A Time for Change?

Patriarchy, the Former Coalfields

and Family Farming

Katy Bennett

T his paper addresses why many women, especially those who have entered into
waged work, are neither revelling in their new roles nor experiencing the erosion
of patriarchal structures that affect gender relations. It uses two case studies, focusing
on women in households within former coalfield and farming communities. These are
two different UK rural contexts but both have been affected by economic restructuring
with the decline in the significance of agricultural income to farming households
and rural economies, the near eradication of the mining industry, and the rise in the
number of women in the workforce. In households where men were once the main
wage earner, many women now make significant contributions to household income
but whilst their roles have changed over the last two decades, patriarchal structures
persist, seemingly unchallenged.
Whilst attention has shifted away from confronting the resilience of patriarchal
structures, plenty of academic work (often indirectly) demonstrates their endurance.
They clearly shine through, for example, research dealing with gender identity in
rural studies (Brandth 2002a). Brandths (2002a) paper is a review of how women in
agriculture have been identified in textually mediated representations of farming life
(2002a, p. 281), especially focusing on the ways in which women have been portrayed
in different academic discourses. Brandth shows how women in agriculture have been
portrayed, for example, as farmers wives and marginal to the production process by
researchers who focus on patriarchal family farming and the structures and processes
that peripheralise their voices and activities. She also demonstrates how women have
been identified in an altogether different way in a body of work that deals with the
masculinisation of agriculture. Part of this work deals with crises of masculinities
troubling men who continue to identify themselves through the patriarchal structures
that shape family farming whilst women are pictured as actively adjusting themselves
to late modern life. The repercussions of this are poignantly illustrated in Ni Laoires
(2001) work on the rising rate of male suicides in rural Ireland with agricultures
declining contribution to rural economies. On the one hand women are powerless, on
the other they are much less troubled, are empowered even, by their (apparent) lack
of association with agriculture and family farming (although see Shortall 2002). In

Published by Blackwell Publishing, Sociologia Ruralis, Vol 44, Number 2, April 2004
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK European Society for Rural Sociology
350 Main Street, Malden, MA02148, USA ISSN 00380199
148 Bennett

both contexts patriarchal structures are not only evident in how people are identified
or identify themselves, but troublesome and oppressive for many women and men. So
why their resilience?
This paper is not explicitly about identity, but explores the working of patriarchy,
which obviously continues to affect gender identity. It pushes for more understand-
ing of not only how and why patriarchal structures continue to affect womens lives,
but also womens implication in the reproduction of such structures. Shortall (2002)
writes:

In the case of women on farms, there was little evidence of off-farm work leading to gender
equality. In many respects womens off-farm work is not seen as enhancing individual
income or individual financial independence, rather it is seen as a contribution to the farm
family household. Women are committed to their families and farm and engage in survival
strategies to maintain the survival and well-being of both (2002, p. 171).

Similarly discourse analysis of magazines produced through farm/rural womens

networks reveals women campaigning for the survival of farms and communities
rather than their own empowerment (Brandth and Haugen 1997; Grace and Lennie
1998). Shifting the focus to the former coalfields and research on the British Miners
Strike of 1984-1985, it has also been emphasised that the womens support groups
were not about womens liberation from domestic drudgery but about fighting for
their husbands job. This meant that in effect, like farmers wives, they were seeking to
preserve traditions affecting patriarchal gender relations (Rowbotham and McCrindle
1986; Seddon 1986).

Patriarchy

The patriarchal structures to which I refer in this paper come from Walbys (1989; 1990;
1997) model of patriarchy: a system of social structures and practices in which men
dominate, oppress and exploit women (Walby 1990, p. 20). This model of patriarchy
comprises six partially interdependent structures (the patriarchal mode of production,
patriarchal relations in paid work, patriarchal relations in the state, male violence,
patriarchal relations in sexuality and patriarchal relations in cultural institutions).
Its configuration was influenced by other theories of patriarchy limited by their focus
upon one causal element, such as male violence or motherhood for example (Walby
1989; 1990; Duncan 1994). Consequently Walbys (1989; 1990) model comprises the
(six) structures she considered most important to explanations regarding cultural and
historical variations of womens oppression with specific structures more prevalent,
and interacting differently with one another, depending on particular womens
experiences and context. Similarly, previous debates (Hartmann 1979; 1981; Delphy
1984; Foord and Gregson 1986; McDowell 1986) regarding the sort of relationship that
patriarchy has with capitalism influenced Walbys model which theorises patriarchy as
part of a dual system separate to capitalism but articulating with it at an abstract level
(McDowell and Pringle 1992).
Although Walbys (1989; 1990) model emphasises womens multiple sources of
exploitation and oppression, it has not been without critique (Pollert 1996; Bottero 1998;
Gottfried 1998). Pollert (1996) for example, whilst critical of patriarchy as a tool for
 A time for change 149

analysing gender inequality at a number of levels, raises particular concerns regarding

Walbys model, her choice of six elements and her unhelpful perpetuation of dualist
analysis because the process of gendering takes place inside class relations (1996, p.
640). The deterministic structures of Walbys model have also been under fire because
they apparently screen out the practices and actions of individuals that might be of
significance. Consequently instead of patriarchy Pollert (1996), for example, advocates
historical materialism to tease out the continual interplay of action and structures,
ideologies and practices within a wider frame of political economy (1996, p. 647).
Critics of Walby raise important concerns that influence this paper (Pollert 1996;
Gottfried 1998). Certainly, Walbys model is less able to explain the resilience of
patriarchal structures because this requires a focus on the ways in which womens (and
mens) activities sometimes affect and (re) produce patriarchal structures. Women are
not just the products of controlling structures and not simply the recipients of powerful
actions because workings of power are complex and individuals negotiate power relations
in subtle ways (Duncan 1994; OHara 1998; Gottfried 1998). Rose (2002) writes:

While I do not deny the effects of power or the appearance of hegemonic systems, it is
critical to recognise these effects and appearances as practised phenomena (2002, p. 384).

