As surely as the furnace would go out without fuel, the furnace worker could not have gone on without the food provided by women. Meals ranged from the elaborate delicacies that came out of the ironmaster's kitchen to the plain fair that a woodcutter might bring with him into the forest. In the growing season, much of a man's food might have come out of the family's garden, milk cow or hen house. In the winter the majority probably came from the Hopewell store. No matter how plain or fancy, home grown or store bought, it was almost always a woman who did the gardening, milking, chicken tending, shopping and cooking to make these meals possible.
People are a lot like chickens.
The roosters do all the crowing, and the hens do all of the work. As a society, we have always placed a value on each other's station in life. These values are often dependent upon how many people are practicing a trade and how dirty the tasks are. Take for example the dirty job of farming. Back when most Americans farmed, those who worked in soil were taken for granted.