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‘Things change, don’t they?’ De-industrialisation, working-class solidarity and gender in the life story of a shipyard wife
Journal article   Peer reviewed

‘Things change, don’t they?’ De-industrialisation, working-class solidarity and gender in the life story of a shipyard wife

Alison Atkinson-Phillips
Oral History Journal, Vol.53(2)
Autumn 2025
url
https://ohs.org.uk/View
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Abstract

North East England women feminism activism film oral history
This article considers the under-represented experience of women living in shipyard communities of North East England during and after the de-industrialisation disputes of the 1980s. While this period is mostly remembered for the 1983-1984 miners’ strike, other heavy industries faced challenges at the same time. Two wives of shipyard workers were interviewed in a 1984 film campaigning against shipyard closures. One of these women, Sandra Cuskin, was more recently interviewed twice to reflect back on that period and her life as a whole, bringing the historical moment of the shipyard closures into broader perspective. This article considers the ways that working-class women have negotiated and renegotiated gender roles and expectations alongside the men in their lives across the turn of the twenty-first century.

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