In their work on family farming Christensen, Hockey and James (1999) showed how
those who are (momentarily) powerful are always dependent on the responses of
others for their power. Consequently, women actively play a part in the construction of
patriarchal structures. Even those who resist effects of power are implicated, through
their practices of resistance, in the appearance of powerful systems (Rose 2002).
Although this paper is influenced by critics (Gottfried 1998) of patriarchy more
interested in theories of practice to explain gendered bodies, spaces and experiences,
patriarchy, and Walbys (1989; 1990) particular theorising of this, affects its approach
and analysis. This is because patriarchy is about a project of change and is imbued
with a heritage of feminist work (with all its noise and debates) that brings gender
inequalities to political agendas. It conveys to the foreground womens oppression
in a way that historical materialism, for example, cannot. To illustrate, Walbys
(1989; 1990) model has been used to emphasise and explain the different forms of
oppression that women experience differences across countries, over time, across
groups of women, different forms of patriarchy shown through statistical analysis
(see special issue of Environment and Planning A 1994; Perrons and Gonas 1998).
Furthermore, for this paper there is no denying the apparently systemic quality that
womens oppression has about it for those who comprise this research which is why
the work of Walby (1989; 1990; 1997) is important here. With the two case studies to
reflect upon, the paper attempts to reconcile Walbys system of patriarchal structures
with the (sometimes) powerful effects that womens actions can have.

Restructuring the former coalfields and family farming

The specific industrial legacies of mining and farming are important to the paper,
producing two contrasting contexts through which experiences of patriarchal structures
can be explored. The two contexts are different because politics, class and industrial
150 Bennett

organisation frequently divide them. Furthermore, whilst both mining and farming
face(d) diminishing economic viability given global competition, the nature and extent
of state support has affected the speed of change. In the 1980s and 1990s, the former
coalfields experienced the acceleration of pit closures, resulting in the near eradication
of the mining industry. In 1977 there were 238 collieries in the UK employing 242000,
but by 1997 just 15 collieries remained open, employing 8000 (Bennett et al. 2000).
The speed of pit closures cannot be explained through shifts in the global energy
market alone, but also through the political strategies of Thatchers conservative
administration which deliberately set out to curb the power of the National Union of
Miners, in the process hastening the demise of mining and the coalfields (Hudson
and Sadler 1990; Waddington et al. 2001). Agriculture, in comparison, has witnessed
a much slower pace of change, with the effects of recent waning profitability reduced
by continued state support. Although the focus of help is changing, shifting away from
an emphasis on production towards help for the provision of public goods and a more
sustainable way of farming, support, in some form, remains (Franks et al. 2003).
Despite their differences, the former coalfields and farming households share
similarities, enabling their comparison. Both mining and farming are primary
industries and are historically shaped for the most part by work practices that chiefly
employed men, with their status as the main wage earner placing them at the head of
their households. Reinforcing these patriarchal households in both contexts was/is an
institutional framework that denied/s women political clout, marginalising them in
the process (Campbell 1986; Shortall 1999). With sectoral shifts in the UK economy
and the changing location of industry, places previously dependent on mining and
farming are layered with new economic (in)activity. The significance of sectors other
than agriculture to many rural areas, for example, is increasingly apparent (Bennett
et al. 2002; Phillipson et al. 2002; Countryside Agency 2003). The effect of economic
restructuring and the UKs shift to a service dominated economy has resulted in rising
rates of male economic inactivity and womens increasing share of employment. In
the UK 70% of working aged women are in waged employment (McDowell 2001) with
regional disparities in the proportion of women at work diminishing as firms relocate
aspects of production and service provision, such as call centres, to source cheap labour
in places like the former coalfields (Massey 1994).
The consequence of economic restructuring and womens changed relations
to waged work is new experiences of patriarchal structures. For Walby (1997) the
structure for patriarchal relations in paid work has become much more prevalent in
the lives of many women as they enter the workforce. This has precipitated a shift
from private to public gender regimes as women, for example, experience the pay
gap between their wages and those of men across all types of jobs and professions
in the UK (Walby 1997; McDowell 2002). A shift in the prevalence of particular
patriarchal structures in the lives of women, though, does not necessarily mean the
erosion of others, just that different structures are newly emphasised. The patriarchal
mode of production, which embraces experiences of gender relations focused around
households and domestic work, continues to affect women in farming and the former
coalfields as their responsibility for housework and childcare remains despite their
uptake of waged work. There are, though, differences between women regarding
their (changing) experiences of patriarchal structures, differences that depend on
 A time for change 151

their context, whether they are in the former coalfields of North Nottinghamshire or
from a farming household in the Northern Fells of Cumbria (Massey and McDowell
1984; McDowell 2001). Context is important to this paper, its particular legacy
affecting consequences of restructuring and conditioning womens opportunities
in the workplace and at home, affecting their (changing) experiences of patriarchal
structures. The paper also attempts to demonstrate different experiences of patriarchal
structures between women, according to their age.

