Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 April 2009
This paper explores the gendered concept of community with reference to the activism of women during the UK 1984–1985 miners’ strike. Drawing on texts from the period and reflective discussions twenty years later with women associated with the strike, it interrogates the ways in which the idea of community was used to accommodate the activism of women. We argue that the apparently gender-neutral ideal of mining community carried meanings that had ambiguous political implications for the women and that the strike highlighted paradoxes that question established understanding of female strike activism.
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67. Women's Forum Discussion.
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69. Women's Forum Discussion.
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71. The contemporary engagement of the women activists is apparent in all our interviews and is continuous with a prehistory of activism stimulated by the strike. See Spence and Stephenson, Female Involvement in the Miners’ Strike; and also e.g., Gerard, Lesley, “Lessons from the University of Life,” Independent, (February 16, 1995) 29Google Scholar.