Women’s liberation and the miners strike 40 years on

Your closing comments are very patronising. If the miners had won and the mines stayed open the signifigance would have been how the experience of the women who self organised then decided to live.

You are implying that they would just do back to being domestic doormats.

I was not saying this at all. I was talking about how such a win, politically, would impact women as a class, not miners' wives or other women who were involved in the strike action. As members of the labour movement women have, time and again, found their voices and used them to support men. The stories of their lives have shown what courageous, strong women they were. It does not always show that they were fighting for women's liberation, though.

We see this now with many women supporting TRAs to their own (and our) detriment. They are women finding their voices, organizing and protesting, getting involved in committees and policy groups. But they aren't serving women as a class well.

We generally think of women's liberation as tied up with the left and the labour movement. Yet we are betrayed time and again by that movement. As working class women we have a need to fight for workers rights too, but when the labour movement uses the oppression of women, as the miners did, to shore up the position of working class men our loyalties can become split. In part because our immediate well being is sometimes tied more closely to our menfolk doing well than to women as a class doing well. In part because, as working class women a strong labour movement seems obviously important, solidarity is valued for good reason. And in part because we grow up in a social and political environment where this is expected of us and we go along with it regardless of how it really affects us as women.

The miners' strike and Greenham Common were the backdrop of my teens and demonstrated feminism in action to me personally (also a very deep seated distrust in the Tories).
My personal family history was destroyed by the cotton mills. I remember hearing about the Sheffield steel industry as well: so much has been erased.
Kudos @Karensalright

They mean so much that you understand.

Thanks for the thanks, but in truth I am the beneficiary of the many women I have worked and talked with over some decades who have shaped how I now think and feel.

@IwantToRetire thank you for your supportive and well written contributions. They mean so much that you understand.

Yes, you are right, Fords Dagenham was a landmark for women. A great friend of mine, devised the job evaluation scheme which brought them success. Yet Birmingham Council's women workers continue to be shamefully treated all these years later.

Alice Leonard, then Head of the Legal Department at the EOC, wrote a book called Pyhrric Victories back around 1984, it still rings true in 2023. Perhaps, not so often now.

I think what you are talking about is a rather linier equal rights analysis.

Feminism or more specifically Women's Liberaiont was / is about enabling women in what ever sphere to act autonomously and on their own initiative. That they were organising around the work of men isn't the issue.

Many of the "equal rights" women campaign around are in fact little more than allowing women to fit into a world that is by and for men. Giving women maternity leave, or flexible working is very much about women not having a free choice, but about being forced to fit into a male world.

On one level you could say that all women who get married or set up a home with men are not helping women as a class, because they are adapting to a male world.

Your closing comments are very patronising. If the miners had won and the mines stayed open the signifigance would have been how the experience of the women who self organised then decided to live.

You are implying that they would just do back to being domestic doormats.

As I keep saying no amount of saying the right thing in terms of equality yard sticks matches the experience of women finding they can be autonomous and organise with other women.

Something that currently what passes for feminism is sadly lacking.

They self organised, they reached out and engaged with communities in parts of the UK who they were not linked to, as well as doing important financial work.

And in terms of feminism as a practice, rather than some theoretical exercise is lights years away in actually being a feminist than sitting at a keyboard, quoting figures, or having enough money to fly to FiLia.

How are you not able to see that?

I see that it is political. That miners’ wives became politically active and effective. It is not feminist if what you are fighting for is something that increases the oppression of women. And the miners in the 80s along with the NUM were very much a part of the patriarchy and the system of oppression that kept women in their place. That those women went on to fight feminist fights is the reason it’s an important part of feminist history. But that political birth was not feminist. If the NUM had won - pits had stayed open and miners kept their jobs - women as a class would not have been well served.

What of the initial post do you think my comments have invalidated?

You've just done it again. Do you really think the women involved weren't aware of their economic dependency, etc., etc..

The point I made, as others have, is that in response to the situation they women didn't just sit at home in passive defeat.

They self organised, they reached out and engaged with communities in parts of the UK who they were not linked to, as well as doing important financial work.

And in terms of feminism as a practice, rather than some theoretical exercise is lights years away in actually being a feminist than sitting at a keyboard, quoting figures, or having enough money to fly to FiLia.

How are you not able to see that?

If only more women today were prepared to be that politically active, we might not be at a stage of being erased.

It was the same during Covid, most of the food kitchens and other community support work was innitiated and carried out by working class women and women from BME communities, as opposed to the middle class "mutual aid" movement whcih was little more than being in a whatsapp group.

