> Spinning and weaving had always been done by a relatively small portion of society. This is very, very incorrect. Egregiously so. All evidence from antiquity

> Spinning and weaving had always been done by a relatively small portion of society. This is very, very incorrect. Egregiously so. All evidence from antiquity to pre-modern Europe contradicts it. Up until the mechanization of textiles, spinning and weaving took up the majority of women’s work time. Even noblewomen were painted doing the act. Annual labor hours were comparable to unskilled men in agriculture, even after mechanical innovations. If you’d like I can give you academic citations but acoup.blog written by an actual historian just ran an entire series on this topic: https://acoup.blog/2025/09/26/collections-life-work-death-and-the-peasant-part-ivd-spinning-plates/ https://acoup.blog/2025/09/26/collections-life-work-death-an... Subsistence for a small family meant nearly 1800 hours a year of work on just textiles, accounting for a single woman’s labor over an entire year. That’s just 200 hours short of a modern 9-5 work year. On just textiles.