A woman's work is never done: an analysis of the triple labour burden in the letters of the Women's Co-operative Guild, 1915

In the early decades of the twentieth century, a group of British working-class women documented their lives in a series of letters. In this thesis, I examine these first-hand accounts of living in poverty, trapped in an endless round of unpreventable pregnancy. This interdisciplinary project incorporates women’s studies, working-class history, and economic theory. My research centres on a close examination of the correspondence of the Women’s Co-operative Guild (WCG), published in 1915 as Maternity: Letters from Working Women. I draw on the life-writing of WCG members, situating their struggles at the centre of my argument: that working-class women were exploited by what I have termed the ‘triple labour burden’. The triple labour burden is the combination of production, reproduction, and reproductive labour undertaken by the members of the WCG. It is either underpaid or unpaid, and the Maternity letters demonstrate its consequences for the health, well-being, and economic circumstances of the authors. I provide a theoretical explanation of how capitalism depends on working-class women’s labour in order to function, before demonstrating how the triple labour burden directly perpetuated the financial poverty experienced by the WCG members. I conclude that, by sharing their personal stories, the WCG contributed to legislative change that meaningfully improved the lives of British working-class women through a scheme of nationwide State reforms, including maternity-specific welfare payments and free ante- and post-natal healthcare. In sum, my thesis is an original contribution to Marxist-feminist research. It amplifies the hitherto unheard voices of British working-class women.

Citation

Stansbury, L. (2025). A woman’s work is never done: an analysis of the triple labour burden in the letters of the Women’s Co-operative Guild, 1915 [Unpublished doctoral thesis]. University of Chester.

URI

https://chesterrep.openrepository.com/handle/10034/629909

Type

Thesis or dissertation