ROSE BROOKS' article on women in the coal industry (SC 4 March) teresting. However, I think it dodged the most important questions involved in this debate.
The widely-held view in the mining areas is that the 1842 Bill excluding women from underground work was a gain or te working class, won after years of struggle. The view of women's work presented in the article Is misleading. The majority of women worked as 'hurhave ing 1 usua logg air.
LIC DaSKeLs won It was a terrible and unnecessary waste of women's lives — the result letter!
I HAVE been waiting for you to print some was useful and inof the refusal of the more backward owners to invest proper luauways and winding gear.
By all means draw out the positive aspects women's working nerience but not at the expense of romanticising the Dra cool which was the daily experience of Women as a general rule did not work in the pits in areas where there was other work, such as in the textile industries. was certainly not any al tachment to the job which forced women to evade the law and continue working down the pits — it was the unrear or sta vauon.
The campaign for the exclusion of women from unaerground work was on the preparing the way for Ten-Hour Bill. The campaign wasn't so much about replacing, women will but eliminating the worst jobs the But on the other hand, the movement was strongly influenced by radical Tories. Anglican priests and Tory bosses.
These people argued that a woman's place was in the home. The Bill did not represent a class solution to the problem of the brutal exploitation of woter mineworkers. was actually divisive.
Socialist Challenge should be promoting this debate in the labour moveOur fundamental position should be that women should have the themselves whether they want to work in the pits.
However. the main point is that while conditions in the pits may have changed dramatically, one would want to work in the pits if they could get comparable pay in another job.
Our major focus should be to get the con siderable weight of the • behind the Huers campaign for positive ac tion as an integral part of a workers' plan to end unemployment through a 35 hour week, early retirement, a crash programme of useful public works and training for skilled trade:
MANSFIELD letter over 400 wr.."
Maurice Bishop. Does Castro 'misunderstand the roletthe front wild system? ..
THE LETTER from Brian Lyons March) on Poland, Nicaragua and Cuba contains number of accusations against Socialist Challenge which alc both factually incorrect and politically wrong He says that the US military buildup against the revolutions in Central America threatens 'the biggest gains made by the working class in over 60 years' that is, since the Russian revolution This is false. The big gest gain made by the in ternational working class years been the wrenching of a quarter of humanity out of the grip of imperialism the Chinese revolution of 1949. Comrade Lyons' attitude to the Cuban leadership makes him see things differently Brian charges that the scope of our material overshadows its framework. First Socialist Challenge more than any other paper on the left has defended the Central American revolution against US imperialism, in literally dozens of articles. IT IS with great regret that we announce the
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