This title was first published in 2000: This work aims to provide a comparative and temporal assessment of the position of women in non-traditional employment in Europe, Britain and Northern Ireland. Its second aim is to provide a new perspective on the division of labour in modern Western societies and to critically examine the issues, debates and perspectives which have traditionally dominated portrayals of women and paid employment. The book assesses the potential which women themselves have for transforming existing gender relations, particularly within the structural constraints of the education, training and employment systems. In so doing, it is intended to highlight flaws inherent in much contemporary feminist theorizing, and aims to provide a more satisfactory theoretical framework within which to elaborate and develop its arguments. While related texts have tended to concentrate on stereotypical notions of women and paid employment, this book aims to fill a gap in the literature by scrutinizing the lived experiences of women in non-traditional manual occupations, and relating these to a possible transformation of the existing gender order in Western societies