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Judith Bennett: Female Brewsters in Medieval England
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 | Judith Bennett, Martha Nell Hardy Distinguished Professor at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, draws what she calls
"troubling parallels" between businesswomen in the past and
businesswomen today. To illustrate, she depicts a tale of failed entrepreneurship by
female beer brewers, or brewsters, in late medieval England. In the 1300s, almost
all women brewed ale for sale occasionally, and some were committed to brewing as a
business enterprise—but their businesses were minimally profitable. Over time, as
brewing became a large-scale enterprise, it also became a men's trade.
"Between 1350 and 1600," says Bennett, "English women
were unable to take advantage of the opportunities that arose as their old
low-profit and low-status trade became a new, skilled, profitable, and prestigious
industry."
"It is not clear to me how brewsters could have responded
better to the expansion of their trade in the late fourteenth century,"
concludes Bennett. "And it's also, I'm sorry to say, not clear how female
entrepreneurs can compete on a level playing field today."
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