Word: friedans
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...decision could have enormous impact on the growing social dilemma caused by the influx of women into the job market over the past 25 years: the heavy burden of holding down a job and having children at the same time. "It's a wonderful victory," said Feminist Betty Friedan, who lost her first job when she became pregnant. "It says that equality does not mean women have to fit the male model." The ruling opens up the possibility of radical -- and potentially costly -- changes in the employment practices of American business. Says Virginia Lamp, an attorney for the U.S. Chamber...
...problem is that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act seems to prohibit special benefits to either sex. Friedan, who has drawn most of the heat in a fairly calm debate, surprised many feminists by repudiating the equal-rights stance that the women's movement has taken for years. "The time has come to acknowledge that women are different from men," she says. "There has to be a concept of equality that takes into account that women are the ones who have the babies...
...hernias as two temporary disabilities that ought to be covered. She says the CREW brief has "more of a flavor of a desire to glorify / pregnancy," while the NOW and A.C.L.U. briefs have "more of a flavor to make pregnancy not the thing around which women are defined." Says Friedan: "Some people are still busy reversing the feminine mystique, saying, 'I won't marry, I won't have children.' This reactive feeling is still implied in the thinking that went into this suit...
Rosenberg, author of Beyond Separate Spheres: Intellectual Roots of Modern Feminism, is more embattled than Friedan. In the twelve-year case against Sears, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charged that the retailer discriminated against women in high-paying commission-sales jobs. Sears argued that women showed little interest in these jobs and seemed to find noncommission work more enjoyable. Rosenberg testified that women are underrepresented in many jobs because they have "different interests" and have historically settled for less in the workplace because of competing demands of home and family. "It is naive," she said, "to believe that the natural...
Though the Sears and California cases are obviously very different, both turn on the same question: Should feminists admit significant differences between the sexes? Traditionally, mainstream feminism has downplayed the importance of biological differences and has insisted that men and women be treated exactly alike by the law. Friedan and her allies deride this view, with its strained argument that hernias and pregnancies are somehow similar. Asks Friedan: "Why should the law treat us like male clones?" Similarly, Rosenberg argues that her feminist opponents minimize all the significant male-female differences and cultural influences that might explain the preponderance...