Hello, I'm Dr. Helen Czerski. And this is part of the
Humanism at Home series. It's an attempt to bring humanism to
people who are at home during this panic pandemic, and who
were looking to use that time to learn something new. This is an
essay that I originally wrote quite a perhaps five or six
years ago now. And it was for Ada Lovelace day and if you
don't know about Ada Lovelace day, it's the second Tuesday of
October every year, so it will be on the 13th of October this
year 2020. And there are lots of events on that day celebrating
women in science. And this essay was written for an anthology
about women in science that's called a passion for science
tells of discovery and invention, and that is available
as an E book from Amazon. This is my essay sewing the future.
That seems to be a very annoying perception in society that women
don't do technology. If you see a picture of an App Designer, a
welder an aircraft engineer or a rocket scientist, you're
probably also looking at someone who earns a Y chromosome. That's
really irritating, but I think it's only half the problem. I
think that women traditionally do do technology and lots of it.
The problem is that we don't think about women's activities
in this way, even when that's exactly what they are. Here's
how the Merriam Webster dictionary defines technology.
One a, the practical application of knowledge, especially in a
particular area, one be the technology capability given by
the practical application of knowledge to a manner of
accomplishing a task, especially using technical processes,
methods or knowledge, and three, the specialised aspects of a
particular field of endeavour. just reading those words makes
me excited. I love making things and a lot of the fun is in
working out how to use the tools available to get something
practice. Golden men don't have a monopoly on this either in
current society or historically, technology is just done by
people, not specifically men or women, just people.
So let me tell you about batches. So machine. Badger is
the Polish word for grandmother. I remember seeing the sewing
machine in her flat when she was still alive and it fascinated me
because it was both alien and familiar at the same time. It
was a single treadle powered machine built into a small
wooden table with decorative wooden legs. The table was
fantastic. I loved it because it just looked like any other table
until you lifted the flap in the centre. And then the black iron
sewing machine rotated into place from where it had been
hiding underneath. Once you would connect it up the belt the
way it worked and the way it looked really similar to the
modern electric sewing machine that my mother taught me to use,
as long as you catch your foot moving on the travel, travel. I
loved it. Because it was mechanical, and you could see
how it worked. I have it now. And I like it for the same
reasons I like massive steam engines. It's ingenious. And I
know how to sew and I like making things out of fabric
that's ingenious to it never occurred to me as a child that
most of society put loving the mechanics and loving the sewing
in different categories. It never occurred to me as a child
that most society put loving the mechanics and loving the sewing
machine in different categories. I just saw it all as part of one
continuous process. And when she was alive, I had no idea of the
part that her sewing machine had played in family life. The
machine opened the door to technological solutions to
everyday problems. And the person that worked out the way
to solve those problems to use the available technology to make
life better, was bacha. My dad Yan was born in Poland in 1941
jedec. My grandfather had been conscripted to fight for the
German Army forced into it along with many other poles from the
region of Siberia. This meant that the family was split up
during the war. Like so many other Polish bombers at that
time they were just flotsam on the massive currents of
international war. But they were lucky jack escaped from the
German army through family reunited in Italy and they
travelled to Britain and jedec then fought for the British. In
1947. After much debate, the British government under Winston
Churchill decided to permanently take in nearly a quarter of a
million Polish war refugees. They were housed in recently
vacated army camps and given some money for schools and a
basic camp structure. These Polish resettlement camps Polish
camps were spread all over Britain, and many of them only
closed in the 1960s or even later, the camp structure was
basic. The Poles lived in Nissen huts shared between families of
First, there might be agricultural work in the local
community. But after that it was up to the new immigrants to
scrape living however they could. Bob Turin jedec had been
teachers in Poland a highly respected profession. Now they
had a stable home, but no stable income, and they had to start it
start from scratch in a foreign country. I've always been
impressed at how much effort the poles put in to build their
community. They set up a school they had church and community
events and they worked hard. But life was tough. My dad remembers
that there were two major purchases almost impossible to
afford, but considered essential practical tools. There was a
typewriter for jedec and the sewing machine for capture. When
we envisage past civilizations, the mental image always has
something in plain sight that we rarely consider consciously
floats. Humans are physically frail compared with other
mammals and need the extra protection that clothes provide.
