Women and Gender in the Mines: Challenging Masculinity Through History: An Introduction

The role of women as mineworkers and as household workers has been erased. Here, we challenge the masculinity associated with the mines, taking a longer-term and a global labour history perspective. We foreground the importance of women as mineworkers in different parts of the world since the early...

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Published in:International review of social history Vol. 65; no. 2; pp. 191 - 230
Main Authors: Romano, Rossana Barragán, Papastefanaki, Leda
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.08.2020
Subjects:
18th century
19th century
20th century
Automation
Children
Coal
Coal industry
Coal mining
Developing countries
Division of labor
Early modern period
Families & family life
Female roles
Females
Gender
Gold
Historiography
Households
Housework
Ideology
Industrial Revolution
Informal economy
Labor history
LDCs
Masculinity
Mechanization
Minerals
Miners
Mines
Mining industry
Mothers
Silver
Silver mines
Social history
Special Theme: Women and Gender in Mining: Challenging Masculinity through History
Topic and comment
Wives
Women
Brazil
Colombia
Europe
ISSN:0020-8590, 1469-512X
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The role of women as mineworkers and as household workers has been erased. Here, we challenge the masculinity associated with the mines, taking a longer-term and a global labour history perspective. We foreground the importance of women as mineworkers in different parts of the world since the early modern period and analyse the changes introduced in coal mining in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the masculinization and mechanization, and the growing importance of women in contemporary artisanal and small-scale mining. The effect of protective laws and the exclusion of women from underground tasks was to restrict women's work more to the household, which played a pivotal role in mining communities but is insufficiently recognized. This process of “de-labourization” of women's work was closely connected with the distinction between productive and unproductive labour. This introductory article therefore centres on the important work carried out in the household by women and children. Finally, we present the three articles in this Special Theme and discuss how each of them is in dialogue with the topics addressed here. Many thanks also to Marie-José Spreeuwenberg for her invaluable engagement.
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ISSN:0020-8590
1469-512X
DOI:10.1017/S0020859019000774