Methods

The paper is based on two case studies, drawn from two separate periods of fieldwork.
The first comes from research that I did as part of a team1 looking at the impact of
Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) on rural economies of the North of England in 2001.
One of my roles was to develop a case study area in the Northern Fells of Cumbria to
examine the impact of FMD on businesses and people. Access to people was eased by
the Northern Fells Rural Project, a community initiative run by local people to meet the
unmet social and health needs of residents in the area. The first phase of the research
ran from the beginning of July to the end of October 2001. During this time I stayed in
bed and breakfast accommodation, did participant observation work as I attended, and
sometimes organised, local meetings and events and interviewed people from both
farming and non-farming business households.
A second phase of research began in the Northern Fells in July 2002, continuing
until November of the same year, during which sixteen women, who were married to
farmers became the focus of my research. The women were selected from a survey2
of 46 farm holdings which was carried out in the Northern Fells in the summer of
2001 and detailed the background information of farm holdings and their income
and expenditure before and after FMD. The survey included questions on the number
of households that the farm supported, off-farm jobs of household members and
diversification. The sixteen women were deliberately selected on the basis that they had
some form of paid work so that I could develop research on the consequences of off-
farm work and enterprising activities on their experiences of patriarchal structures as
interviews broadly focussed on their work, household, family and routines. Regarding
their age, three women were in their thirties, one woman was in her sixties and the
rest were aged between forty and fifty-nine. They came from a mixture of farming and
non-farming backgrounds. All the women lived on farms that had stock before FMD,
reflecting the pattern of farming in the Northern Fells where dairying and upland stock
rearing are significant with average farm size (excluding common grazing rights) 138
hectares. Again, typically of the area, all apart from three of the women were from
farms that were owner occupied. Interviews with the sixteen women chiefly inform
this paper, but are contextualised by findings from the survey of 46 farm holdings and
participant observation work done in the first phase of research.
The second case study is from fieldwork in the former coalfields of North
Nottinghamshire where I conducted fieldwork over a two-year period from 1998-
2000 as part of a team3 looking at coalfields regeneration. The research began
with taped, in-depth interviews with those formally involved in the regeneration
of the former coalfields4. It then shifted to a focus on the work of local people and
152 Bennett

community initiatives in the regeneration of their places. This included detailed

involvement and access to 16 local community initiatives whilst I lived with an ex-
miner and his wife over a three month period. This stage of the fieldwork was based
on the method of participant observation as I attended meetings and events hosted
by community initiatives, met people in the cafs and coffee rooms of community
initiatives and did voluntary work, one day a week, at the local school. Whilst living
in North Nottinghamshire I rarely used a tape recorder. Certain people in the area
were wary of outsiders asking questions, still divided by the Miners Strike of 1984-
1985 when some men joined the break away Union of Democratic Mineworkers and
worked whilst others had been on strike, remaining members of the National Union
of Mineworkers. Fieldwork developed in a gradual, piecemeal way and I kept diaries
to record my research. Analysis of research diaries and transcripts (from the first
phase of the project) informs this paper.

Case Study 1: Farm women in the Northern Fells of Cumbria

There has been some debate regarding whether or not womens involvement in
alternative income earning strategies has affected power relations within farming
families (Gasson and Winter 1992; Evans and Ilbery 1996; Jervell 1999). On the
one hand women could be pursuing careers outside of agriculture and affecting
dual-income or dual-career households with potential consequences for their
empowerment (Argent 1999; Jervell 1999). According to this line of argument,
their contribution to household income might weaken the relationship between
the farming household and its farm as they move household spending more in the
direction of family consumption rather than farm development and erode family
ties with the land (Argent 1999; Jervell 1999). Consequently institutional structures
which govern agriculture, its system of male ownership and knowledge transfer have
potentially less provenance for women and their households (Oldrup 1999). On the
other hand, research demonstrates how farm womens contribution to household
income enables farm survival and safeguards patrilineal inheritance (Shortall 2002).
Women help perpetuate not just the family farm but crucially the farming family. The
agenda of this case study is to raise concerns regarding the nature of womens off-
farm work and to show how it does not necessarily empower them, but merely affects
their experiences of new patriarchal structures, new forms of patriarchy. It also seeks
to explain womens apparent (re)production of patriarchal structures.
Similar to the findings of other research, the survey results demonstrated that in
the Northern Fells of Cumbria 60% of farmers wives have off-farm employment and
make valuable contributions to the income of their households. This is in contrast to
income generated by farm businesses, which, since 1995, have seen revenue plunge
(Caroll et al. 2002). At a superficial level, then, the majority of women in the Northern
Fells have off-farm waged work, regularly escape the clutches of the family farm and,
through their wages, could potentially increase their bargaining power within their
households. Below the surface of these assumptions, though, this case study suggests
there are women who have been further disempowered by their off-farm work.
For a start, across the entire survey of 46 farm businesses, those (usually women)
with off-farm income were earning on average 8,661 pa, well below average national
 A time for change 153

incomes and a reflection of the sorts of jobs they had. Of the sixteen women interviewed,
most worked in jobs deemed low skilled and were cleaners, shop assistants, cooks,
waitresses, and, in one case, an employee of the local mart. Others worked in jobs
notorious for their low pay because of their occupation by women. Two women are
primary school teachers, one a nursery school teacher, another is a nurse and one
woman used previous work experience in a bank to do bookwork for local businesses.
In their off-farm paid work, many women experience new forms of patriarchy as, for
example, patriarchal gender relations in waged work become prevalent in their lives.
At the same time, the patriarchal structures that affect family farming are not
loosening their grip, despite the hours that women work away from the farm. For all
of the women interviewed job opportunities were constrained by the farm, resulting
in many women opting for local work, so that they could still be on hand for the
farming family (and family farm) in case they were needed. A woman who does the
bookwork for a number of local businesses said:

Ive been very lucky with the people I work for, I mean if something happens on the farm
and I cant get there, I can go another day and do it, they are very, very flexible.