We use our brains and manual dexterity to compensate for our
physiological weaknesses. And it seems as as long as there have
been close, those floats have been an outward representation
of the person within and their place in society. Emperor's wore
purple schoolchildren wear school uniforms. Papua New
Guinea warriors were feathers from birds of paradise. These
are badges of society, part of the glue that binds communities
together. Just think about all of those clothes, they all came
from somewhere, a person had to make them. But most of modern
history everything has been sold by hand. sewing machines were
invented in the early 1800s, but they weren't universally
popular. In 1841. One of the first factories using sewing
machines to make French army uniforms was destroyed by
tailors worried about losing their jobs. clothes have mostly
been made by women. And the invention of the sewing machine
sped up this essential household tasks significantly.
Next time you're doing your laundry or tidying your coat
rack, have a proper look at how your clothes are made. There is
no question that this is technology in action, but cloth
must be cut in the right orientation relative to its
threads, so it hangs and stretches correctly. two
dimensional pieces of cloth must be fitted together to make an
object that fits a three dimensional moving person.
Fabric can be joined together with different stitches that do
different jobs. And then all of that construction work is hidden
away so it's never the first thing you notice. My mum taught
me to sew and there are also a few classes at school. My
problem with it was that I never quite had the patience for all
the details. I like making snazzy cushion covers and
theatre props. But when it came to the time consuming the
details of how to sew a collar so it sat flat. I was usually to
be found on the hockey pitch or climbing a tree. But I love
making stuff that I could use maps and bags and a waistcoat.
As a technology, it can be pretty similar to Airfix kit to
making model planes. Someone else's made a pattern, but you'd
have to get all the construction details right and do it all in
the right order. Making something without a pattern is a
bit like a bit. Making something without a pattern is a bit more
like building a model working aeroplane. from whatever you've
got lying around in the Garret you need both the creativity and
the technical skill to use the tools available to do the job.
Bob Chad did not know how to sew, someone of her social
status in Poland would not have had to learn. My dad says that
she was not enthusiastic about the new challenge. But it was
understood in the camp that sewing was an essential skill.
If you could do it. You could earn money. You could make
clothes For your family, and that meant that you had some
economic independence. Many other women were in the same
situation, and sewing classes were organised in the camp to
teach the women this skill. barcia had an advantage. They
were the only family in the camp to have made the huge economic
sacrifices necessary to buy a sewing machine. And almost
immediately, there was a test. The Poles valued education above
all else. My dad was one of the first to go to an English
speaking school. And he was nine or 10 when the sewing machine
was acquired. dad passed the 11 plus and was given a place at
the local Grammar School battering jedec we're very proud
although they would have expected nothing less. But there
was a requirement for dad to go to the grammar school. He had to
have a blazer and trousers. There was no money to buy such
expensive items. So Berkshire would have to make them the
Funny thing about our society putting labels like male or
female next to certain technological activities is that
those labels are purely cultural. If you were to list
the skills needed to do any particular task, it's unlikely
you'd be able to distinguish them. For a TV programme about
the sun that I presented in early 2013, I had to talk to the
camera while arc welding, so I had to learn how to arc weld. We
filmed it in America and I was taught by an old school
professional welder, you had a slow southern drawl and a proper
handlebar moustache. He was astonished that I learned so
quickly. And even more astonished when I explained that
this was because it was almost exactly like icing a cake. I'm
certain that anyone who's ever done both would agree with me.
So it turns out that I was mostly taught to art well by my
mom when I was five years old, and I practice with wobbly
letters on a fairy cake. The pose you adopt is the same your
left hand is closer to the nozzle, right elbow higher up in
the air and the method of controlling the speed of it. I
think or welding metal is the same, you squeeze a lever. One
might involve slightly more molten metal at
3000 degrees centigrade and slightly less sugar,
but they're essentially indistinguishable. So don't tell
me that women don't do technology. babka had to solve a
three dimensional construction puzzle with limited tools and
almost no spare material to practice on. Remember that
definition of technology, a manner of accomplishing a task
especially using technical processes, methods or knowledge.
Sewing is a highly specialised task involving spatial
reasoning, manual dexterity and attention to detail. This is
technology. After a very stressful learning curve,
capture succeeded. She was thrilled the uniform was
accepted by the school and that acceptance was seen as a major
accolade. My dad was one of the first published children from
the camp to go to the local Grammar School and he could go
dressed as the other boy Were his blazer it was a different
colour to the others because cloth was expensive and they
couldn't afford the right colour, and it makes them easy
to identify on the school photograph, but he was set on
the path to a good education. After that, the sewing machine
had a central place in their hut. Once badger had run the
gauntlet of the blazer test, she did dressmaking and taught other
women to sew. My dad and his sister were also taught to use
the machine. And babka was still sewing on that sewing machine
when I first saw it 30 years later. She died when I was
seven, so I never got to ask her about it. But even as a young
child, it was clear to me that this technology was an important
part of his life. The cultural gender split of technologies is
most interesting when the rules so called are stretched. Did
anyone else notice that once the age of the male celebrity chef
came along, kitchen mixers and blenders suddenly started to be
made of brushed steel I'm sure that is not a coincidence, the
machine is the same, but when you make it out of the
industrial looking material, it's suddenly easier for a man
to own the kitchen. This is about appearance, not substance.
