ABSTRACT
The Shorter Oxford Dictionary definition of militant as an adjective is ‘engaged in warfare, warring’ and as a noun ‘one engaged in war or strife’. Militancy is seen as an aspect of behaviour, but they suggested that one had to consider behaviour in its context, as reaction to situational variables. The majority of respondents stressed the different responses required by different situations when asked whether they would describe themselves as militant, as the following quotations illustrate. The sociological literature on militancy tends to be confined largely to an examination of trade union militancy, and, with few exceptions, tends to take militancy as a self-explanatory term which does not itself require examination or explication. The passive woman worker thesis does not merely suggest that women are unwilling to engage in industrial action on their own behalf. Women's militancy and acquiescence, both at work and in home can be argued to be function of their experience as workers rather than as women.