The issue of flexibility regarding their off-farm employment is important for women
so that they can work on the farm (only two of the sixteen farms employed non-fam-
ily labour). All sixteen women lived on farms with stock and were often needed at
particular points of the day and at specific times of the year. Consequently only one
of the women interviewed with waged off-farm work had a full-time job, the others
all worked part-time and many had more than one part-time job, juggling jobs to suit
their farming family timetable. The women in teaching are supply teachers and as
one of them explained:

I do permanent supply which gives me a bit of flexibility with the farm if circumstances
change. I work at two schools, permanent supply where Im in the same class each week
even if its just for half a day or a day, it suits me. I get to know the children reasonably well.
Its not the same as having your own class at all but you dont have parents evenings, you
dont have reports to write and so forth

Similarly, the women who are cleaners all worked for more than one person. Other
women balanced different sorts of jobs. A woman who works for the local mart also
works for a local estate agency and in the evenings works for a community initiative. A
qualified veterinary nurse is on call for local veterinary practices one night a week and one
weekend in four, waitresses part-time at the local hotel and also runs bed and breakfast
accommodation. In addition to usual part-time jobs, many of the women interviewed
take on extra bits of casual work, waitressing for a local catering business for example.
Also, more work and hours are often available to women during the summer months with
a rise in the number of visitors and tourists in the Northern Fells. A repercussion of their
part-time, casual work and job juggling is that all, apart from one of the women who is a
nurse, are paid by the hour and receive none of the benefits such as maternity leave or sick
pay that usually accompany salaried work. Although the three supply teachers are paid
more per hour than salaried teachers, they are not paid when they are sick, for example,
nor do they receive any income during school holidays.
154 Bennett

Few women run their own business, again because of the constraints of patriarchal
family farming. Women with enterprising ideas and wanting to set up businesses were
hampered because they frequently had no access to capital, which is largely tied up in
the farm business. Out of the sixteen women interviewed one woman runs a catering
business, three offer bed and breakfast accommodation and one lets a camping barn.
The woman who runs the catering business had been successful in her application for
a grant to convert a small barn into a kitchen. The women who run bed and breakfast
businesses developed their accommodation piecemeal. As one woman explained:

well, I mean we started in such a very casual way, its a long time ago really, but it was sort of
one room, and then as each of our children went away we had an extra room, and then we
converted two rooms over in the cow shed over there, and thats very popular, so you know,
its just a very gradual enlargement, and now its so important to our income

That all five women run businesses which can be slotted around childcare and
other work is no coincidence. Like women in paid off-farm work, women plan their
businesses around the needs of their farming family. As the woman who runs a
catering business said:

The thing was that we had, I had the 2 boys, so I wanted something that I could actually
be at home and be, look after the boys, collect them from school, take them to school. All
that sort of thing that my mother used to do with us. I was always at home for you wasnt I
darling (laughs). But, you know, that to me was very important, the way they were brought
up, you know, so that something that I could fit into my life but also, erm, create some sort
of income too.

All apart from one of the women continue to do most of the household and domestic
work. The patriarchal mode of production is particularly significant to family farming
with women, despite their off-farm paid work and enterprising activities, still made to
feel responsible for housework and childcare. One woman though now has significant
help from her husband and sons as she works full-time as a nurse which means that
when she is at work they:

will raid the fridge or whatever, they are getting quite good, I mean (my husband), I mean
would definitely, erm, this is my job, thats your job and you cook and clean and things, but
now they do turn their hand to almost anything, put the washing in, stick it on the line, do a
bit of cooking, I mean none of them will starve now.

Undoubtedly, whilst women are subject to new patriarchal structures such as

patriarchal relations in paid work experiences of other structures are not unchanging.
This was well illustrated by the woman who is a nurse (and has help with domestic
work from her husband and sons) as she compared herself to her mother-in-law:

(My husband) would prefer it if I didnt work. I dont know whether its because, whether
its I should be able to look after my wife and family, err or whether its just because his
mother never did you know, and erm, they didnt in those days, most farmers wives now
youll find most of them have a job of some sort. He really doesnt like me going out to work
and never has done, but thats just (my husband)
 A time for change 155

Similarly, another woman broke with the convention of relinquishing paid employ-
ment upon marriage to a farmer:

When I was little and when I was playing with friends all I ever did was want to be a teacher
and if we were playing I was always the teacher and that was it, that was my aim in life, I
wanted to be a teacher. Of course the time when we got married .the expected thing was
for the wife to be at home to help on the farm really, not really go out to workIt wasnt re-
ally the accepted thing to go out to work. You had to stay at home to look after your family.
So I mean, I supply, Ive done long term supply, short-term supply, but mainly in particular
schools.

Although these women have (affected their) changing experiences of particular

patriarchal structures they simultaneously work to reproduce those structures that
shape family farming. Both have sons keen to inherit the farm and apparently work for
the sake of their farming families. They allow the demands of the family farm to dictate
their timetables and do not pursue, in the case of the teacher, full-time work because
of the stock and wanting to do that as wellits a big farm. The woman in nursing was
saving some of her earnings to not only help pay for her sons wedding but also a small
barn conversion into a house for him and his wife. Like her husband, in many ways she
works for the future of the farming family.
To illustrate how women become ensnared in a web of patriarchal structures and
end up themselves affecting its reproduction requires a focus on the experiences of
the youngest woman of this research and her account of her mother-in-laws actions.
This woman is not from a farming background, is a supply teacher, in her early thirties,
has a toddler and is pregnant with her second child. She and her husband swapped
houses with her parents-in-law less than a year ago when her husband took over the
management of the farm business and her parents-in-law retired (although they are
still very involved). Although the young woman now lives in the main house, she feels
that it is somebody elses home. When her mother-in-law redecorated it to mark this
change of occupancy she did not consult her and painted all the rooms white. Through
her control of farm accounts, and therefore household bills which are paid through the
farm account to reduce tax spending, mother-in-law controls domestic matters and
issues of consumption. By painting the rooms of this womans house white, the mother-
in-law was not only showing her lingering influence in the house (and farm), but also
staking out her control of consumption matters.
The mother-in-laws control of consumption matters is key to the survival of the
family farm, keeping family members, especially her daughters-in-law (she has two),
embroiled in the farm (which crucially services and identifies the farming family).
Whilst the young woman engages with these power struggles, gets angry, makes
demands no matter how petty, her socialisation into a farming family (and a way of life)
has begun. Should anger and frustration on her part turn into indifference and silence,
then her mother-in-law has failed in her consumption and kinship work. Her responses
(no matter how angry or vociferous) place her mother-in-law in a powerful position; in
a sense further empower the older woman. As farmers wives move through the life
course they come to occupy a position where they themselves potentially can realise
a lifetime of work. This young womans mother-in-law is surrounded by family and
156 Bennett

