The title of this book is ambitious and promises much. The Making of Women Trade Unionists sets out to consider women's trade union participation in light of the “existing gender democracy deficit”. That is, women are under‐represented in every facet of the union movement. The theoretical background to this “democracy deficit” is presented. The book's blurb, introduction, conclusion and several chapters consider how women's trade union participation is shaped by “interlocking social institutions‐ family, work and union”. The relationship between women and trade unions and the history of their association are both charted. However, this broad objective is whittled down to a more manageable and sustained focus on women's union involvement in light of “one form of women's separate organizing‐ women‐only courses”.
Women‐only trade union education courses have not been the subject of a great deal of research. Most of the discussion about the courses to date has been “anecdotal”. Kirton herself is one of the leading researchers in this area. This book, based on qualitative research, sets out to establish the nature and results of the women‐only courses. She uses a range of data sources, union archives, surveys, observations, and so on, but the originality of the book lies in the interviews of women taking women‐only courses run by two unions. More specifically, the study is based upon 29 life history interviews, consisting of 14 women members of the Manufacturing, Science and Finance (MSF) union and 15 women members of the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU). These two unions are large and male‐dominated. The union women interviewed were recruited to ensure “a diversity of demographical and occupational characteristics (p. 164). Most of them were interviewed twice, first in 1999‐2000 and then again in 2001 and 2002. Kirton finds that women follow a variety of paths to become trade unionists; women‐only courses are one means which promote women's union participation. She also finds that all women doing women‐only courses do not necessarily remain active union participants, that a proportion of their careers are “stunted”. One of the most interesting conclusions is that the reasons for stunted union careers after attending women‐only courses are varied. Existing work suggests that childcare and domestic labour are the major barriers to women's increased participation in the union along with the nature of women's paid work, the nature of trade union women and the “masculine construction of the trade union agenda”. Not surprisingly, most of the women reported some difficulties in getting to the in‐house residential courses. However, Kirton's work found that some women facing the largest barriers still made it to the courses. Moreover, some women who were childfree, single and who had attended women‐only courses also ceased to “kick on” in their union activism. The major finding, then, is that women's participation has become “far more complex than masculine linear models of union careers suggests” (pp. 160‐162). This feminist perspective takes into account these nuances.
Nevertheless, despite there being no casual relationship between attendance at women‐only courses and women's union participation (although what constitutes participation is one of the issues considered), Kirton argues herself that women‐only courses are transformative. She establishes that women‐only courses are very important to the women who do them, even if their subsequent union careers are “stunted”. The women interviewed all reported that the courses shaped and strengthened their gender and, consequently, their trade union identities. The consensus was that raised gender consciousness had flow‐on effects on trade union consciousness, even if it does not result in active union participation. Moreover, raised gender consciousness is not diluted by race and class identity; this work argues that multiple identities need not be competitive and there may not need to be “solutions” to people having a range of identities. Kirton argues that women‐only courses are different from mixed‐sex courses because the “modes of expression in the women‐only setting are different” and empowering for all the women from varied backgrounds attending them. A major change has been that most unions, even the male‐dominated ones, and many men have become supportive of women‐only courses because they are aware of their transformative nature. At times one would have liked to have read a bit more about the politics behind such a consensus. Certainly there is support for the courses from unions and men. Among many interesting, but subsidiary observations, Kirton noted, that while the unions offered free crèche facilities and some, albeit few, single women took advantage of them, most women reported their ability to attend the courses as reliant on “supportive” husbands, partners and families. (Many parents and their children do not wish to have strangers provide childcare.) While women‐only courses are not under threat, Kirton's work is a vigorous defense of them.
This work is important because of the social backdrop. The trade union movement was traditionally blue‐collar, male and strong. However, British unions suffered a long period of decline in membership from 1979‐1997. During that period its constituency changed. Work and workers feminized. The survival of the trade union movement into this century requires that it recruit and service the new labour market workers, increase participation and increase democracy. The issue of women‐only courses, then, is part of a huge sociological dilemma for unions (and other organizations). How does an organizational or institutionalized culture change? How does the trade union movement remake itself and become more democratic? What place does women's separatism play in encouraging membership participation? Does separatism continue to be central to increased women's participation? What role does education have for sustained improvements in women's participation?
