Women Debate the Equal Rights Amendment

...The Equal Rights Amendment will apply not just to the factory...

...Raising blacks to skilled trades, supervision, college, the professions— incomplete as this upgrading is—has multiplied job openings and helped boost the morale, as piration, and fighting spirit of the whole race...

...Women in general and women unionists in December 20, 1970 particular are lined up an both sides on the question of the Amendment...

...The next federal act affecting primarily women came under Kennedy...

...Even a college degree doesn't bring equality...

...So many jobs are closed to women that, among women college graduates, 23 percent were working in unskilled or semiskilled jobs in 1968...

...Increasingly blue-collar jobs are becoming skilled jobs...

...The Amendment passed the House, but was crippled in the Senate for the time being...

...1I WHAT ABOUT THE VULNERABLE WOMEN down at the bottom of the job ladder...

...Until such time, women workers want to be permitted by law to collect premium pay for extra work...

...The school hierarchy, which tends to promote only men, may be shaken by the Amendment...

...Women want these jobs, for the same reason that blacks want them...

...In truth, most of these jobs do not require strenuous labor or special masculine prowess for their effective performance...

...There is too much competition as it is, and there are now too few jobs...

...The lot of these marginal women, almost beyond the reach of unions, could be improved far more by the inclusion of all categories of workers in the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act than they are by the present "protective" state laws on women...

...The law constricts job openings and dampens aspirations...

...nor any state shall, on account of sex, deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" for the earlier version—"equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the U.S...

...III THE JOB STATUS OF WOMEN, fostered by law, is clear enough in income data...

...The average unskilled male has nothing to look forward to in the plant, except a crack at a foreman's job or an apprentice program...

...On the other side, Myra Wolfgang, a vice president of the Hotel and Restaurant Workers' union, has been among the effective spokesmen against the Amendment...

...Even the official policy of the UAW has until recently been to support "protective" laws...

...Most of these jobs involve skill, training, manual dexterity more than muscle, and most are physically easier than many unskilled assembly jobs...

...Taking inventory, for example, is easier and freer, than jobs on the line, yet men, under cover of the law, lay claim to a high proportion of these and other nonproduction jobs...

...Yet the specifications for the good jobs are usually written in such a way as to legally exclude women...

...In highly unionized indus COMMENTS AND OPINIONS tries, this is true...

...We may even be able to devise a way to keep men from tittering when the subject of women's rights is raised, but that may be a utopian vision...

...Since then not much has happened...

...Many women can perform some of these jobs as well as men...

...I am myself among its supporters...

...At the lower levels, teaching is left to women, responsibility to men: 75 percent of elementary school principals were men (196667), 96 percent of junior high school principals were men (1964-65), 90 percent of high school principals were men (1963-64...

...Getting a job is even more important to women than getting promoted to a better one...

...Protective laws also keep women from being hired...

...The "Equal Pay Act," amending the Fair Labor Standards Act, has been pending in Congress for 16 years...

...Women want nonproduction jobs—jobs off the assembly lines—even more than they want skilled jobs...

...Under Johnson, the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed, with the term "sex" included in Title VII, the Fair Employment Section...

...Just so with women...

...Still, women have the same needs and should have the same job rights...

...The Amendment will go even beyond jobs...

...The Knights of Labor, the AFL, the Progressive movement, the Women's Trade Union League, the Industrial Department of the YWCA, all supported protective laws...

...Whether or not the Amendment finally passes in this form, the highest priority is for a national campaign to prohibit compulsory overtime and other such abuses, for both men and women...

...By 1969 joblessness for women was nearly double that of men-4.7 percent compared to 2.8 percent...

...Clubs, bars, organizations will be unable to keep women out...

...In low-wage, nonunionized industries, such laws are about the only protection women have...

...To illustrate the importance of "getting ahead" in the plant, such as it is, one of the most common types of grievance under the General Motors and most other contracts is discrimination in promotional opportunities...

...Back in 1841, the factory girls at Lowell and Exeter established their own publications, The Factory Girl and Factory Girl's Album, to combat company handouts about the joys of work...

