Sausage-making machine, Elma brand, model 22

Sexual division of labour

Production activities performed by women in traditional society have been essential to maintaining and reproducing the family unit. Linked to the domestic sphere, food preservation and processing, making clothing, supplying water, firewood, maintaining the fire, caring for domestic animals, selling any surplus, taking care of the sick and elderly, raising the children, healing, cleaning and organizing the domestic space are all essential tasks for survival. However, as they were deemed fitting for their ‘nature’, they were not defined as work. A woman was valued for her ability to perform such tasks, considered virtues, but she was denied recognition of them as work, rendering her contributions invisible.