Rationale for passage
Protection of women was a rationale for the enactment of the laws. Women were considered more vulnerable than men in factories and sweatshops, and one supporter of the laws was the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, a labor organization, which supported the laws for nonmembers of unions. [5] Some supporters in unions and women's organizations, concerned that courts in the 1950s would oppose pro-labor legislation generally, wanted to preserve whatever such laws were already in place. [7] By 1972, however, the year the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the U.S. Constitution passed the Congress and was proposed to the states for ratification, unions supported the ERA and considered female-only protective laws as against women's interests. [8]
Another rationale was put forth by an organization which, in 1836, adopted a resolution that said, "Whereas, Labor is a physical and moral injury to women and a competitive menace to men, we recommend legislation to restrict women in industry." [9]
The minimum wage was supported except for men because of "widespread agreement that the labor market did not function effectively where women and the family were concerned" [10] and among feminists because women needed to support their own dependents. [10]
Criticisms
They were criticized on several grounds.
- They failed to require protection from the hazards or difficulties for all workers who needed those protections.
- They denied jobs to women who did not need the protections at all or needed the jobs more than the protections and could make that choice.
- Many denied jobs rather than required changes, either at the workplaces or elsewhere, that would have reduced any reason for protection.
- Few, if any, of these laws applied to women's unpaid work at home or with families, which could be more hazardous or difficult than some of the restricted employments.
- Some women may have advocated for such laws, but many were put into effect when women did not have the vote or the right to hold electoral office, [3] so the people ultimately responsible for legislating them were almost exclusively men, and they were responding to voters who were men.
- The laws disincentivized employers from hiring women.
Protective labor laws were criticized because they excluded women from prestigious well-paid male-dominated occupations, and they confined women's work to the home, thus reinforcing Separate Spheres ideology and the Cult of Domesticity. [1]
An opponent of these laws was the National Woman's Party (NWP), which led support for the Equal Rights Amendment. It opposed the laws as interfering with women's right to make contracts and as preventing them from offering their full capabilities at work, objecting, for example, to a 20-pound limit on lifting, if a woman wanted that job and could lift the weight. [5]
Modernity
Eventually, most or all were amended, repealed, ruled unconstitutional (i.e., in violation of the US Constitution and thus invalid), or not enforced anymore because they singled women out for unequal treatment. (Laws in the US may not be enforced if they are unconstitutional or otherwise unauthorized in law.) Had the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution been enacted in the 1970s or the 1980s, it was believed the laws would have been invalidated by the amendment and subsequent litigation [5] and, as a result, most liberal organizations opposed the amendment. [5] The laws had earlier been supported by social feminists for decades. [5]
Some of the laws have been replaced by laws that apply to both genders, such as the Occupational Safety and Health Act.
An argument for protective laws still sometimes arises, as with debates over the US military's continuing legal ban on women in certain combat positions, when it is argued that the ban should remain in effect because women might be killed or raped.
The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the United States and its states from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex, in effect recognizing the right of women to vote. The amendment was the culmination of a decades-long movement for women's suffrage in the United States, at both the state and national levels, and was part of the worldwide movement towards women's suffrage and part of the wider women's rights movement. The first women's suffrage amendment was introduced in Congress in 1878. However, a suffrage amendment did not pass the House of Representatives until May 21, 1919, which was quickly followed by the Senate, on June 4, 1919. It was then submitted to the states for ratification, achieving the requisite 36 ratifications to secure adoption, and thereby go into effect, on August 18, 1920. The Nineteenth Amendment's adoption was certified on August 26, 1920.
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would, if added, explicitly prohibit sex discrimination. It was written by Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman and introduced in Congress in December 1923 as a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution. The purpose of the ERA is to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex. Proponents assert it would end legal distinctions between men and women in matters of divorce, property, employment, and other matters. Opponents originally argued it would remove protections that women needed. In the 21st century, opponents argue it is no longer needed and some disapprove of its potential effects on abortion and transgender rights.
Muller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 412 (1908), was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court. Women were permitted by state mandate fewer working hours than those allotted to men. The posed question was whether women's liberty to negotiate a contract with an employer should be equal to a man's. The law did not recognize sex-based discrimination in 1908; it was unrecognized until the case of Reed v. Reed in 1971; here, the test was not under the equal protections clause, but a test based on the general police powers of the state to protect the welfare of women when it infringed on her fundamental right to negotiate contracts; inequality was not a deciding factor because the sexes were inherently different in their particular conditions and had completely different functions; usage of labor laws that were made to nurture women's welfare and for the "benefit of all" people was decided to be not a violation of the Constitution's Contract Clause.
