Introduction

Abstract

This book is a study of social change. It has three main aims. First, it explores the pattern of relations between women and men in contemporary workplaces, tracing out continuities as well as changes. Secondly, it places these in the context of contemporary capitalist development, again considering continuities alongside change. Finally, it demonstrates how these processes combine to produce hierarchies of gender and class power within workplaces, exploring the operation of such power relations within the daily practices of working life. These relationships of class and gender are explored utilizing material from interviews with 198 employees, women and men, in five organizations in the North East of England.