A Partnership of Equals: Women in Scottish East Coast Fishing Communities

Abstract

AbstractMany of the written historical accounts of the Scottish fishing industry concentrate on catch statistics, boats and their use, and the economics of fishing communities. Less has been written about the women in these same fishing communities, apart from their role as herring gutters, yet these women were often in the unusual situation, both last century and for the first half of the twentieth century, of being regarded in their own communities as of at least equal status as the men, and indeed in some families they were the dominant members of the household. Full-time fishing communities have always been regarded as different from either farming or urban communities. Fishermen have a more perilous lifestyle than most. Fisherfolk tended to live in close-knit communities and most marriages were from within that community or from another fishing community. Part of the reason for this was the role the women were expected to play. Few town-bred or farm-bred women would be prepared to take on the load ex...