Alice Stokes Paul was an American Quaker, suffragist, feminist, and women's rights activist, and one of the foremost leaders and strategists of the campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits sex discrimination in the right to vote. Paul initiated, and along with Lucy Burns and others, strategized events such as the Woman Suffrage Procession and the Silent Sentinels, which were part of the successful campaign that resulted in the amendment's passage in August 1920.
The National Woman's Party (NWP) was an American women's political organization formed in 1916 to fight for women's suffrage. After achieving this goal with the 1920 adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the NWP advocated for other issues including the Equal Rights Amendment. The most prominent leader of the National Woman's Party was Alice Paul, and its most notable event was the 1917–1919 Silent Sentinels vigil outside the gates of the White House.
The Revolution was a newspaper established by women's rights activists Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in New York City. It was published weekly between January 8, 1868, and February 17, 1872. With a combative style that matched its name, it primarily focused on women's rights, especially prohibiting discrimination against women's suffrage in the United States, and women's suffrage in general. It also covered other topics, such as politics, the labor movement, and finance. Anthony managed the business aspects of the paper, while Stanton was co-editor along with Parker Pillsbury, an abolitionist and a supporter of women's rights.
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Social feminism is a feminist movement that advocates for social rights and special accommodations for women. It was first used to describe members of the women's suffrage movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who were concerned with social problems that affected women and children. They saw obtaining the vote mainly as a means to achieve their reform goals rather than a primary goal in itself. After women gained the right to vote, social feminism continued in the form of labor feminists who advocated for protectionist legislation and special benefits for women. The term is widely used, although some historians have questioned its validity.
The Women's Equity Action League, or WEAL, was a United States women's rights organization founded in 1968 with the purpose of addressing discrimination against women in employment and education opportunities. Made up of conservative women, they used the court system to facilitate enforcing existing legislation. They are most known for filing cases against higher education institutions across the United States to address discriminatory hiring and promotion practices. They also successfully litigated over help-wanted advertisements being sex-segregated, extending military spousal benefits to husbands of female service personnel, and over the extent to which the Department of Defense could involve itself in the lives of military spouses.
Mary Anderson was a Swedish-born American labor activist and an advocate for women in the workplace. A feminist, she rallied support to ratify many new laws to support women and equal rights. Throughout her lifetime, Anderson held a large range of roles, rising from a factory worker to the Director of the Women's Bureau in the United States Department of Labor. Anderson's work to protect the rights of women in the workplace made no small impact on the lives of working women across the country.
The Pornography Victims Compensation Act of 1991 was a bill, S. 983, in the U.S. Congress. The sponsor in the Senate was Senator Mitch McConnell with eight cosponsors. A Senate committee held hearings on the bill. The bill was not voted on, did not pass, and did not become law.
Feminists Fighting Pornography was a political activist organization against pornography. It advocated for United States Federal legislation to allow lawsuits against the porn industry by women whose attackers were inspired by pornography. FFP was based in New York, N.Y., was founded in 1983 or 1984, and dissolved in 1997.
Care work includes all tasks directly involving the care of others. Most care work is provided with no expectation of immediate pecuniary reward, but rather due to affection, social norms or a sense of responsibility for others. It can also be a form of paid employment.
Labor feminism was a women's movement in the United States that emerged in the 1920s, focused on gaining rights in the workplace and unions. Labor feminists advocated for protectionist legislation and special benefits for women, a variant of social feminism. They helped pass state laws regulating working conditions for women, expanded women's participation in unions, and organized to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment.
This is a Timeline of second-wave feminism, from its beginning in the mid-twentieth century, to the start of Third-wave feminism in the early 1990s.
Judith A. Baer is an American political scientist. She is a professor of political science at Texas A&M University. Her research focuses on public law and feminist jurisprudence.
Chen Mingxia, born in 1948, is a Chinese feminist and professor of law who has promoted women’s legal rights. She helped initiate an anti-domestic violence project that developed into the first large scale women’s NGO in China, Stop Domestic Violence. As a scholar and activist, Chen emphasizes that domestic violence against women is not only a private matter but a collective public issue and infringement upon women's human rights in China, requiring both legal and social action.
