# @wild_history_uk on Instagram

- **Type:** Video
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DVoIsSeCKMu
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/59840914-wild-history-uk-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/35c73fc846.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-03-08T14:42:09.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Wild History Shocking Stories From the Past (@wild_history_uk) — https://gondola.cc/wild_history_uk

## Caption

Northern England, 1865. Meet Mary. She’s 16 and she sorts coal for a living.
She’s a “pit brow lassie”—one of thousands of women working at coal mine surfaces, sorting coal from rock and slag.
12-hour shifts standing at a moving conveyor belt. Picking out usable coal. Throwing away waste. Her hands are black. Her lungs filled with coal dust. Her back aches from bending over the belt all day.
The work is considered “too rough for women.”
Yet here she is. Doing it.
For half what men earn.
Male coal sorter: 12 shillings/week
Female coal sorter (same work): 6 shillings/week
Same job. Same hours. Same black hands. Same coal-filled lungs. Half the pay.
And here’s the twist: Parliament debates banning women from this work—not because it’s dangerous, but because it’s “unwomanly.”
The real reason? Male workers want the jobs. The better-paid jobs.
So they frame it as “protecting delicate women” while women are literally doing the rough work right in front of them.
Northern England, 1865. When women did work “too rough” for them. For 50% of male wages. And were told they needed “protection” from competition.
The gender wage gap isn’t new. It’s been justified the same way for centuries.
This is Part 10 of “Cities That Built the World”—the real cost of industrial progress. 🖤#PitBrowLassie #VictorianEngland #GenderWageGap #CoalMining  #WorkingClass

## Stats

- **Views:** 5,795
- **Likes:** 406
- **Shares:** 0
- **Comments:** 5

## Tags

victorianengland, workingclass, coalmining, genderwagegap, pitbrowlassie

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