ABSTRACT
Women trade union leaders adopted an argument that appeared to undermine the idea of equality between women and men as workers. This chapter focuses on the motive behind the male leaders' stance on equal pay for women and the assumptions they held about women as workers. It argues that at the heart of the male leadership’s involvement in the issue of equal pay was a vested interest in the identity of men as workers. Not only working-class men subscribed to the idea of themselves as the family provider, many working-class women also accepted the male 'breadwinner' ideal and the presumptions of gender hierarchy with which it was underpinned. The chapter investigates the tie that the separate spheres model had with working-class masculinity and the role of the male leadership in maintaining that link at a time when male worker authority was under threat.
