Women’s liberation and the miners strike 40 years on

[Karensalright]

Local radio making a podcast, recorded today at my house with my striking miner husband. For the forty years on thing. Brought it all back to me. There was a song we working class women sang,

there were a few lines in it i thought you all might like. From we are women we are strong, a miners wives song

”we don’t need government approval for anything we do
we don’t need their permission to have a point of view
we don’t need anyone to tell us what to think or say
we have strength enough and wisdom of our own
to go our own way”

thats my outburst for today ….sob sob .

@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 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.

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.

@LarkLane Well i couldn’t have said it better myself. Thanks for the rage i was able to calm myself on a long drive, but glad you gave it what for.

@NumberTheory Feminism has many expressions, and comes from women crossing socio economic strata, and political strata. The only thing that binds feminists together is women’s oppression, and women’s rights nothing else.

The history of the miners wives role is very important for feminism. Women especially up north were excluded from the first wave of feminism because it was populated largely by reasonably well off middle class and intellectual types. Also true of the suffragettes.

In the miners strike Thatcher expected miners wives to push their men back, but they did not.

They came out of the kitchens, stood on picket lines, collected money and food and spoke on public podiums. They found themselves and their voices.

And what is more their husbands eyes were opened, they saw the power of women, and knew they could not hold out without them. They stopped buying newspapers with page three in it and started educating themselves, as did the women.

Maybe you should do so too. Women and boys were being protected from exploitation, by the mining companies, thats why you couldn't go down a pit.

Silly person that you are for sure

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

takes all sorts i guess i wish they just knew when to bugger off to some other board.

Anyway i don’t think i could stand to listen to the podcast that caused my post as it will also feature the majority of spenerites, who i am told by the producer gave plenty of lame excuses, including that the men in my area were just lazy. LOL

Spencerites

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.

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.

@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.

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.

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

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.

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

Again you are denying women their autonomy and as said in various posts up thread support from Labour was virtually nil, so how was the labour movement using women.

And again you imply that women only acted at the instigation of the miners rather than from a position that, irrespective of any power balance in a marriage / family, women valued their community and didn't want it destroyed.

What do you think the women in mining communities should have done that would have advanced women as a sex class?

I'm not saying that the women in mining communities should have done anything to advance women as a sex class. I've expressed understanding about why they would want to support the strike even though I see it as supporting a group of men who engaged in the oppression of women.

I'm saying that what they engaged in was not a feminist fight and them being women doesn't alter that.

And again you imply that women only acted at the instigation of the miners rather than from a position that, irrespective of any power balance in a marriage / family, women valued their community and didn't want it destroyed.

On this articular point, if the women in mining communities had taken a feminist approach instead of centering men and trying to keep the status quo, they may have actually found ways to save their communities. Most likely not, because the sustained attack on working class lives was not just aimed at shutting down mines and sexism was not limited to labour unions. But they were strong and resourceful with incredible stamina so who knows. The women at Greenham Common had a fairly big impact on the country by taking a very different and women centered approach, though they didn't achieve their aim of nuclear disarmament, they changed the national and international dialogue about nuclear arms and helped build public opinion against the nuclear proliferation that the UK and US had been investing in. With the end of the cold war, it was a timely and effective movement.

Such an interesting thread. Thanks OP! I will come back and get lost in the links.

It's weird for me, I was quite young at the time and I think it was my first real introduction to the RL concept of relative truths. We're a family of Union/mill and mine/Labour ancestors. I still remember my gentle, sweet grandfather screaming at the TV about Thatcher. But my parents moved and I lived in South London at the time, with a best friend whose dad was a police officer. Nice bloke, helped me out of a few nasty scrapes.

Our truth was one thing. My friend's truth was quite another.

I wish @NumberTheory would just leave this thread. I dont want her twisted speak here.

This is about working class women whose consciousness was raised by the act of standing for the working class, seeing that oppression emanated from the state, and not individual men. And how traumatised we we're looking back by the backlash from the state and the strike breakers, the shizms in communities at that time

The concept of women as a sex class didn’t exist in the 80’s. In the early 80s i read spare rib and watched the feminist movement (as some kind of cohesive movement) fall apart at the seams as the conflict between the various strands of feminism heightened

(interestingly one of the issues was women supporting the state of Isreal dare not use the z word, feminists) and finished US off for quite a while. Feminism mostly re groped itself in the trade unions, and political parties, (notably not in the Conservative Party who had no women's group) plus the for women by women services, and in academia. So anywhere women occupied as a group, where their voice was allowed they formed.

The Pankhursts actually split over class issues with Emily leading the workers socialist federation which broadened out over the years.

Germaine Greer in one of her later books stated she should not clean her own house ( presumably some ignorant female pleb should do it for her)

Some would argue that feminism rode on the back of the working class because any in roads in to women’s rights were achieved by trade unions.

Where am i?

Women are now grouping over GC issues, and there are notable women in this movement. women's rights to safe spaces etc, women who quite rightly so call out left misogyny I do not necessarily agree with their wider views. But i totally support their objectives.

We as women have to learn from the history of feminism, to join a thread to pretty much pillory miners wives is beyond tragic, we need to form unity around current issues for all women, not get in fissty cuffs about our experiences and allegiances.

I was thinking of posting about this separately but het ho this is my thread

This is about working class women whose consciousness was raised by the act of standing for the working class, seeing that oppression emanated from the state, and not individual men. And how traumatised we we're looking back by the backlash from the state and the strike breakers, the shizms in communities at that time

Which is a history worth telling. Doesn't make it a fight that had aims that were good for women as a sex class (and yes, the idea of women as a sex class was around in the 80s - it's the framing of feminism that I grew up with). I didn't see the schisms you talk about in the 70s. I grew up in an area with a strong women's movement that provided camaraderie and support and didn't seem to have fallen apart. I presumably missed that part and benefited (as we all do) from the women who came before me rebuilding.

We as women have to learn from the history of feminism, to join a thread to pretty much pillory miners wives is beyond tragic, we need to form unity around current issues for all women, not get in fissty cuffs about our experiences and allegiances.

I haven't joined the thread to pillory miners' wives. I've joined because I'm interested in the history, it ran parallel to and intersected with my own life, it had an impact on me and I have my experience, as a girl growing up in those times, to add to that.

@NumberTheory zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz