Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1991
ISSN
0028-4793
Publisher
Massachusetts Medical Society
Language
en-US
Abstract
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 nursing. Although such blatant sex discrimination in employment is a thing of the past, the average man continues to earn "almost 50 percent more per hour than does the average woman of the same race, age, and education.
Recommended Citation
George J. Annas,
Fetal Protection and Employment Discrimination - The Johnson Controls Case
,
in
325
New England Journal of Medicine
740
(1991).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/1245
Comments
From The New England Journal of Medicine, George J. Annas, Fetal Protection and Employment Discrimination - The Johnson Controls Case, Volume 325, Page740 Copyright ©(1991) Massachusetts Medical Society. Reprinted with permission.