This thesis is a study of working-class women and their paid employment between the temporal limits c.1945 and c.1971. Centralising women’s experiences, three distinct methodologies – statistical analysis, archival research, and oral history – discretely delivered, explore changing patterns of women’s employment. Four case studies of northern industrial towns and cities – Glasgow, Dundee, Newcastle, and Preston – are used to test the notion of regional distinctiveness and its survival into the twentieth-century. Statistical analysis of women’s labour market participation demonstrates convergence of regional differences. Women’s participation in paid work was augmented across the country, and married women became an increasing part of the labour force. In industrial towns which historically employed large numbers of married women, such as Preston and Dundee, women’s experiences converged with those of cities, such as Newcastle and Glasgow, with strong heavy industry traditions. Economic restructuring entailed women’s concentration in service and clerical occupations, compared to manufacturing, such as textiles and ‘light’ engineering. Until 1970 at least, mothers increasingly returned to employment part-time, contrasting with previous generations of female breadwinners who worked full-time. The provision of childcare sits at the site of a series of arguments about mother’s employment, maternal deprivation, and social problems. National policy lines were rarely drawn around encouraging women into work. An archival method, exploring local authority nurseries and nursery schools, and private nurseries illustrates meagre provision. Women’s continued use of childminders and informal care evidences a demand for provision which was not adequately met by the state. Oral history interviews found few women used local authority childcare, partly because of stringent admittance criteria and the stigma attached. The fundamental argument of this thesis focuses on working-class women and situates their experiences, sense of self, and personal struggles against family and societal expectations at the core of the profound changes in women’s working lives, in contrast to government policy and market economies. Oral history is the final methodology. Original oral history research testifies to work as part of the changing nature of the female self. However, it is emphasised that despite momentous transformation in women’s lives, gendered expectations were a limiting force on women’s ability to break free from a confining domesticity and unsatisfying work.

This thesis examines the experiences and political subjectivity of women who engaged in workplace protest in Britain between 1968 and 1985. The study covers a period that has been identified with the ‘zenith’ of trade-union militancy in British labour history. The women’s liberation movement also emerged in this period, which produced a shift in public debates about gender roles and relations in the home and the workplace. Women’s trade union membership increased dramatically and trade unions increasingly committed themselves to supporting ‘women’s issues’. Industrial disputes involving working-class women have frequently been cited as evidence of women’s growing participation in the labour movement. However, the voices and experiences of female workers who engaged in workplace protest remain largely unexplored. This thesis addresses this space through an original analysis of the 1968 sewing-machinists’ strike at Ford, Dagenham; the 1976 equal pay strike at Trico, Brentford; the 1972 Sexton shoe factory occupation in Fakenham, Norfolk; the 1981 Lee Jeans factory occupation in Greenock, Inverclyde and the 1984-1985 sewing-machinists’ strike at Ford Dagenham. Drawing upon a combination of oral history and written sources, this study contributes a fresh understanding of the relationship between feminism, workplace activism and trade unionism during the years 1968-1985. In every dispute considered in this thesis, women’s behaviour was perceived by observers as novel, ‘historic’ or extraordinary. But the women did not think of themselves as extraordinary, and rather understood their behaviour as a legitimate and justified response to their everyday experiences of gender and class antagonism. The industrial disputes analysed in this thesis show that women’s workplace militancy was not simply a direct response to women’s heightened presence in trade unions. The women involved in these disputes were more likely to understand their experiences of workplace activism as an expression of the economic, social and subjective value of their work. Whilst they did not adopt a feminist identity or associate their action with the WLM, they spoke about themselves and their motivations in a manner that emphasised feminist values of equality, autonomy and self-worth.