Underground Work

Abstract

An investigation into the employment of women in underground work in the Soviet mining industry is illustrative of a number of important questions relating to the protection of female labour in the 1920s and 1930s. These questions include in this specific example the debates surrounding the physical capabilities of the female labour force and the fact that whilst the enactment of protective labour laws was perceived to be entirely in women’s interests by some, others argued that such legislative practice discriminated against women in that it prevented them from working in jobs which they themselves wanted to do. Women were clearly employed in a whole range of tasks in mining, including in underground work, throughout the interwar years.