...There is probably no skilled or managerial job that women (many, not all) could not learn to do...

...Often they can't become pipe fitters because they can't lift and carry the pipe, or machine repairmen because they can't lift parts out of machines...

...Connecticut and Pennsylvania have had laws requiring women to serve longer prison sentences than men...

...Employers would naturally rather hire a man, any man rather than a woman, any woman, even a qualified one, fit and in her prime, yet who cannot lift, carry, work overtime, etc...

...Median annual earnings of full-time workers in 1968 were: OCCUPATION WOMEN MEN Scientists $10,000 $13,200 Professional, technical 6,691 10,151 Proprietors, managers 5,635 10,340 Clerical workers 4,789 7,351 Sales workers 3,461 8,549 Craftsmen 4,625 7,978 Factory workers 3,991 6,738 Service workers 3,332 6,058 Even in teaching, which is traditionally female, only 19 percent of college faculties are women...

...Its conciliation efforts have failed in more than half the cases where discrimination was found...

...It was only 60 percent of that of men in 1964, and in 1967 only 58 percent...

...Often they can't become crane operators (a simple job) because they can't climb up to the crane, or foremen because they can't work the overtime hours foremen sometimes have to put in...

...In pay, overtime, security, independence, working conditions, these skilled jobs are vastly preferable to unskilled and assembly work...

...Perhaps then, some new protectors are needed...

...Under Kennedy it passed, and the principle of equal pay for equal work performed by women became part of federal law...

...Not one woman spoke against this position at the convention...

...So may the "military-industrial" complex, where women are not even seen at policy levels, let alone heard...

...Because the courts are slow and enforcement is weak, the Constitutional Amendment, which would clearly supersede state laws, is now being sought...

...That is not exactly progress...

...By 1917, 41 states had new and improved maximum-hour laws for women, and an avalanche of other "protective" laws were written...

...Some women can't perform these jobs, but some men can't either...

...The back log of cases at EEOC is such that almost two COMMENTS AND OPINIONS years are usually needed to dispose of a case...

...If it gets past the Senate, it must still go through a referendum vote of the state legislatures...

...Moreover, while the Executive Order on Government Contracts including the word "sex" became effective on October 13, 1968, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance has not yet issued guidelines or moved to enforce the order...

...More than 64 percent of the 30 million working women are in low paying and menial jobs—cleaning women, waitresses, sales girls, clerks...

...It should help lift the whole status of women to a position parallel to that of men, and it should do this with relative dispatch...

...To date, the "protectors" of women's rights have done very little to advance their interests...

...Women, by law in many cases, can't become in-plant electricians (one of the best jobs) because they can't climb...

...As it is, many of the "service" jobs in which women work are excluded from such protection as the federal minimum wage...

...Most unionists, however, feel that overtime should be voluntary—rather than compulsory, as it is in most cases—for everyone...

...The Equal Employment Oppor tunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency that "enforces" Title VII, has ruled, with court approval, that Title VII supersedes all the state laws on women that do not take account of the capacities and preferences of individuals and that thereby discriminate against women rather than protect them...

...It will apply to jobs across the board...

...Women are massively overrepresented among low paying clerks, sales and service workers, and just as underrepresented among proprietors, managers, professionals (other than teachers and nurses), and craftsmen...

...She is simply a less versatile and useful worker...

...It will outlaw discrimination of every kind...

...Men obviously do not welcome the competition of women for these jobs, though many are nobly resigned to it...

...Laws will change: now prostitutes are prosecuted, but the johns go free...

...Sex" was also included in Johnson's executive order on nondiscrimination in government contracts...

...These federal laws are the real protective laws we have on the books—if only they could be enforced...

...Women in the same occupations as men earn much less than they...

...IN THE LAST FEW MONTHS there has been a vigorous debate among women activists concerning the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, which would void all state and local laws with special provisions on women...

...Those who support the Amendment also say that women don't want to be "protected" against overtime...

...The debate over "protective" legislation is not a traditional one in which liberals and radicals line up neatly on one side...

