How feminists can win — by treating pregnancy like a temporary disability
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Washington Post
June 5, 2015
How feminists can win — by treating pregnancy like a temporary disability
This week a bipartisan group of four senators introduced a bill, dubbed the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. It borrows language from the Americans With Disabilities Act and seeks to strengthen and clarify the “reasonable accommodations” that employers must make for pregnant employees.
The bill in and of itself it significant. But it's also significant in another sense -- in that it marks a clear and public turn away from decades of feminist thinking about the absolute interchangeability of male and female workers.
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The reason the bill has legs is because people on many sides of the issue have an interest, according to Emily Martin, a vice president and general counsel at The National Women’s Law Center. There are the lawmakers deeply concerned about the welfare of fetuses, there are elected officials worried that low-wage working women pushed out of their jobs will wind up in need of public assistance, and there are legislators generally inclined to advance laws that expand women’s rights.
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It’s worth noting that all of this is happening at a time when entire birthing centers, online communities and documentaries have stormed the culture with the idea that pregnancy need not be a universally medical-ized and medicated 40-week stretch of vulnerability and disempowerment capped by a frightening delivery.
But Martin thinks something else has happened that should not be missed: The way that Americans think about disabilities and even what employers understand to be a “reasonable” accommodation. This has shifted dramatically in the last 25 to 30 years. Disability has, in short, become less stigmatized, and the legal protections for workers with short- and long-term disabilities have become far clearer.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/06/05/how-feminists-can-win-by-calling-pregnancy-a-disability/
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