ABSTRACT
This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the next subsequent chapter. It underlines the practical problems faced by women workers in an area suffering from both de-industrialization, in terms of traditional craft occupations, and a decline in available regular agricultural employment. The part also points to how individual difficulties were compounded by assumptions relating to respectable masculinity and its economic responsibilities, and to consequent expectations about appropriate work for women and female skill levels. It focuses on the experience of men and women encountering the legal system as a result of expressions of male sexual violence. The part explores the issues of respectable masculine responses to perceived threats to the status quo. It considers the contributions towards domestic ideologies and practices made by working-class males in Lancashire. Historical investigations has given prominence to questions about the processes involved in socialization and thereby revived aspects of the debate over social control.
