Yes, I think it was a fiction short story. The professor choose it to further her politcal agenda I’m sure.
IMHO, breaking dishes = metaphor for riots, looting, arson.
Since at least the Middle Ages, the rabble periodically turned to destroying what the “upper class” had (burning manors, expropriating livestock, etc., because their vision is limited to resentment and levelling down. Metaphorically, the dishes were the instruments of the maid’s oppression, but also the reason she had employment, without which she would be homeless and starving (oops!). The professor probably saw it as clever self-empowerment.