90 



LABOR 



DIVISION OF LABOR 



Chart 17 summarizes the sex division of labor 

 in Indian Panajachel. 



Milpa growing 



Truck gardening 



Coffee growing 



Animal husbandry 



Housing 



Clotliing 



Houselceeping 



Marketing 



Load carrying 



Men 



Prejiaring soil 



PInnting 



Cultivating 



Women 



Harvesting 

 Storing 

 Graining 



Making beds 



Planting 



Transplanting 

 Watering 



Weeding 

 Harvesting 

 Preparing crop 



Transplanting 

 Cleaning grove | 



Harvesting 

 Preparing beans 



Harvesting 



Pasturing 



Feeding 

 Killing 



Felling trees 1 



Cutting branches 



Gathering 



Building 



RL'pairing 



Furnishings 



Sewing 



Weaving 

 Laundering 



re making 



Sweeping 



Cooking 



Grinding 



Dish washing 



Distant markets 



Nearby markets 



Local market 



Large, heavy 



Small, light 



Infants 



Chart 17. — Sex ilivision of labor in ordinary work. 



While only women are expected to work in the 

 kitchen, it is not true in Panajachel that only men 

 are supposeil to work in the fields. Indeed, the 

 only broad generalization that can be made about 

 the sex division of labor is that men do not 

 normally cook, carry water, spin, weave, or wash 

 dishes and clothing; while only men do certain 

 agricultural tasks considered too difficult for 

 women — preparing the soil for corn, making garden 

 beds, planting coffee bushes; and only men (using 

 the tumpline) carry heavy loads. 



The ax and the hoe, and to a lesser degree the 

 machete, are the men's tools. Men cut down 

 trees and turn over the earth. Women, in agri- 

 culture, use their hands or sticks and the watering 

 basins. The work that can be done without heavy 

 tools is done by either men or women. But it is 



the heaviness of the work rather than the tool that 

 sets the pattern. Women do not lift great 

 weights, or swing axes, picks, or hoes. They 

 do not climb trees, or roofs. 



Men travel greater distances than women. A 

 man may carry his load 50 miles to market; a 

 woman rarely more than 5. Women work the 

 fields in the delta, men in the hills. But this 

 is because most of the agricultural work in the 

 hills is heavy work connected with the milpa 

 rather than because of their distance. The milpa, 

 perhaps because most of the work involved is 

 heavy, is the most typically men's job. But there 

 may be an element of tradition here too, as well as 

 of distance. 



Domestic tasks — cooking and washing and the 

 making of clothing — are almost exclusively 

 women's work. It is typical for the man to be off 

 in the fields or on a business trip and the woman to 

 care for the home. But women no less typically 

 engage in agricultural work and in taking their 

 wares for sale in the market. In a broad sense, the 

 women do all the kinds of work that men do, and in 

 addition care for the house and prepare the food. 

 They are breadwinners as well as breadmakers. 



The degree to which these statements are true, 

 to which the division of labor along sex lines is 

 fixed and unalterable, will be discussed (following 

 the order of chart 17) after considerations of age 

 differences. 



AGE DIFFERENCES 



A child of 2 or 3 is carried on the back of mother 

 or. sibling, except in the house, and there is little 

 sign of sex distinctions. By the age of 4 or 5, he 

 is carried only on long trips. By this time cos- 

 tume distinctions have set in: a boy dresses much 

 like his father, a gu'l like her mother. Whatever 

 the sex, however, he stays in and near the house, 

 helping the women folk with minor errands. 

 "Bring me a piece of firewood" the mother is apt 

 to say to the boy or to the girl. Now also the 

 child of either sex begins to carrj' and watch his 

 younger sibling. At 6 or 7, the child frequently 

 accompanies his parents to their delta fields, and 

 although he plays more than he works, he is asked 

 to help in little ways. "Let the water flow in the 

 ditch," the parent might say to a child playing in 

 the water, and the j'oungster will direct the water 

 into the proper channel with his hands. There is 

 still little sex distinction; either girl or boy ac- 



