I'm open to all point of view and fields on his subject : history, art, science, social studies, gender studies, etc.
I would guess that one theory could be that throughout history women have been associated with perishable art forms in general, which have been considered inferior to those performed with more time-enduring materials (which also contributes to erasure of women's contribution to art and cultural heritage in general). I cannot provide you references at this point, but i am sure that any book on art history and gender would have some reflections on this.
In fact, I already get some answers, but I'm more interest by knowing people opinions on that field...
women are smarter than men and realized long ago that it wasn't enough to wrap oneself in an oddly shaped skin from a hunted animal. through experimentation they discovered several methods of weaving and fabric took off from there. i think you have also to consider men's preoccupations - which generally didn't include sitting at a loom to weave.
but women took to the weaving process as a way to create beauty (in addition to making fabric for clothing) and developed their skills to the highest levels.
in 9thc japan weavers had extremely long fingernails which were used to lift certain warp threads for the patterns in the fabric. you have to admire them because they memorized patterns the repeats of which were as much as six feet in length, and for every line of weft the warp threads going up or down had to be remembered precisely.
it is also worth noting that the development of textiles and the development of clothing are intimately related: areas in which the loom was prominent from an early time generally estroyed as little of the fabric as possible in the service of clothing: kimonos, saris, etc - with china being the exception because of their early sophistication and their love of embroidery. in the european world patterns were cut and sewn together much more frequently.
it's interesting as well to note that when weaving became an industry, men took over - in lyon, italy (lake como region) and london's spitalfields it was men doing much of the weaving, though the very finest patterns were created by women such as anna maria garthwaite.
and let's remember that haute couture was taken on by men as their metier, though women have delineated their own patch.
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