Women and the Miners' Strike, 1984-1985 by Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, Florence; Thomlinson, Natalie;

GET 10% OFF
The discount is only available for 'Alert of Favourite Topics' newsletter recipients.

Publisher's listprice GBP 36.49
The price is estimated because at the time of ordering we do not know what conversion rates will apply to HUF / product currency when the book arrives. In case HUF is weaker, the price increases slightly, in case HUF is stronger, the price goes lower slightly.

17 433 Ft (16 602 Ft + 5% VAT)
Discount 10% (cc. 1 743 Ft off)
Discounted price 15 689 Ft (14 942 Ft + 5% VAT)

17 433 Ft

Availability

printed on demand

Product details:

Publisher OUP Oxford
Date of Publication 5 October 2023

ISBN 9780192843098
Binding Hardback
No. of pages298 pages
Size 240x160x20 mm
Weight 632 g
Language English
Illustrations 27 black and white images

Short description:

Examines the stories of more than 100 women and their varied experiences during the miners' strike of 1984-1985 to shed new light on working-class women's relationship to the 'political' and the 'ordinary', and demonstrate the ways in which gender roles, working-class lifestyles, and coalfield communities changed across post-war Britain.

Long description:

Just days into the miners' strike of 1984-1985, a few women in coalfield communities around Britain began to meet to consider how they could support the strike, a clash with the Thatcher government over the future of the coal industry. Women ultimately formed a national network of groups that some observers saw as an 'alternative welfare state', helping to keep the strike going for just under a year. This book is the first study of this national movement, illuminating its achievements, but also telling the less well-known story of arguments and divisions with men in the National Union of Mineworkers and feminists in the women's liberation movement. Many women in the movement, despite their activism, resolutely denied that they were 'political' at all, defining themselves as 'ordinary' women, housewives, mothers, and workers; and, despite some claims that women activists had been transformed for ever by their experiences, most of those involved felt they had been changed only in more subtle ways.

Women and the Miners' Strike is also the first to look beyond the activists to study the experiences of the majority of women in mining families who did not get involved in activism. Some of these women supported the strike by going out to work themselves to keep their families going; others supported their menfolk with practical and emotional support in the home. A large number were ambivalent about the dispute, even though the experiences of women whose husbands or fathers worked through the strike, or returned to work early, have generally been almost entirely obscured within popular memory. This book therefore also demonstrates how some women whose husbands broke the strike refashioned concepts like democracy and community to justify their actions, and how some even formed their own support groups to aid other women in their communities who found themselves under fire for opposing the strike.

Through examining the stories of more than 100 women and their varied experiences during the strike, the book sheds new light on working-class women's relationship to the 'political' and the 'ordinary', and demonstrates the ways in which gender roles, working-class lifestyles, and coalfield communities changed in Britain over the post-war period.

Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, who with Natalie Thomlinson wrote Women and the Miners' Strike, 1984-1985, the first national examination of the role of women,using interviews with more than 100 of those involved, highlight how crucial miners' wives were to keeping the bitter struggle going for a year.

Introduction
Before the strike
Early days: Spring 1984
High noon: Summer 1984
Crisis and drift: Autumn 1984
Flood back to defeat: Winter 1984-1985
Aftermath
Remembering the strike
Appendix I: Details of project interviewees
Appendix II: Details of key sociological studies of the strike and aftermath
Appendix III: Chronology