Introduction
It seems obvious that gender and economic activity are interrelated; in every society human beings appear to associate some activities with women and others with men. In addition, what constitutes an “economic activity” is open to argument. Are all productive activities economic? Are only activities that enter the commercial realm economic?
Economic activity can of course encompass all of that work that supplies people with food and shelter, that is, the work that meets their basic needs. It also includes the activities of exchange and trade, and of consumption. Certainly, there is much written on people’s commercial production—that most easily defined as “economic activities”. Ethnographies have explored Kuna women’s commercial production of mola, traditional appliquéd textile panels now sold to tourists (Tice, 1995), the economic specialization of men and women in the embroidery industry of Lucknow, India (Wilkinson-Weber, 1999), the interrelationship of class and...
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O’Brian, R. (2003). Economic Activities and Gender Roles. In: Ember, C.R., Ember, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-29907-6_9
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