The Computer Pays Its Debt: Women, Textiles, and Technology, 1965-1985 | Center for Craft

Paying less (then as now) was gender-based, with the added advantage of de-skilling a job.

Technology stands for an operator that

In  The Fabric of Interface , Stephen Monteiro argues that our everyday digital practice has taken on traits common to textile and needlecraft culture. Our smart phones and tablets use some of the same skills—manual dexterity, pattern making, and linking—required by the handloom, the needlepoint hoop, and the lap-sized quilting frame. Monteiro

Moreover, we have lost most subsidized forms of childcare, and many women now work on a cottage-industry basis, at piecework rates often below the minimum wage, because it is the only possibility they have to earn some money and take care of their children at the same time.