ABSTRACT
Japanese coal management and operating systems made some difference to women miners' lives, the common work experiences of miners as well as their daily lives in the mining camps gave the women many attitudes in common. Those attitudes derived from their struggle for survival under conditions of harsh exploitation and oppressive poverty. It was common for the women to work extra hours in order to load enough wagons to generate an income that would sustain their families, no matter how few hours their mates worked to hew an amount of coal that they considered sufficient. Mathias argues that colliery management kept male wages low by relating them to the low wages of female labor. Coal-mining women were not only victims of the exploitative production system but were subject to sexual exploitation by overseers and male co-workers. This exploitation could take the form of everything from mild harassment and demeaning attention to seduction and violent assault.
