ABSTRACT
This chapter contains some preliminary findings from 'Coal and Community'; a research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and carried out in the Department of Communication Studies at Sheffield Polytechnic between November 1986 and December 1988. It proposes the social consequences of the 1984–5 coal dispute in three mining communities. The chapter explores how far this assumption was borne out in reality and to assess the way that the nature of mining communities and the roles of men and women reproduced traditional gender norms. Most women in mining communities, as elsewhere, tend not to be involved in political activism or campaigning. A major cause for speculation at the end of the strike concerned the extent to which women's lives would change as a consequence of their experiences during the strike. The chapter provides the little difference between the communities in terms of changed gender relations since the strike.