works to keep relations between her and kin taut through her control of consumption
matters. Her activities centre on protecting a lifetimes work and maintaining her
farming family. Furthermore, through consumption matters she controls not only her
daughters-in-law, but consequently her sons and grandchildren.
In sum, whilst compared to the previous generation they apparently escape the
clutches of the farm as they broach potentially new opportunities for empowerment, for
the most part women are still constrained by the farm in addition to experiencing new
patriarchal structures through their jobs and wage levels. Furthermore, patriarchal family
farming continues to rule their routines and experiences as they pitch the family farm at
the centre of their lives, opting, for example, for locally based, part-time work, sometimes
juggling more than one paid job in addition to their work for the farming family. In
particular, the patriarchal mode of production continues to remain omnipresent in their
lives as their responsibility for domestic work continues. For many women, the web of
patriarchal structures has taken on a different form in comparison to that experienced
by their mother-in-law and the structures that constitute such a web are not themselves
unchanging as the practices and responses of women take effect. This has potential
implications for the lives of future women and children in farming households.

Case study 2: Women in the former coalfields of North Nottinghamshire

The former coalfields are mostly shaped by pit villages characterised by their physical
isolation and a heritage fuelled by the dangerous and arduous work of miners, segregated
gender roles and locality-based radicalism (Dennis et al. 1956; Bulmer 1978; Pattison
1999). Men were the main wage earners of households, although there is a history of
women, especially in North Nottinghamshire, earning pin money, a small income, in
the clothing and textile industries. Outside of their factory work, womens lives focused
around their homes and informal networks of friends and family. Much has been written
about the relative exclusion of miners wives from political and leisure activities outside
of the home, with these largely organised for men through, for example, the Miners
Welfare, the Working Mens Club and the Allotment Association (Dennis et al. 1956;
Warwick and Littlejohn 1992; Pattison 1999). This case study considers the implications
of pit closures for the lives of women.
Beatrix Campbell (1986) labels the system of structures that serve(d) to exclude women
with the domination of the working class by men as proletarian patriarchy. For her,
union activity was really about mens solidarity with other men rather than class solidarity
with working class women. Legislation against pit brow lasses, Campbell (1986) argues,
helped to define womens feminine role with their removal from work at the pit resulting
in their limited economic right to employment and a family wage supporting mens
economic privilege. Jobs in the pit canteen were largely the main source of employment
open to miners wives and even then, the earnings of the highest paid women were well
below those of the lowest paid men. For some reason, their case for equal pay wasnt
deemed a candidate for industrial action, and was still lost in pre-tribunal wrangles in
1985, many years after the womens claim was initiated (Campbell 1986, p. 258). This
system of patriarchal structures had more than economic implications for women in
pit villages for it shaped the coalfields political institutions and their priorities and the
dismal provision of facilities and services for women in these places.
 A time for change 157

During the 1980s and 1990s the coalfields of North Nottinghamshire were struck
by pit closures which precipitated considerable change with potential repercussions
for womens experiences of patriarchal structures. In 1980, 15 collieries made up the
North Nottingham division of the National Coal Board, including significant mines
like Bevercotes and Welbeck, Blidworth and Bilsthorpe and Ollerton. Some of these
mines survived into the 1990s, but by 1999 Welbeck was all that remained of a once
powerful coalmining region. Consequently male rates of economic inactivity have risen
whilst women have increased their participation in the labour force (Waddington et al.
2001). Statistics demonstrate though that rising numbers of women in the workforce
coincide with increases in part-time work (with most part-time work at the bottom of
the job hierarchy):

In 1981 41.6% of female employment in Mansfield District was part time. By 1995 this had
risen to 49.9%. The total number of female part-time employees increased by 9% over the
period (Mansfield District Council 1998, Section 3.4).

Furthermore, pit closures and a rise in the number of women in the workforce have
been associated with the creation of a low wage economy:

...wage costs are significantly below the national average and are therefore very competitive.
The average gross weekly earnings of employees in Mansfield District (across occupations)
is 268.50 compared with 306.80 for Nottinghamshire as a whole and with 351.70
nationally (Mansfield District Council 1998, Section 3.3).

Being very competitive regarding wage levels has dismal consequences for both men
and women but within these low wage rates are the even lower earnings of women
(Office for National Statistics 2001). All this means that although a greater number
of women now comprise the workforce, unskilled, part-time work and low pay
monopolise most of their experiences of the workplace. Patriarchal relations in paid
work also affect women not in paid employment with the sorts of jobs locally on offer
contributing to the low expectations of young women in the former coalfields. As the
North Nottinghamshire Director of Public Health explained:

Teenage pregnancies are higher in certain parts of our communities and that is almost di-
rectly correlated with social disadvantage and the expectations particularly of young women
in these communities. Drug misuse is now reaching in some areas the same sorts of scale as
more inner city populations. And alcohol misuse is more difficult to put tabs on in terms of
degree of incidence, but the sort of things associated with alcohol misuse such as domestic
violence are key issues. I would say that the health issues are very much intertwined with the
social changes that have been going on.

