ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author shows that technological change influenced women's work in the food industries, but was seldom the direct reason, or excuse, for the regendering of work. Statistics about women’s work have to be treated with care. Women’s work tends to be underestimated in statistics. The dairy industry is important for the Netherlands. The exclusion of women from dairy industry is a striking phenomenon. Women, as experts in buttermaking, did not make the same move. The most common argument for the transition of dairy work from farm to factory is that it freed the farmer’s wife from the strenuous task of dairying. Guild restrictions applying to pre-industrial food producers, such as butchers, bakers, and millers, may have influenced male gendering of these professions in a later period. Brewing has existed since Egyptian times, and from its beginning there are reports of both male and female brewers. A distinction has to be made between cocoa factories and chocolate factories.
