Michael Perelman wrote:
>Yoshie, I knew that a good many of the early workers in textiles were
>women, but mining, comes as a surprise.
***** ...For example, in Japan women's work in the coal mines was
affected by recession after World War I, when more women became
redundant than men. Protective legislation introduced after World War
I left women working above ground. However, in 1939 these labour laws
were set aside because of the intense demand for labour and women
again worked underground. The prohibition of women's work in the
mines was restored in 1947 but they continued to sift the coal until
mechanization of this process in the 1960s. In this example the
interplay of political, economic and cultural factors can be seen
technology has an effect but within a specific social context
(Mathias, 1993: pp. 101-105; Saso, 1990: pp. 25-26)....
Mathias, Regina (1993), 'Female Labour in the Japanese Coal-mining
Industry', in Janet Hunter (ed.), Japanese Women Working, London and
New York, Routledge.
Saso, Mary (1990), Women in the Japanese Workplace, London, Hilary Shipman Ltd.
<http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu37we/uu37we09.htm> *****
Some, though not all, Japanese socialists (as well as women miners,
of course) fought against the exclusion of women from underground
mining.
Michael wrote:
>Were women miners common in Europe?
And Mine Aysen Doyran wrote:
>It may be true for Japan as it may be for other late capitalist
>developers. I don't think that Tsurimi's analysis applies to advanced
>capitalist countries though.
As a non-specialist in labor history, I have not been able to
undertake an exhaustive study, but I believe women miners (and women
industrial workers in general) were common in England & France before
the rise of "protective" legislations.
***** 3.3 The situation of miners and coal heavers at the end of
the 18thcentury
The working conditions of the colliers in the 18th century
(All page numbers refer to Flinn/Stoker's "History of the British
Coal Industry, Vol.2")...
... 3.3.2.2 Women in mines (p. 334/335)
There is evidence that like the men women mostly worked underground.
They were active as bearers transporting the coal their husbands had
cut. Working as a bearer was very hard and unhealthy. Later, even the
owners of mines tried to abolish women's underground labour. They
argued that these working-conditions transformed soft women into
"beasts of burthen". In 1842 they abolished women's work in mines.
Women's work was harder than men's....Compared to the men, who worked
ten hours daily, females had to work fifteen hours a day. They had to
carry heavy baskets filled with coal and transport them to the
surface on their backs. Therefore, they had to climb the stairs
innumerable times (p. 88-92/115)....
<http://www.ks.og.bw.schule.de/html/follett/miners.htm> *****
***** ...[T]he campaign to regulate female and child labour in the
coal mines...resulted in the 1842 Coal Mines Act, banning women and
boys under ten from working underground....
<http://humanities.uwe.ac.uk/corehistorians/social/text/kathc14.htm>
*****
***** ...Zola [1840-1902] also described [in Germinal] the
brutalising effects of women and children being employed underground,
to haul away the coal as the men dug it out. He was moved by the
plight of pit ponies who lived permanently in the dark tunnels down
the mine....
...The impact of the novel
With 'Germinal', Zola succeeded in making the impact he had planned.
He know that a dramatic novel would get polite society talking, where
boring reports of distant strikes in newspapers were just ignored.
Some critics were shocked at his brutish portrayal of the miners, and
deplored their morals - they "deserved what they got". Others said it
was an "old story" - things were no longer so bad. The novel was set
in the 1860s. By the 1880s when it was written, socialism and strikes
were a political force and had made some advances. Employing women
down mines was forbidden in 1874, though children of 12 still worked
a 12-hour day until the 1890s. Unions were legalised in 1884....
<http://www.theotherside.co.uk/tm-heritage/background/zola.htm>
*****
Beginning from 1919, the ILO advocated "protective" _& exclusionary_
policies such as "the prohibition of night work and certain
industrial processes that could endanger women's health in respect of
their role as mothers (work in salt or lead mines)"
<http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inst/papers/1996/dp87/>.
"The difficulty of denouncing antiquated conventions has, however,
posed problems for a number of ILO member countries, including
Sweden. It has denounced only a few, where the consequences of
continued ratification have been considered to be extremely serious
from a practical point of view or as a matter of principle. For
instance, Sweden denounced the convention prohibiting all underground
work by women in mines (No. 45) when it became a serious obstacle to
its policy of equality between men and women. Still, this ILO
convention from 1935 remains one of the most ratified, with
denunciations only from some countries with large mining industries"
<http://www.mcb.co.uk/services/articles/liblink/isr/myrdal.htm>.
In short, until the rise of "protective" legislations, women were
working in many currently male-dominated industries (including
underground mining), and the most important industry for early
capitalist development (textile) relied upon the predominantly female
workforce.
Yoshie
P.S. Many thanks to Colin Danby for his booknotes.
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