UK miners' strike (1984–85) the NUM's assets, it began to look abroad for money, and found supplies in the Soviet bloc and, it was mistakenly thought, also from Libya. These countries were highly unpopular with the British public. The Soviet Union's official trade union federation donated £1.5 million to the NUM. Media reports alleged that senior NUM officials were personally keeping some of the funds. In November 1984, it was alleged that senior NUM officials had travelled to Libya for money. Cash from the Libyan government was particularly damaging coming seven months after the murder of policewoman Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in
The Girl Who Was Plugged In in order to move up in society. Social status within this society is so dependent on what body one has in that people with “bad” bodies want to move into “better” bodies. Hicks says that this is precisely what gender disembodiment really means within the context of this short story. In relationship to human embodiment and this story, Scientists at MIT have created a device called sensory fiction that allows a reader to physically feel with his or her body what is happening in the story These scientists decided to use The Girl Who Was Plugged In as a prototype