For Whose Protection?

Do employers have the right to exclude women of childbearing age from certain jobs? For the past three decades, courts in the United States and Britain have wrestled with the question of whether so-called fetal protection policies actually constitute sex discrimination in employment. In the closely followed United Auto Workers v. Johnson Controls case, the United States Supreme Court ruled against a battery manufacturer’s policy of excluding women of childbearing age from certain jobs involving hazardous substances.

In For Whose Protection? Sally Kenny places current exclusionary policies in the historical context of protective legislation, exploring how prevailing perceptions about sex differences have been used to exclude women from jobs. She analyzes a number of sex discrimination cases brought against employers both in Britain and the United States. Drawing on interviews with activists, parties to litigation, lawyers, and governmental officials as well as traditional analyses of legal canons and legislative history, her study considers important moral, legal and public policy questions in the context of real women’s lives.