Separatism is a fraught issue within the trade union movement. However, at times Kirton asserts rather than considers its value. Once it was common knowledge that girls‐only schools were good for girls, but co‐educational schools were good for boys. But is that still the case? Kirton argues that separatism is good for trade union women and she skirts the difficult issue of the problem as a whole for the trade union movement over time. The third chapter linking past and present experiences comes closest to dealing with the issue. In setting out that institutionalized women's inequality is longstanding, it reveals that in the past women trade unionists have been divided over women's separatism. Kirton offers an overview; while a number of women trade unionists were concerned that protective labour legislation would make a gilded prison for women's workers at the turn of the twentieth century, they were more concerned about the separate representation of women in unions in mid‐century. However, Kirton does not really consider education as one aspect of a seamless debate over separatism, historically or generally. She is not concerned with debate, an issue I will return to below. She concentrates on the contemporary trade union education phenomenon.
I would argue that Kirton's work not only establishes the importance of women‐only courses, but she also puts them in their place in a number of important regards. This, too, is useful. On the one hand, Kirton is at pains to emphasize that women‐only courses do not have a direct influence on the democracy deficit and academics are right, to some extent, not to have paid as much attention to them as they have to women's committees and communities. She describes women‐only courses as a “weaker form of women's separate organizing” (p. 154). Is it enough simply to acknowledge this? This weaker form of women's separate organizing needs to be placed in the wider context. On the other hand Kirton points out that, while 33 per cent of participants taking trade union education courses are women, 41 per cent of TUC members are women. Women‐only courses cannot be the whole reason for women's increased female participation in trade unions (p. 41). Indeed, the MSF only introduced the “Women's Week” – the cornerstone of its women‐only education – in 1982 as a result of the female director of education and a women's committee pushing for it. (p. 51). The TGWU has provided women‐only courses at a regional level since 1979 (pp. 58‐59) although the National Women's Members' School only began in 1997. Kirton states, on a number of occasions, that women‐only courses are not the whole explanation for women's increased participation in unions and their increasing rate of representation. Yet she doesn't establish the extent of the role of the women‐only courses. Again, she is aware of this lack. But it remains a major tension. Her work begs a broader and wider survey of all the separate organizing to place women‐only courses in the wider context.
Just as an aside, this book is about British women's trade union activism. It is written against a specific context. What is interesting is the similarity between the results in this book and studies in Australia and New Zealand. (Nolan and Ryan, 2003) Kirton points out the transnationalism of the British experience of labour force feminization and labour market restructuring (p. xiii). Again the discussion in Chapter 2 which surveys women and trade unions is framed with the observation that women's under‐representation is a phenomenon “affecting most countries in the developed world” (p. 11). Sadly, her work does not develop this transnational insight.
These points, of course, are a call for a different kind of book from the one Kirton wrote. Rather than simply being inspiring and pointing the way for future research, I think that the book, as it stands, has a couple of shortcomings. To some extent the problem is that the book structure is divided into two parts. The first part is made up of the first three chapters covering the theory, historiography and history of making trade unionists. It is an excellent survey introduction to these topics. The bibliography in particular is up‐to‐date and comprehensive. I would advise industrial relations scholars and students to read this book on the strength of the overview. Kirton argues that recent developments in the trade union movement prove inconvenient to established class and gender theories. Economic restructuring and social changes have led to a massive decrease in the trade union movement, along with a growth in the women's employment and gender parity in trade union membership, albeit on a much lower plateau. Kirton surveys existing class and gender theories and finds both wanting in explaining the dimensions and nature of these changes. Complex social developments have complex origins and dynamics and she suggests that the established theories are “sensitizing devices” all of which are in some measure useful. Women's lives and the historical context are all summarized expertly. In this regard, it is an excellent textbook. However, after this promising beginning, the second and larger part of the book (Chapters 4 to 7), deals with the more specific relationship between women‐only union courses and women's union careers as discussed above. The conclusion is also based on the case study research. To my reading these two parts of the book the broad brush theoretical, social and historical overview and the detailed empirical interviews – never quite mesh. The issues raised in the first part need a broader canvass to be played out on than women‐only courses.
Related to this first point, I think that the research design is manageable, qualitative and flawed. Kirton raises certain questions about women‐only courses which she sets out on pp. 41‐43. Rather than interview a random sample of women activists, she examines how two large male‐dominated British trade unions educate their women trade unionists. The voice of those uncomfortable with women‐only courses is not raised. Kirton is keen to point out that women are not unitary. It is acknowledged in several sections that “[m]any women in the trade union context are uncomfortable with feminism” (for example, p. 77). At times feminism is carefully delineated and women are disaggregated in relation to their views (p. 82). But for most of the book, feminism is a unitary category and because the book concentrates on women who went to women‐only courses, we never hear of those who do not share an enthusiasm or passion for women's separatism and women's‐only courses. Certainly, research in a New Zealand case study suggests that their opponents are a considerably‐sized group.
