On Thursday, an online tempest erupted when Hilary Rosen went on CNN to explain why she didn’t think Ann Romney was a worthy voice for America’s women because she “has actually never worked a day in her life.” The kerfluffle might seem familiar. Twenty years ago, Hillary Clinton came under fire for a remark she made during
I almost don’t want to write this post, because it brings attention to something I’d much rather be ignored. In the frenetic lead-up to the March 23 opening of The Hunger Games, there are articles about the movie’s restrictive costumes, about its “futuristic Appalchian” soundtrack, about its similarities with a Japanese film called Battle Royale. But few of them focus on one key
When The Atlantic’s article The End of Men came out over a year ago, I, like many women, was irritated. But it took me a long time to understand why I found the article so grating. It makes good points. It’s true that many jobs that were long dominated by men are on the decline. The statistics author Hanna Rosin
Co-written with Rachel Dempsey. In the last post, Joan talked about the problem of pregnancy discrimination against women in hourly jobs – cases where mothers were refused simple accommodations that would help them have healthy pregnancies. Discrimination against pregnant women and mothers is a huge problem for working-class women, for whom a single missed day
In the 1970s, after it became illegal to discriminate based on race, some employers responded by imposing high school education requirements for blue-collar jobs. Today, employers who want to keep women out of “men’s jobs” do something similar: they wait until workers get pregnant, and then deny them “light duty,” like desk work for a