Whilst women are increasingly familiar with patriarchal relations in paid work, the
particular legacy of the mining industry conditions their changing experiences of other
patriarchal structures. Whilst some men help with aspects of domestic work, many do
not (Waddington et al. 2001). Furthermore, the domestic work of some women has
swelled with the increased care work required of those with husbands and fathers
still suffering the consequences of working in coal mines with the former coalfields
of Nottingham harbouring a higher than average incidence of respiratory disease and
158 Bennett

illness. Not only is the patriarchal mode of production proving resilient with most
women still responsible for domestic work and childcare, but spiralling problems
relating to debt (CAB, personal communication) alongside demoralisation amongst
men are manifesting in rising incidents of domestic violence (Womens Centre Report
1998). Problems have not been eased with the erosion of oganisations and institutions
alongside the contraction of the mining industry, effectively closing familiar routes for
help. As the North Nottinghamshire Director of Public Health also explained:

(regarding pit closures, its) not just the fact that you are going to have more people that
are unemployed, but also the particular nature of coalfield communities in terms of being,
I mean you can describe them as being tight-knit communities in the past....they have been
fairly inward looking communities. They havent had the need to look outside themselves.
....CISWO (Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation) is just one example of the structures
that they had around them. So the impact of all that being decimated is bound to have a great
impact on the health of the community and those individuals within it.

The rest of this case study uses two community initiatives as a lens through which to
explore not only womens changing experiences of patriarchal structures but also the
resilience of such structures. The two initiatives are an Unemployed Workers Centre
and a Womens Centre. The Unemployed Workers Centre (UWC) is open to both men
and women, but men are only allowed into the Womens Centre by appointment or
invite. Both initiatives have first hand experience of what pit closures have done to
people and households in the former coalfields. Amongst other things the Unemployed
Workers Centre works with a counselling service, offers support and help to those
seeking a job and spearheads, in particular, welfare rights advice. Ex-miners are regular
users of the services provided by the UWC and members of staff are familiar with their
needs. They are also aware that pit closures have meant not only job loss to ex-miners,
but also the erosion of particular work practices and culture through which they
identified themselves, manifesting in difficulties within some households as women
replace them as the main wage earner. A member of staff at the UWC said:

There was a lot of men saying, I dont want my wife to work and they were coming in
here and saying to us can you phone my wife and tell her I want her to give up her job.
We got wives phoning us up and saying my husbands coming down to see you today, hes
just been turned down for benefit, and he wants me to give my job up, theres no way Im
going to give my job up. And it was just real suffering that was caused by it, you know. Real
domestic upheaval.

This domestic upheaval is exposed in conversations among women in the coffee room
at the Womens Centre. The Centre is based in a large portacabin on a housing estate
which is flanked by countryside on one side and the edge of a small town on the
other. The town was built in 1926 to service local pits, suffering badly with local pit
closures in the mid 1990s. The manager of the centre lives on the housing estate, is
from a mining family and has been in the area all her life. She was a key player in the
instigation of the Womens Centre, which was set up to provide facilities and services
for women in a place where these were previously limited or denied. In many ways the
Centre confronts patriarchal structures that have traditionally oppressed women, but
also deals with womens changing experiences of such structures as new occurrences
 A time for change 159

of oppression overwhelm them. The manager details reasons for requiring a counsellor
to work with women:

The Centre relies on the skills of its resident counsellor to provide counselling and support
to an ever increasing number of women. Contributing factors to this increase include
the high unemployment rates, marital break down, domestic violence, child and sexual
abuse in the area of benefit, particularly on the local estates. Increases in the above issues
were particularly aggravated by pit closures. This was a crushing blow to partners who are
already struggling to come to terms with loss of work and income. Women are often now
in the position of being the sole breadwinners for their families as well as their existing
responsibilities as primary carers for young children, and sick and ageing relatives. This has
resulted in additional stress for many of these women(Womens Centre report 1998).

Two groups of women in particular use the Centre on a regular basis. A group of young
women meet whilst their children attend the centres crche for two hours. Different
women put their children into the crche on different days, sometimes staying in the
coffee room for the whole two hour period, or stopping for fifteen minutes for a quick
chat before rushing off to do errands. The other women who use the coffee room on
a regular basis are members of an over 40s club. There were distinct differences in
experiences of patriarchal structures across the two groups of women. Many of the
women who are members of the over 40s club have some sort of paid, usually part-
time, factory or shop work in employment that was often insecure as Coats Viyellas
announced closure of a nearby factory reinforced at the time of the research. All of
the older women were married and bitter about what pit closures have done to their
husbands. One husband is a lorry driver, another now works as a chicken catcher
whilst most of the rest are unemployed, on disability or sickness benefits or retired.
Consequently, most of the men spend much more time at home but still do relatively
little to help with domestic chores. Having men with little to do at home clearly takes
its toll on the women. At one of their meetings:

The conversation painted a dismal picture of husbands with women seeming to do all the
decorating and cleaning etc without any help. Meanwhile, men hang about doing things like,
as in the case of Joans husband, playing with his trains in the attic. Last night, when Dee
was trying to decide what to cook, all her husband could reply was a gruff Owt. She repeated
owt several times with increasing frustration. Nevermind helping with the cooking, her
husband could not even help her to decide what to cook. Norma loves it when her lorry driver
husband is away at night. All she needs to cook is a quick snack and she has the house to
herself (Diary 19/9/00).

