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Full-Text Articles in Law
Fetal Protection And Employment Discrimination - The Johnson Controls Case, George J. Annas
Fetal Protection And Employment Discrimination - The Johnson Controls Case, George J. Annas
Faculty Scholarship
Employers have historically limited women's access to traditionally male, high-paying jobs. In one famous case early in this century, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an Oregon law that forbade hiring women for jobs that required more than 10 hours of work a day in factories. The Chief Justice explained that this restriction was reasonable because "healthy mothers are essential to vigorous offspring" and preserving the physical well-being of women helps "preserve the strength and vigor of the race." This rationale was never particularly persuasive, and women's hours have not been limited in traditionally female, low-paid fields of employment, such as …
Parental Leaves And Poor Women: Paying The Price For Time Off, Maria O'Brien
Parental Leaves And Poor Women: Paying The Price For Time Off, Maria O'Brien
Faculty Scholarship
This Article presents a critique of unpaid "parental" leaves and the parental leave legislation recently passed by Congress.1 Eight states have already enacted parental leave statutes of various kinds.' For the sake of simplicity and uniformity, however, this Article focuses on the proposed federal legislation3 and its anticipated effects on unemployed and underemployed women.4 Specifically, this Article argues that the debate about parental leave 5 has ignored the possibility that the cost of this mandated benefit is likely to be borne by poor, low-skill working women6 who will find that their job opportunities narrow as employers try to shift some …