What of the initial post do you think my comments have invalidated?

I am talking about us not calling out the way these actions were a part of a male supremacy that was oppressive to women.

Failing to mention that women were acting as supporters for men. Fighting men's fights when men weren't prepared to fight women's. Ignoring the blatant oppression from our fathers, husbands, brothers and son's because we were caught up economically in a world they created that excluded and subjugated us.

While I can understand not feeling able to get out of the economic oppression that trapped them, I'm not prepared to stand back while it's talked about as a time of solidarity for women without pointing out it was not feminist to support and fight for this oppressive culture. It supported men who hurt women as a class even if it felt like the only choice in a system where some of those women had few other economic recourses (in part because they lived in communities where the major source of decent wages was a job they were legally excluded from doing).

It seems more and more threads on FWR are unable to explore an issue without some sort of need to invalidate what has been said.

It may not have been a "feminist" issue, but in terms of women self organising and becoming autonomous groups, it was totally feminist. And not only did other women at the time learn from that, but quite honestly a lot more feminists today could learn from it, instead of being a virtual feminist, or flying to FiLia!!

Its a bit like saying the Dagenham Strike wasn't really feminist because it was about accepting women doing low paid (but obviously not unskilled) work.

And why would anyone think the NUM would be any more woman friendly than any other union, let alone work place or university at that time.

Again a bit off topic, but (without checking the name) one of the more recent Councils to go bankrupt was because a long running dispute, ending in a legal case, to secure equal pay for women employee was sucessful. (And previously last year or so another council, did as well.) Always surprised more hasn't been written about this. How so much whether council and council services is based on underpaying women. ie not much has changed, it just isn't so stark.

But I disagree with the framing that supporting the miners was a particularly feminist goal or in any way a stand against the oppression of women

But no one on this thread said that - for goodness sake! You are making stuff up.

You are attributing comments to posters that were not made, along with making claims about "nostalgia" and "celebrating" being on strike. None of that has been said on here at all.

You seem to have plopped on the thread to pour scorn on the women who struggled and organised within their communities through those dark days. We should have rolled over and let the pits close without a murmer should we?

According to you, it seems that If only we had all gone back in time and argued for going down t'pit on a 12 hour shift, instead of fighting and campaigning to feed our families by keeping the pits open, all would have been right in your world. You would have been a professional university educated Mining Engineer and not have had to work in a shitty job in a factory run by trade union bosses.

Righto.

No, women were not being protected from exploitation. They were being stopped from taking men’s jobs. There is nothing “silly” about being angry that a career choice was taken from me.

Growing up as a working class girl in a factory town in the Midlands in the 80s, I’m aware of the struggle working class women had to access and avail themselves of feminism. And I recall the way working class men were much more of a barrier to accessing power than middle class feminists, even if those middle class feminists were not very aware of the struggles and needs of working class women. I remember the working men’s clubs that wouldn’t accept women as members. I worked the jobs in factories and on shop floors that were segregated by sex - enforced as much by the male workers and the Union as the management, especially as the jobs began to go. Even now, the Unions in the UK are still bastions of sex discrimination.

I do understand that a lot of women found strength during the miners’ strike and that many went on to do a lot with the voices they found then. That that history is a part of feminism’s history. I’m glad to see women’s history being told. But I disagree with the framing that supporting the miners was a particularly feminist goal or in any way a stand against the oppression of women.

Women recalling a traumatic period in recent history where they saw the communities they lived in devastated and turn in upon each other, is hardly them being "nostalgic". Neither do I see anyone "celebrating" a strike. It was a hellish time, with women coming together to try to feed their families and fight the closures. What a sneery, ill informed post above.

Most of the women in those communities left school between 14 and 16. Yet a pp thinks that they should have been fighting to go to work underground, for the so called equal right to an early death from various lung and other diseases, poor health, working a shitty dangerous job at the coal face? Just like the women and children back in 1842? Further condemned by the ILO internationally until the 21st century? Of course there wasn't a horde of mostly, poorly, educated women demanding to go underground to enable your degree and career choice. Fuck's sake.

You think that they would have had equal pay if they had fought to go down pits that were being closed? Or would they have been employed on lower wages by the employers and the men laid off? It's not a great read to see a so-called feminist blaming working class women for the fact that NumberTheory didn't get to wear a white hard hat and carry a clipboard and pen in her nice posh clean overall? What utter utter rot.

