Women in the workplace, Belfast c.1945-1998: an oral history

这部口述历史，收集了贝尔法斯特1945 -1998年间50名妇女对有偿工作的描述，将探讨就业对妇女身份、经历和生活轨迹的低估中心地位，阐明战后城市妇女工作被忽视的历史，并表达了北方爱尔兰妇女的独特经历，这些妇女在二十世纪爱尔兰更广泛的妇女社会历史中经常被遗忘。 20世纪后半叶，性别角色发生了巨大变化。妇女参与有偿工作的人数急剧增加，到这一时期结束时，在北方爱尔兰劳动力市场上，妇女人数超过了男子。然而，社会对妇女工作的态度并没有跟上这些变化的步伐，妇女的就业轨迹得到了有限的学术关注。劳动和工业遗产的历史和公众纪念活动优先考虑男子的工作和男子气概，而妇女的历史往往侧重于女权主义活动或妇女的麻烦经历。更广泛地说，学术重点一直在贝尔法斯特的宗派政治冲突，在城市的社会历史和它在二十世纪爱尔兰和英国更广泛的历史的地方的理解留下差距。 该项目将解决这种史学空白，有助于拓宽贝尔法斯特社会历史概念的学术研究，使其超越人们熟悉的宗派框架，同时通过研究冲突对妇女及其参与劳动力市场的影响，使人们对冲突的理解多样化。这项研究是在交叉的跨国研究背景下进行的，重点是妇女工作的价值、非工业化和社会流动性，这些研究将工业衰退、劳动力市场和就业转移以及经济福利模式的改变置于战后社会变革的核心。在这里，学者们认识到迫切需要多样化的观点，并把妇女的教育和工作经验在他们的研究领域的中心。从那里，他们还提供了一系列当代全球问题的历史视角和批评叙述，从工作文化到日益扩大的社会和经济不平等以及阶级政治。 这项研究将考虑妇女在以下方面的经验：工业工作和非工业化后失去工业工作的情况;社会流动性以及在扩大公共和服务部门方面新的教育和就业机会的影响;临时和非全时就业的增加，以及被学术界称为劳动力女性化的报酬往往很低的工作的作用;工会、女权主义政治和妇女表达其工作价值及其对工作场所不平等的挑战。民族宗教，阶级和代际差异的关系，塑造了妇女的工作经验也将在整个论文的前景。 从方法上讲，这项研究将建立在确定的研究背景中使用的方法之上，通过普通人的“小历史”了解社会，经济和文化趋势的大历史的价值。人们的生活现实阐明了支撑广泛趋势的各种个人动机和经历。口述历史是恢复这些生活现实的明显方法，口述历史学家擅长探索个人和集体记忆的主观性。新收集的关于工业、公共和服务部门妇女工作-生活经历的口头证词将与档案记录、现有口述历史、政府报告、社会调查和妇女工作的公开纪念材料一起进行评估。除了形成论文的核心主要证据外，目的也是将这些新的口述历史证词存款在一个公众可访问的档案中，以供将来使用。

This oral history, collecting fifty women's accounts of paid work in Belfast c.1945-1998, will explore the underestimated centrality of employment to women's identity, experience, and life trajectory, illuminating the neglected history of women's work in the post-war city, and giving voice to the distinct experiences of Northern Irish women so often forgotten in broader social histories of women in twentieth-century Ireland. The second half of the twentieth century witnessed extraordinary shifts in gender roles. A dramatic increase in women's participation in paid work saw them outnumber men in the Northern Irish labour market by the end of this period. Yet social attitudes towards women's work have not kept pace with these changes and women's employment trajectories have received limited academic attention. Histories and public commemorations of labour and industrial heritage have prioritised men's work and masculinity, while histories of women have often focused on feminist activism or women's experience of the Troubles. More broadly, scholarly focus has been on sectarian political conflict in Belfast, leaving gaps in understandings of the city's social history and its place in wider histories of twentieth century Ireland and the UK. This project will address such historiographical lacunae, contributing to scholarship that is broadening conceptions of Belfast's social history beyond the familiar sectarian frame, whilst in turn diversifying understanding of the conflict through study of its impact on women and their involvement in the labour market. The study is situated within intersecting transnational research contexts focused on the value of women's work, deindustrialization and social mobility, which locate industrial decline, labour market and employment shifts, and modified patterns of economic welfare at the heart of social change in the post-war period. Here, scholars are recognising the compelling need to diversify perspectives and put women's experience of education and work at the centre of their fields of study. From there, they are also providing historical perspective on, and critiquing narratives about, a range of contemporary global issues, from cultures of work, to widening social and economic inequality, and the politics of class. This research will consider women's experience of: industrial work and the loss of it in the wake of deindustrialization; social mobility and the impact of new educational and employment opportunities in expanding public and service sectors; the rise of temporary and part-time employment, and the role of often poorly paid work, labelled by academics as the feminisation of labour; and trade unions, feminist politics and women's articulation of the value of their work and their challenge to workplace inequalities. The nexus of ethno-religious, class and generational differences which shaped women's experiences of work will also be foregrounded throughout the thesis. Methodologically, the study will build on approaches used in the identified research contexts, where the value of engaging with the big history of social, economic and cultural trends through the 'little histories' of ordinary people is understood. People's lived realities illuminate the diverse personal motivations and experiences that underpin broad trends. Oral history is the obvious method by which to recover these lived realities, and oral historians are skilled in exploring the subjectivities of individual and collective memory. The newly collected oral testimonies of women's work-life stories in industrial, public and service sectors will be assessed alongside archival records, existing oral histories, government reports, social surveys and material public commemoration of women's work. In addition to forming the core primary evidence for the thesis, the intention is also to deposit these new oral history testimonies in a publicly accessible archive for future use.