m pissed that this world has me so jaded I immediately spotted the “logic” behind this. Because of course it has its roots in traditional gender roles that made sense when they developed but are now so outdated that everyone still clinging to them should be stripped of every post-industrial comfort and luxury.
When you can divide your jobs into “can be done around the house while keeping an eye on the kids, the stew and your pregnant sister” and “requires you to walk out to some acre and tend to the crops”, pottery and textiles both fall into the former category. When you divide the people into “Can do walk-out-to-the-acres jobs year round” and “needs to stay at home while pregnant or nursing”, the second group are obviously going to be doing the first type of job more. Hence, when a medieval peasant woman makes a nice vase, it’s a craft (that also happens to have some art to it, because people liked nice things).
When you’re in a modern, industrialised world where making cups and sweaters is a pastime rather than necessity, many jobs don’t require a lot of physical labour and medicine has made pregnancies both safer and less frequent, none of those distinctions matter any more.
Hence, when you make a nice piece of pottery that happens to double as something functional, what’s in your pants doesn’t matter. You’re an artist (whose art happens to have a function).