The NUM, (for all it's faults), was concerned with the pay and conditions, health, safety, and welfare of "blue collar" miners, NOT university educated mining engineers. University educated mining engineers were represented by OTHER unions, so NumberTheory's complaint, more rightly, would have been with the likes of the British Association of Colliery Management, The National Winding Engineers Society, Nacods, National Coal Board representatives etc. Lay your blame there. They are the ones who didn't want women doing THEIR jobs.

In 1989 The Employment Act replaced sections of the Coal Mines Act 1842 and the Mines and Quarries Act of 1954. Women could go underground to work technical mine site jobs. So NumberTheory wasn't prevented by the universities, women in mining communities, nor the NUM, from following her chosen career.

The pits were systematically closed down by Thatcher's Government, while the TUC and Labour leaderships looked on.Ultimately, there were no fucking jobs to be had.

So I have a hard time getting nostalgic about or celebrating the miners' strike from a feminist perspective. Always felt all those women working to support the miners without demanding support for women to be allowed down mines were letting us down (pp)

Give your head a wobble. Shame on you for sneering at the OP for what she, and so many thousands went through, both striking and non striking. It was living hell for them all which lasted decades. It's not "nostalgia" to talk about it here.
Don't blame other women who lost so much, in so many ways, to try to justify your own shortcomings. You are no feminist if that's what you do.

I was a teen at the time of the miner's strike and while very much a Labour supporter, I was always pretty pissed off at the Women's Movement support for the miners because they were one of the few jobs that women were still legally banned from doing and the NUM was vociferously against any attempts to change that.

I wanted to do Mining Engineering at uni and while I could do the course in theory, there were basically no women on the courses I applied to because they couldn't get jobs in the UK after they graduated.

So I have a hard time getting nostalgic about or celebrating the miners' strike from a feminist perspective. Always felt all those women working to support the miners without demanding support for women to be allowed down mines were letting us down.

@Karensalright
@Doormatnomore I'm so sorry your Grandad didn't live to enjoy his retirement. Life expectancy was always poor for miners. Dangerous, dirty, and health damaging job. A good many never even reached State Pension age.
I'd forgotten about the coal for widows. Good for your Gran for getting 30 years worth out of the feckers.

I’m not 40 but the NUM was like a presence in my family all my life. My gran died in her 90’s and one of the final things we did was to stop her “coal money”. As a widow she got the equivalent of a bag of coal a week after my grandad died. 30+ years. Can you imagine a union with that might now?

I remember as an upstart student listening to everyone saying where there family made money (terribly posh) and I said actually they all made if off of the back of my family (miners). When my granny heard she told everyone to the point it was quite embarrassing. They don’t make them like ger anymore.

Reading the OP and the additional posts brings so much back to me after all this time. Kinnock and the TUC's shameful betrayals. The conversations I had with wives, children, family members. The events and violence I witnessed. The waving of the payslips from police officers and others overwhelmed with their overtime payments.

I hear you @Karensalright.

As Jack London said in 1915.
Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. Judas Iscariot sold his saviour for thirty pieces of silver. Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of a commission in the British Army. The modern strikebreaker sells his birthright, his country, his wife, his children, and his fellow men for an unfulfilled promise from his employer, trust, or corporation.

Starmer praising Thatcher? FFS. Privileged weasel, who can't even speak up for Rosie Duffield.

Did anyone read John McTernans piece in the Guardian? Basically thinks Starmer's praise of Thatcher a bit pointless. Look at the polls - Tories are on around 25%. These are the diehards who are not swing voters. Unless they swing to Reform or whatever Farage party shows up.

The 40+% that support Labour want real change not warm words about the architect of Britain's current misery.
And McTernan was an advisor to Tony Blair...

Oh God, yes. I heard that today. The last nail in Starmer’s coffin as far as I’m concerned. What an insult to the Labour Party and all its voters.

A bit off topic, but sort of related.

Apparently Starmer has written an article praising Maggie Thatcher.

I have never been a Labour Party member but remember feeling embarrassed for Labour when they voted in the value free, please like me, Tony Blair.

And now Starmer saying this. I dont know which is worse. That he actually believes it, or is just saying it to get Tory votes.

Apart from used of armed force to breack the miners strike, Thatcher over saw the sale of council housing one of the main reasons we have a housing crisis now. And broke the covenant post WWII that we all deserved decent housing.

I just despair.

It is such an insult to those, whether through unions or work associations, have tried collectively to improve working conditions for those soley dependent on their weekly wage.

Or is it that now every thing is shallow.

Not meaning to derail the thread, but saying how this compares to the miners strike, and the women at Dagenham.

Sorry OP if you think this inappropriate.