ABSTRACT
Working lives of Japanese coal-mining women illustrate exploitation in a most extreme form. That they were not always aware of the many ways in which that exploitation debilitated their bodies and constrained their spirits did not make it any less onerous. The belief of the female miners in the value of the work that they had accomplished during their lifetimes gave them a sense of self-worth and self-esteem. The women themselves seem only vaguely aware of the importance of coal in the industrialization process, but their role in gathering and hauling the "stone" from the coal face to the galleries or to the surface, and sometimes even farther to the transportation centers from which it would be distributed to the ports and factories, was enormously important. Their only real weapons, however, were the strength in their arms and backs, their mining tools, their skills, persistence, and dedication.
