The craft of weaving baskets; sometimes used humorously to refer to an easy or unserious subject.
From 'basket' + 'weaving'. A compound gerund that became a cultural idiom.
'Basket weaving' became a joke about useless college courses, but ironically, medieval basketweavers needed serious math—they had to calculate angles, proportions, and material tensile strength!
'Basketweaving' entered English as a gendered term strongly associated with women's domestic or artistic labor; it later became colloquially used to trivialize certain academic fields (often those with women students/faculty).
Use 'basketweaving' for the actual craft with respect; avoid using it dismissively to describe educational or professional pursuits, as this perpetuates gender-based devaluation.
["basket artistry","basket craft","textile weaving"]
Women basketweavers are master technicians whose work spans functional design, color theory, material science, and cultural meaning-making; the term should honor this, not trivialize it.
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