The work of women in the Inca Empire can be divided into three main areas of interest: the women who worked at home did domestic work, the women chosen to be a part of the Acllacunas, and the women who lived the ostracized life of prostitution. These were what the women of the Inca Empire had, not to choose from, but to be chosen for by the state. The work of women was decided for them anywhere between the ages of eight to ten years old from the different estimations in the research. The way that the government decided who would be set apart for the Acllacunas was to send representatives out into the towns and evaluate the beauty of the eight to ten year olds and the most beautiful of the town were set aside for training for the Acllacunas where they would weave fabric for the use of the Empire, or to be sacrificed. This came with the added duty to stay a virgin the whole time or face such punishments, such as being buried alive with the male who was discovered to have taken her virginity.

The Acllacunas not only taught these women how to weave cloth for the empire, but they also were trained in the arts of cooking and brewing. They would spend four years in the acllahuasi, translated to the “House of the Chosen Women,” in this training and working for the government and religious services. The brewing they were trained in provided the liquor for religious purposes. The empire was able to use the undivided attention of these girls to produce massive amounts of fabric and liquor for use in the empire and for trade with neighboring groups. After the four years, the women would be reevaluated by what they were good at and were assigned to one of several jobs whether it be to be a concubine for the current ruler, as wives to be given to men who the ruler wanted to reward for one reason or another, to be a permanent worker for the Acllacunas, or to be given up for sacrifice.

An example of an Inca cloth.

Essentially, the best looking women were set aside for the ruler and his whimsy, the second tier of attraction and abilities were set aside for men the ruler wanted to keep good relations with, and the final group was to remain chaste and in service of the Inca Empire for the rest of their lives. Within the group that remained in service at the Acllacuna, there was a division along the lines of class structure with the upper-class women taking positions in administration while lower-class women were relegated to do the labor that they had been doing. At times higher class women were able to leave in order to enter into marriage, while the lower-class women were virtually stuck as laborers for the rest of their lives while also remaining virgins until they died. The girls who were not beautiful enough to be chosen for work and training in the Acllacuna were, for the most part, destined to become housewives for the common men of the Inca Empire. The girls married young and were quickly readied for their position in the family as the domestic workers; spinning, weaving, cleaning, cooking, some farming, and birthing and taking care of children were among common duties. Any free time away from other chores was spent spinning and weaving to provide the cloth necessary for the family to remain clothed. The cloth that has been traditionally produced by the native women of the Andes is famous for its durability and decoration as the methods and care taken in producing the cloth was very time and labor intensive. Some women were even employed in weaving shops where cloth would be produced in great amounts. The shops would be owned by men and also supervised by men, but the labor was done primarily by the women. It was almost like an early form of the sweatshops of the United States in the 1800s and the early 1900s, and in a lesser form, the sweatshops we know of today that are mass producing the clothes we wear. Weaving was clearly the main staple of women of the Inca Empire as they dedicated so much time and effort into making it and producing it with such unrivaled quality. Another job a common woman could take outside of housework is the typical position among women in many societies, that of the midwife. These women had the job of helping women through pregnancy and childbirth, and at times, they were also capable of carrying out abortions for women who were seeking to end pregnancies for various reasons. The final area for women to take up in the workforce of the Inca Empire was that of the prostitute or courtesan for the men seeking to have sex with women outside of their wives. These women were social outcasts as they were neither accepted by the men who paid for their services, or the women who were jealous of them taking their husbands and idealized to be better than the prostitutes. One interesting twist in the existence of these prostitutes was that they were overseen by the empire, meaning that the money not used to pay the prostitute was given to the state. In turn, the Inca would put a man in charge of protecting the women and taking in the money for their services, essentially an ancient pimp. In some way, the prostitute was the most independent of the groups of women who had their set niche in society amongst the work of the Inca Empire.