ABSTRACT
Women have never held such professional interest for historians as they have in recent years. Since history was first written men have almost monopolised the attention of historians, and this has inevitably left many gaps to be filled and certain sensitivities amongst those whose predecessors have been so badly neglected. The part of it that remained fairly constant was the continued readiness of most women to see politics as a man's world. The campaign for a Ten Hour Day was greeted with uniform enthusiasm by female factory workers, and the defiance of mines legislation to exclude women from underground work is further indication of the ambiguity that surrounds civil liberty-type issues and the ambivalent views with which social benefactors were regarded.