Clearly the experiences of these married women expose the prevalence of the patriarchal
mode of production in their lives through the ways in which they continue to service the
needs of their husbands and households. Women are not simply powerless, though,
and sometimes control the activities of others as revealed in the following statement
published in Tough Times, a book about experiences of unemployment, which was
part of a multi-agency project spearheaded by the Unemployed Workers Centre:

My father is unemployed due to the fact that he was a miner and now because of his age he
cant actually find a skilled job. Its put pressure on his marital life. They havent particularly
160 Bennett

got financial problems but it does put a lot of pressure on him and my mother saying Why
arent you at work, you should be at work find work and things like that (Young woman
in Mansfield).

Conversations with the younger women (all of whom were under the age of 28)
revealed some different experiences of patriarchal structures as a consequence of
different relations with men with repercussions for experiences of household life. Out
of the eleven younger women I met, two were married; the others were either living
alone or with a boyfriend.

When Nicole came into the room she was carrying a bag containing a couple of pies and
a couple of packets of crisps which she brought in to have with her Mum for lunch. This
prompted a discussion about the amount of lunch prepared for boyfriends and husbands.
Emma talked about the pot noodle, six sandwiches and a large yoghurt that she prepared that
morning for her boyfriend, a farm worker, to take to work The conversation shifted to two
lads who walked past the window of the centre, one of whom hadnt been long out of prison.
Most of the young women seem to want to settle down with a partner they can depend upon
and theres real envy when a boyfriend helps pay for things for the children and helps to
create a nice home. Theres always someone flicking through the Argos catalogue (which is
a permanent fixture in the coffee room). Plenty of the lads on the estate though have drug
habits, are involved in some sort of petty crime and are not viewed as good partners. These
men seem to get themselves into all sorts of scrapes, like holding someone to ransom over a
bike, stealing cars and so on. A few men give the young women grief and hassle. One of the
lads on the estate, she thinks she knows who he is, keeps ringing Michelle in the middle of
the night and calling her a slut (Diary 6/9/00).

Apart from Michelle, the young women sought security through steady relationships
with men who could be relied upon to contribute to household income, in effect
apparently aspiring to reproduce patriarchal structures traditionally oppressing women
in the coalfields. They also experienced, to greater degrees, other patriarchal structures
associated with sexuality and male violence. A combination of lower wage rates for
women and the cost of childcare which is, as one of the young women explained, a bus
journey in the opposite direction to where she used to work puts many obstacles in the
way of accessing waged work. This meant that young women spent more time at home,
on the estate and were subject to the attentions of occasionally abusive young men who
hassled them, controlling their sexuality. Although these abusive men are obviously in
the minority as Walby writes: Not all men need to use this potential power for it to have
an impact on most women (Walby 1989, p. 89). Furthermore, as the above diary extract
demonstrates, womens sexuality was under considerable scrutiny and apparently
controlled by others, particularly men.
To sum, few women are revelling in their new roles as they, like men, struggle to
cope with the repercussions of pit closures on their households and communities. For
the most part, low wage rates (and even lower pay for women) hamper job opportunities
so that womens changing experiences of patriarchal structures chiefly involves their
introduction to patriarchal gender relations in paid work. Even young women who
are single parents and not in paid work are affected by this particular structure as it
has consequences for their lives and decision making. Whilst older women, especially
those living with ex-miners, continue to take responsibility for domestic work, many
 A time for change 161

younger women with children work to achieve an existence where they have a partner
who contributes to household income and a secure home, nevermind the extra domestic
work this might involve. Whilst the former coalfields of North Nottinghamshire have
witnessed pit closures, the legacy of the mining industry continues to imbue expectations
of individuals and their households. Whilst women in employment are not revelling in
their new roles, frustration on the part of men no longer significantly contributing to
household income has had consequences for rising incidents of domestic violence, the
repercussions of which initiatives like the Womens Centre have to cope.

Concluding discussion

Hywl Francis (1996) writes in his introduction to Chasing the dragon: Creative
community responses to the crisis in the South Wales coalfield that for the communities of
the Welsh valleys there is a:

sense of being in a new era with the demise of coal as a major employer, potentially sounding
the death knell of patriarchal society, and in its wake we welcome the emergence of new
social movements green, peace and women in the 1980s, particularly. They afford us
new ways of thinking about the ways we organise our work, our leisure, our child-care, our
learning, our whole way of living in other words, our culture (1996, p. 2).

Although one particular patriarchal structure is remarkable for its persistence in the lives
of women with their continuing responsibility for housework and childcare, pit closures
and the declining contribution of farm incomes to farming households and rural
economies have certainly roused new opportunities for some women. In the Northern
Fells of Cumbria many farmers wives have paid off-farm work and a few women have set
up their own businesses. The former coalfields of North Nottinghamshire have similarly
seen a rise in the number of women entering the workforce with community initiatives,
like the Womens Centre, providing a range of facilities and services for women in a
place where these have previously been limited or inaccessible to women.
The new roles, however, that some women in farming households and the former
coalfields have assumed do not necessarily challenge patriarchal structures and
consequential gender relations, although many womens experiences of them have
changed. Certainly those women, especially women with school aged children or older,
now in the workforce have experienced the structure for patriarchal relations in paid
work become more prevalent in their lives. This is because, for the most part, work
opportunities for women are part-time or casual and their wages are lower than those
paid to men either because they are in occupations deemed unskilled or in jobs typically
occupied by women and consequently low paid. The experiences of this patriarchal
structure are compounded as a consequence of others. Farmers wives, for example, are
sometimes unable to realise their enterprising ideas because their access to capital is
limited in households where the needs of the family farm are prioritised. Furthermore,
they opt to work locally because the farm continues to make demands on their timetables
as they are needed to work for both it and the farming family. Often the new work roles
that women have assumed are less to do with self-fulfilment, especially given the wage
rates and the sort of work they do, and more to do with reducing the (financial) problems
their households face. Some women in farming households work for the sake of the
162 Bennett