We all eat food. There's no reason why one gender should be
better than the other when it comes to preparing it. It's just
we've got ourselves stuck in this weird reality where half
the population aren't supposed to do some things. I'm told that
the mining industry tries hard to recruit female drivers for
their gigantic mining trucks because they drive more
carefully and so the phenomenally expensive trucks
don't have to be repaired as often.
The men are perfectly capable of driving more carefully, but
culturally, they apparently don't feel over to don't feel
able to
culture is the obstacle here not ability or well.
When I was a PhD student, I brought back to sewing machine
to my house in Cambridge. I cleaned up the yarn and the word
to replace the needles and the spools oil, the mechanism and
tease the machine and action. It wasn't that far from what I
spent my days doing as an experimental physicist, I did a
particularly mechanical PhD project and I spent a lot of
time in the student workshop, constructing experimental
components. lathes, done saws and milling machines, with the
tools of the experimental trade for me. Once I thought the
sewing machine was working again,
I bought some fabric and hand the tablecloth.
The machine was a bit tricky to use the foot, which is the bit
holding down the fabric where the next stitch will go was
slightly loose. And I think the age prevented it from tightening
properly,
but the machines still worked.
I cannot pick a single general skill, like spatial reasoning,
for example, that I needed to renovate that machine that is
not also needed to sell a piece of clothing and vice versa. It
is all construction. The distinction is just what you've
had experience in. At the time it never occurred to me that the
tasks were different. I had a fascinating piece of mechanical
equipment and I wanted the challenge Just getting it
working again and sewing something by pedal power. My mum
taught me to sew, but she also taught me to programme a
computer and to renovate with the furniture. I've always liked
making things and that includes slicing broke baking cakes,
building hydrophone arrays, making theatre, props, knitting
hats, and the large scale construction of an 11 metre buoy
to deploy and storms at sea. All it takes is an interest in
solving physical problems and a willingness to learn. I failed
far more than I've succeeded, but I don't mind because that's
how you learn. Learning is fun. Technology is fun. Culture is a
fabulous human invention at its best when it gives us the
framework to cooperate as a society on massive projects. The
skeleton of society, the structure holding up our
civilization is made of things like libraries, cities,
healthcare, internet, international travel and global
trade. And they're all vast cooperative. Prevent surprises.
But the downside is that sometimes culture holds us back.
It's nurture and not nature that is preventing women from welding
and men from icing cakes. The tasks are demonstrably very
similar in terms of the basic skills needed.
I believe very strongly that both men and women
should feel able to participate in all the wonderful types of
technology that we've created from programming and Raspberry
Pi to making a Raspberry Pi, the one you eat, let's not restrict
anyone, we should encourage everyone to use their creativity
and manual skills to construct whatever we need or want and to
have all the freedom fun that that involves. If you look back
through history, you'll see that many of the tasks traditionally
done by women are technological. We don't have such a large
barrier to overcome here. We've got the track record to prove we
can do this. We just haven't seen it that way. History is
full of examples hidden in plain sight, just like that. Women
have been solving technological problems just as long as men
have. It's not just the female computers who did the
calculations that helped break the Enigma code, or the
seamstresses that made NASA's first spacesuits, sewing,
knitting, food gathering and preparation, cleaning and
running a household also involve technology. This might come
across as a bit of a weird idea. If you're not quite with me on
this point yet, go and have a look at the definition of
technology. Think of the list of technological skills that are
generally considered male. And ask yourself how many of those
are needed to do tasks that are traditionally female, I think
you'll find it's all of them. And just for good measure, do
the same thing the other way around. baking a cake suddenly
seems awfully similar to granting tiles. Anyone who can
do one can probably do the other. It's time to be honest
about what technology is and to give everyone the credit they
deserve for working on all sorts of technology. problems. To
build the future. We need everyone to do their bit. We
cannot afford to exclude either half of the population from the
tasks needed to make the world a better place. But it's okay
because we don't have to. Both men and women are brilliant to
technology. Both men and women are brilliant at technology, and
history shows that so that's all celebrated, preferably by
lifting a 3d printed cup
filled with homemade elderberry wine.
Cheers