One study of women in rural areas without electricity in the 1940s found that hand-washing and ironing a 38-pound laundry load required taking about 6,300 steps around the house, the well, the stove, and back to the house. After nine such loads, a woman would have walked the equivalent of a marathon. The electrification of housework reduced the ambulatory burden of that same laundry load by 90 percent.

In 1900, just 5 percent of married women held down a paid job.

Interestingly, early French observers attached little importance tosuch economic distinctions, especially since foraging or farming was,in either case, largely women’s work