A miner is a person who works in a mine, removing coal, metal ores, or other valuable materials from the earth. The job can be physically hard and sometimes dangerous.
From ‘mine’ plus the agent suffix ‘-er,’ meaning ‘one who works in or at a mine.’ The role has existed in many cultures for thousands of years.
Miners are some of the earliest ‘industrial’ workers—civilizations have depended on them since the Bronze Age. Today’s high-tech world runs on materials pulled up by miners, even though most of us never see a mine in person.
Language about miners has often assumed they are men, reflecting and reinforcing male-dominated employment in formal mining sectors. This has obscured women’s roles in informal mining and in mining communities.
Use 'miner' as gender-neutral and avoid defaulting to 'he' when describing miners. Specify gender only when it is known and relevant to the context.
["mine worker","extraction worker"]
Acknowledge women miners and women leading labor and environmental movements in mining regions, whose contributions are often sidelined.
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