Re: Nat. koppor and smitt koppor? What's the difference?
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Re: Nat. koppor and smitt koppor? What's the difference?
Susanne Brown 6/08/12
Why the smile? That was the way it was: no man would ever touch cows, sheep or goats. Only women. Indeed, men over 15 were prohibited by law to be shepherds for these animals. Quite a few parishes asked for exemptions because wolves and bears would kill grazing animals and they didn't think women and young boys would be up to handling this - all such requests were turned down, without exception.
No man would milk a cow - if there was no wife or female farmhand to do it, they would ask a neighbour's wife or female farmhand. And then hire a female farmhand (they came cheap).
Women on the other hand didn't handle horses, except in dire emergencies (no man available).
No man would do a woman's work - whatever it was - while a woman, in an emergency, could do a man's work. However, if women continuously did what was usually classed men's work that particular job would be downgraded to women's work (which no man would do).
The most notorious such case was on the Danish island of Læsø: the men became deep water sailors when they were young; they later returned, married and bought a (share in a) fishing-boat and went fishing while the women did all farming work, including what was everywhere else men's work. Locally, all farm jobs became female jobs. One job was simply to heavy for women - threshing grain. So young men from the mainland were imported seasonally to do this - since no Læsø man would ever touch anything to do with a farm. Only on Læsø would you see the women driving (horse and carriage) to church with the husband seated, arms crossed, beside his wife.
There were few jobs around a farm that would be shared by men and women. Generally speaking men brought the food and other necessities home (in a "raw" state) while women transformed them into finished products, and stored and distributed them. These two jobs were equally important - no farmer could manage a farm without a wife or some other woman in her stead (his mother, sister or eldest daughter - or at a pinch, an uncommonly thrifty and loyal maid-servant).
During the first decades of the 20th century men suddenly started appearing around cows - because now handling cows would be done "scientifically", meaning that machines, tests, exact times and white coats were involved...something women weren't expected to be able to do. A job re-defined and re-classified was open to men, but of course only as long as women didn't do it, at least not in significant numbers (yes, still true today).
Ingela
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Re: Nat. koppor and smitt koppor? What's the difference?
Susanne Brown 6/11/12