The Sexes: Women's Underground

Did you know that there are women coal miners? Novice Miner Susan Miller, 25, says cold cash prompted her descent from a sewing-machine factory into the depths of Freeman United Coal Mining Co.'s Orient 6 mine at Waltonville, Ill. For her $42.75 daily trainee's pay, double her former earnings, Miner Miller works the coal belt, builds support partitions and sprays rock dust to prevent fires from coal fumes. Co-worker Mary Siefert, 38, a divorced mother of three who was the first woman on the job last August, says she was not trying to prove anything: "I had no choice; I needed the money desperately." She is "not a liberationist whatsoever," she says. Her paycheck helps support a teenage son, Tim, 16, her daughter Linda, 21, a college student, and her daughter's child. The male miners' reaction to Miller, Siefert and a third new miner, Toni Campbell? They are resentful because, among other things, the women are exempt from shoveling and other heavy jobs. Smaller matters also trouble the women. Among them: finding a private spot, 800 ft. underground, to go to the bathroom.