...While 20 percent of males are craftsmen, only one percent of women are...

...Now its position is against them...

...Women got the vote in 1920...

...In 1967, the median income of full-time white men was $7,512, of nonwhite men $5,069, of white women $4,394, and of nonwhite women $3,363...

...where women predominate...

...The main reason for the difference is in the jobs themselves...

...The blue-collar male feels besieged enough without having women crawling over his head and beating him to the good jobs...

...Women are more vulnerable to unemployment than men—and getting more so each year...

...They told about their 14-16-hour work day, their wage of $1.56 a week, and the fact that many were "forced to abandon their virtue" to live at that wage...

...Far more than such "protection" women need day care centers, as Swedish women have, where they can leave children while at work...

...This would remove the discrimination in the law, give men and women an equal break, and provide men with what is (all things equal) de sirable protection...

...In 1960, jobless rates were about the same-5.4 percent for men and 5.9 percent for women...

...So do almost all vocal women in industrial unions...

...In the long run, the Amendment will help pull these women up by opening vacancies in the better jobs for women...

...But this COMMENTS AND OPINIONS is by no means an unambigious issue, and the opponents of the Amendment have some strong points...

...Mainly the opponents come from industries of low capitalization (service, retail trades, etc...

...Massachusetts passed a law limiting the working hours of factory women in 1874...

...Few of the grievances are filed by women, as yet...

...This new policy is a major revision of union tradition...

...The U.S...

...Best of all would be language and/or interpretation which would make all current laws applicable to men as well as women...

...In those industries, women are indeed exploited, and are indeed protected by state law from still worse exploitation...

...or by any state on account of sex...

...Some forbid women to lift heavy objects (say, 25 pounds or over), or carry them, or climb to any considerable height...

...Women will then, across the board, be subject to less exploitation...

...Birch Bayh's new version of the Amendment sounds good and almost identical to the original...

...He would substitute this language, "Neither the U.S...

...They believe: (a) that some laws are needed to protect women against employer exploitation, and (b) that existing federal law and court rulings can, in time, take care of objectionable discrimination, and that therefore the Amendment is superfluous...

...DISSENT may have to make room for a woman on its editorial and contributing boards, if some aspiring authoress can prove her career is injured by the exclusion...

...Oregon, sustaining the right of that state to enact a ten-hour law for women...

...Most workers—men and women—will work as much overtime (at premium pay) as they can, for they need the extra money...

...In 1968, for example, a woman with four years of college earned, typically, about $6,600, while the typical male college graduate earned about $11,795...

...Supreme Court at the turn of the century gave a go-ahead in the case of Muller vs...

...The last convention resolved to "repudiate certain so-called 'protec tive' state laws which are used by employers to deny women workers rights and benefits to which they are entitled," and to support laws that protect all workers and make overtime voluntary for all...

...As in other jobs, selections should, by rights, be based on ability and not on such artificial criteria as race and sex...

...In some cases state laws (which vary widely from state to state) protect such women against long involuntary overtime work and against night work...

...All of this sounds good, and it is good...

...So will the professions that have been male preserves...

...Olga Mader, a vice president of the UAW (and as such, perhaps the leading woman unionist in the country), vigorously supports the Amendment...

...What happens to them if the Amendment passes...

...They prevent them from moving into good jobs—semiskilled, skilled, managerial...

...They also guarantee some amenities...

...Some require that women be seated at their work, and that rest periods and couches for rest be provided...

...So will college faculties and administration where so few women are found...

...Many women, however, work in small and undercapitalized industries that defy organization, and many are still timid about unionization...

...The EEOC has been unable to enforce the law, however, because its budget is inadequate and it lacks authority to issue cease-and-desist orders and bring violators to courts...

...The median wage of full-time women workers was 64 percent of that of men in 1955...

...But in other and more progressive industries, such laws keep women down...

...14 percent of males are proprietors or managers but only 4 percent of women...

...They also want supervisory jobs, and again for the same reason...

...Employers opposed them vigorously...