eprintid: 10066841 rev_number: 18 eprint_status: archive userid: 608 dir: disk0/10/06/68/41 datestamp: 2019-02-04 14:22:00 lastmod: 2021-10-10 22:46:37 status_changed: 2019-02-04 14:22:00 type: article metadata_visibility: show creators_name: Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, Florence creators_name: Thomlinson, Natalie title: National Women Against Pit Closures: gender, trade unionism and community activism in the miners' strike, 1984–5 ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: B03 divisions: C03 divisions: F28 keywords: Women, activism, social movements, mining, trade unionism note: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. abstract: This article will offer the first historical assessment of the National Women Against Pit Closures movement. It shows that it was not a spontaneous formation but the result of work by a network of committed, long-time activists with strong connections to the left, including the Communist Party and the Women’s Liberation Movement. It will show how key questions caused divisions within the national organisation as it grew. In particular, activists were divided over whether the movement should aim solely to support the strike, or whether it should have broader aims relating to women’s lives, gender and feminism. Related to this, the movement divided over relationships with Arthur Scargill and the National Union of Mineworkers, and the question of which women should be allowed to be members. Finally, the article examines how these questions grew more pressing after the end of the strike, and how and why the national movement had largely disappeared three years after the strike. date: 2018 date_type: published official_url: https://doi.org/10.1080/13619462.2017.1408540 oa_status: green full_text_type: other language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green article_type_text: Journal Article verified: verified_manual elements_id: 1548822 doi: 10.1080/13619462.2017.1408540 lyricists_name: Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, Florence lyricists_id: FSUTC15 actors_name: Flynn, Bernadette actors_id: BFFLY94 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public publication: Contemporary British History volume: 32 number: 1 pagerange: 78-100 issn: 1743-7997 citation: Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, Florence; Thomlinson, Natalie; (2018) National Women Against Pit Closures: gender, trade unionism and community activism in the miners' strike, 1984–5. Contemporary British History , 32 (1) pp. 78-100. 10.1080/13619462.2017.1408540 <https://doi.org/10.1080/13619462.2017.1408540>. Green open access document_url: https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10066841/1/Sutcliffe-Braithwaite_National%20Women%20Against%20Pit%20Closures.pdf