farming family, helping to keep the farm, which identifies them, in tact.
Differences exist between women in farming households and those in the former
coalfields where experiences of patriarchal structures are concerned. Whilst men in
farming households are still occupied with agriculture, men in the former coalfields
of North Nottinghamshire have witnessed the near eradication of mining, their
chief employer. Farmers wives often apparently work to keep the family farming, to
maintain an occupation not (only) important for its income but significant for how it
identifies their family, experiencing new patriarchal structures as they work off-farm,
whilst simultaneously affected by those structures significant to patriarchal family
farming. For most ex-mining households, redundancy has not only meant job loss but
a ruptured social and cultural fabric as everything that mining affected, including a
way of life and the identification of men and their households, is eroded. Disillusion
and low expectations, particularly amongst younger generations, have ensued. Those
younger women living alone with their children on the housing estate discussed earlier
do not do so in defiance of patriarchy, but because they have no choice. The young men
who haunt the estate and the lives of women lead ephemeral existences, often working
in black economies, escaping the law, unable to settle, but always around (Pattison
1999). Young women live in the shadow of male violence and control of their sexuality,
with their escape routes hampered because of low wage rates. For older women in
the former coalfields, especially those living with ex-miners, patriarchal structures
associated with remnants of a mining cultural heritage clearly linger.
In many ways the structures of patriarchy that shape the lives of women on family
farms and the former coalfields seem impossible to challenge, to dismantle, which
partly explains their continuing resilience. They can seem powerful, irrepressible in
the lives of many women, operating in a way that is beyond their control or sphere of
action. The lives of the young women on the housing estate are affected by low wage
rates, for example, without them even being in paid work. At the same time, there
are women not keen to challenge patriarchal structures in any case. This can be il-
lustrated through the wives of ex-miners who are angry about what pit closures and
redundancies have done to men and their households. It can also be shown through
farmers wives who work to protect the future of family farms which are crucial to
their identification as farming families.
On the one hand, then, the resilience of patriarchal structures is due to their apparent
powerful effects which women feel unable to challenge. On the other, many women
seem reluctant to challenge patriarchal structures affecting households in farming
and the former coalfields. Many women are not revelling in their new roles and this
is not just because of the low wage rates and the sort of work they do. It also implies
their involvement in workings of power that affect patriarchal structures. Research that
focuses on the experiences and activities of women begins to demonstrate the complex
workings of power and the ways in which women also come to be embroiled in the
(re)production of patriarchal structures (Christensen, Hockey and James 1999; Bennett
2001). Because they too affect the production of patriarchal structures makes it hard for
women to challenge them. Furthermore, it begins to explain why some women work to
reproduce the structures, how older women in farming families, for example, work to
socialise younger women into a way of life once they begin to benefit from a lifetime of
toil.
 A time for change 163

This makes for a troubling conclusion for a number of reasons. Firstly, patriarchal
structures are simultaneously beyond womens control and affected by women. Secondly,
women are apparently complicit in their own oppression, which is worrying when I also
write about some women living in the shadow of male violence and aggression. Thirdly,
they are both consciously and less consciously implicated in workings of power. On the
one hand women are apparently defensive and protective of cultures and traditions riddled
with patriarchal gender relations that oppress both them (and sometimes men too) and
eschew feminist agendas that seek to empower women (see Brandth 2002b). On the other
they are less consciously implicated when understandings of power are incorporated into
gender relations that recognise that power is continually and creatively constituted in
fleeting contextual encounters (Rose 2002, p. 395), where womens activities, responses,
even their resistance, effectively produce patriarchal structures. Whilst Walbys (1989;
1990; 1997) model usefully explains womens different experiences of patriarchal gender
relations and how these change with economic restructuring, especially as women take
on paid work, her model is less helpful when it comes to making sense of the resilience
of patriarchal structures. Perhaps, then, Walbys model needs to take on a more web
like form (imagine a spiders web). This web allows for women (and men) to experience
particular patriarchal structures more strongly than others depending upon where they
are positioned in the web and whether or not they have waged work, are responsible for
domestic work and so on. Similar to a spiders web the strands (patriarchal structures) of
the web are constantly in the process of being re-woven given that power is continually
and creatively constituted through individual (re)actions. Whilst women are implicated in
its (re)production, they can also feel simultaneously ensnared, trapped, out of control. So
too can men. Ending on a positive note, with this system of patriarchy taking on a more
web like form there is potential for men and women to gradually weave it into something
altogether less oppressive. The sounding of the death knell of patriarchal society will,
though, be slow to come about and will be nothing like as dramatic or as sudden as
Francis (1996) suggests with his new era.

Notes
1 The team is based at the Centre for Rural Economy, University of Newcastle upon Tyne.
2 The face to face survey was done by the Farm Business Survey team based at the University
of Newcastle upon Tyne.
3 The team included Katy Bennett, Huw Beynon, Emma Hollywood, Ray Hudson, Martin
ONeill and Tim Strangleman.
4 Interviewees included representatives of District Councils, Nottinghamshire County Council,
North Nottinghamshire Health Authority, Rural Community Council, North Nottinghamshire
College, North Nottinghamshire Training and Enterprise Council, English Partnerships,
Mansfield 2010, Groundwork, Mansfield Diamond Partnership, Dukeries Community College,
Nottinghamshire Constabulary and the Government Office for East Midlands.

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Katy Bennett
Centre for Rural Economy
University of Newcastle