Barriers to women's advancement in underground coal mining

This paper uses a middle-range feminist theory by Reskin and Roos (1987) to examine how the sexualization of work relations, along with formal practic es governing promotion at a large coal mine in central Appalachia, has led to job-level sex segregation underground. Analyses of qualitative data from nonparticipant observation, in-depth interviews with 10 coal mining women, and company documents reveal that sexualization represents men's power to stigmatize women as inferior workers and to maintain the stereotypes for as signing work to women. Formal practices, particularly training, seniority, and posting and bidding procedures, legitimize the process of matching wome n workers with gender-typed jobs. Coal mining women's resistance is reflect ed in their awareness of how men's stereotypes are used and in their contin ual individual efforts to prove their competence as coal miners.