While not all London Underground cleaners are women, cleaning has traditionally been perceived and undervalued as 'women's work'.

Private companies have seized on this to entrench low pay in industries where women have traditionally been concentrated, such as cleaning and catering. 70% of minimum wage jobs in Britain are done by women. And the jobs that are usually low-paid are those that are modelled on work that (predominantly) women still do for nothing at home - cleaners, nurses, school meals workers, etc.

In strikes like the cleaners', an unjustly undervalued workforce is fighting their segregation into low paid jobs, not by fighting for new career paths, but by fighting for respect and higher wages, challenging the existence of low pay.

Crucially, like other struggles before it, such as the Miners' Strike, which brought 'Women Against Pit Closures' into role of shaping society where they had previously stayed at home, this strike shows women workers involved in a huge, history-making event. One female RMT cleaner activist spoke of her excitement, 'I have never been involved in such activities'.