Women's work @museum.de

Many strong men were out and about in the Königshain granite quarries. But that doesn't mean that no women worked here. They were responsible for the kitchen and canteen or took care of the office work. But! There were also women who went into the quarries or worked the stones directly. Sometimes they were very young girls, just 16, or older women who came here every day at the age of 70. Unlike their male colleagues, they had no vocational training. That's why they were used for simple unskilled work: they used long hammers to break the stone waste into gravel, they polished stones or pushed the lorries in which the granite was brought down to the quarries. This was at least as strenuous as the men's work. But because women had no training, they were not covered by health insurance. So they had to see for themselves how they dealt with injuries or stayed reasonably healthy.

I just don't understand it. Why were working human women worse off than men for so long? We foxes don't know that. Because if the vixens are sick or dead afterwards - that doesn't make any sense at all...

Women were allowed to go home at lunchtime on the long working days, which often lasted 12 hours in summer. Not to take a break, but to do the housework. Since 1891, certain protective measures were in place for women, after which they were not allowed to be used for the physically heaviest work in the quarry or for transportation. However, exceptions were granted time and again. And during the war, when more and more men had to go to the front, the work was left to them anyway. It was only when the hard physical labor was largely performed by machines that women were offered better positions, for example as so-called “turners”. This was a typical job in quarries from the middle of the 20th century onwards, as the smooth operation of crane systems required these women and men to make sure that the path for the trolleys hovering over the heads of the workers in the quarries was clear and that no one could be injured.