The Movement Of The 1964 Civil Rights Act Essay

The significance of Lorena Week’s sex discrimination case was that women can use the legal system to achieve for equality. Week’s case led the National Origination for Women to challenge discriminatory laws. Lorena weeks was a single mother of three children living in Wadley, Georgia. She worked as a telephone operator for many years at the Southern Bell Company. As a single mother, Weeks struggled to provide for her family on her low wages. When the position of Switchman opened, Weeks applied for the position. The switchman job had higher wages and since weeks had been with the company for many years she had seniority rights for the position. When Weeks confronted the company, they said the position was reserved for men and didn’t consider

In the Muller vs. Oregon case, which was used to justify sex discrimination, women were ruled “ not an equal competitor with her brother.” The Muller vs. Oregon case limited the workday for female wage workers to ten hours.(DOC 3) The 19th amendment gives all American people the right to vote. “Beginning in the 1800s, women organized, petitioned, and picketed to win the right to vote, but it took them decades to accomplish their purpose.” Jane Addams was a reformer and the biggest voice to speak out for women’s rights. In the journal “Why women should vote” , she is trying to reach out to women who are anti-suffrage. She believes women should have the right and fight for the right to vote. This paragraph relates to the thesis because giving women the right to vote gave women to finally feel somewhat equal to

At the turn of the twentieth century, a bourgeoisie fixation on capitalistic structures and mass consumerism often juxtaposed the call for meritocracy, thus placing some individuals at an advantage over others. Tension was soon evident between the beneficiaries and the exploited of the gilded economy. This push and pull relationship can best be observed in the 1908 Supreme Court case, Muller v. Oregon, in which the owner of a Portland Laundromat violated state legislation that disallowed women from working more than ten hours a day. Siding with the needs of the laborer, the Supreme Court overruled Muller’s claim for freedom of contract and right to property (Gagnon Lecture, 01/26/15). While many argue that this decision devalues the relationship between employee and employer as well as undermines an individual’s inalienable rights to life, liberty and property at the hands of another, there is an underlying, and perhaps even larger issue at hand. The ruling of the case indicates that judiciary actions taken only reinforce gender formations- once again attacking the plea for equal opportunity. Because of this alarming backlash in societal equity, the Supreme Court’s decision should be deemed unjust. Although the case recognizes the significance of employee rights in the workforce, the decision is restricted to the sole protection of female workers and only

Oregon decision, a precedent for labor hour laws was set based on genders. With the Industrial Revolution booming, many people have been looking for jobs at factories. With the factories, cheap labor is easy to find but the working conditions are harsh and the hours are long for minimal pay; one job is hard to support a family. As Woodrow Wilson put it, “There was a time when corporations played a very minor part in our business affairs, but now they play the chief part, and most men are the servants of the corporations” (Wilson 41). Labor laws are definitely needed during the Lochner era because many people were subjugated with terrible work because they needed to be able to support their family. Muller v. Oregon jumpstarted the nation into the transition for safer work and was a huge step for lining the nation into a safe haven for everyone. However, the execution of a safer world was inadequate because of its repercussions. With the hegemonic male patriarch in society, women are viewed as subservient in our society. The gender formation with amount of physical strength has translated to women being perceived as weaker and needing fewer hours in order to survive. They are constantly seen as weak because a “woman’s physical structure and the performance of maternal functions place her at a disadvantage in the struggle for subsistence is obvious” (Brewer 83). People view giving birth as females’ behaviors because males cannot give birth. Because women give birth, society inherently gives women the job of taking care of their offspring. Men have an inborn personality of independence and apathy; because women do not share the same characteristics, they view females as inferior. Men have synonymously put child birth and taking care of children as one value for women, making them inferior because males are not born with that characteristic of care. History has shown repeatedly that women are seen as weaker and this case further justifies this fact.

“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex” (Document 15). This is part of the Equal Rights Amendment that was proposed. Unfortunately, it was never ratified. If it was, a lot of things could have changed for women. It might not have been ratified was because at the time men were in charge of the government and there were no women affiliated with it at all, which was what most men wanted.

The case Mitchell, et al. v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Inc. was filed in the courts for gender discrimination of Stella Mitchell and other women employed at MetLife Inc. Met Life denied female sales representatives that were qualified to obtain higher levels of the agency. The company also allegedly denied access to training, development resources and assignments. (Goldstein, Mitchell, et al. v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Inc., 2000) Met Life settles with payments resulting of $5,000,000 to the plaintiffs and $5,000,000 in programs.

Repeatedly throughout history, the United State’s Supreme Court has changed their standing on labor laws, from supporting the right’s of employees to supporting the right’s of employers. In 1903, the Supreme Court concluded through Lochner v. New York that the government did not have the right to oversee businesses, but in 1908 the Supreme Court passed an unprecedented decision regarding labor laws. In Muller v. Oregon, the Supreme Court alternatively sided with the workers and upheld restriction on working hours in a gendered argument based on the fact that the workers were women. On the surface, the decision was just, as it protected workers’ right, but in the long run the outcome was unjust; suggesting through gender formation, intersectionality, and structural sexism that superficially the decision was a progressive legislation but it masked misogynist values, preserved heteronormative ideals and perpetuated gender inequality.

Typically sex arrangements were tested by ladies who felt they denied of equivalent lawful treatment, yet they were additionally tested by men who felt ladies were given uncalled for lawful insurance (Conley , 2013). Initially, the greater part of the sexual orientation particular enactment in the United States was passed on the grounds that generalizations in regards to ladies invaded the attitudes of a considerable lot of our country's officials. Gradually the legislature understood that ladies had been fixed into the local circle and endeavored to switch this segregation by giving ladies extraordinary pay. In a few occasions the treatment ladies got was remaining from old thoughts of part writing, while in others, laws specifically attempted

But with the civil rights movement act in 1964, feminist made their way to congress and lobbied for the injunction of gender discernment in the labor force. After much deliberation, the civil rights act was conceded with the prohibition of title VII: “equal employment opportunity.” For this reason, in 1965, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was assembled to secure the implementation of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, but despite all the efforts the EEOC decided that gender discrimination in the workforce was permitted. During the Third National conference of Commissions on the status of women, many of the activist for women’s rights gather at this conference requesting that the EEOC fulfilled its lawful decree and put an end to the segregation in the workforce, but they were denied under the allegation that they didn’t have any authority to do so.

Throughout history there have been many movements in order to gain equal rights and equal pay for women. In 1903 the National Women’s Trade Union League was established to advocate for improved wages and working conditions, in 1920 the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor was formed in order to collect information about women in the workforce and in order to safeguard good working conditions for women, in 1961 improvements like fair hiring practices, paid maternity leave and affordable child care were recommended, and many more. Although women have achieved a great number of things there are still some problems in the workplace and at home. While women have been increasing their participation in the labor force they continue to be the

Abortion has been a complex social issue in the United States ever since restrictive abortion laws began to appear in the 1820s. By 1965, abortions had been outlawed in the U.S., although they continued illegally; about one million abortions per year were estimated to have occurred in the 1960s. (Krannich 366) Ultimately, in the 1973 Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade, it was ruled that women had the right to privacy and could make an individual choice on whether or not to have an abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. (Yishai 213)

Right after that, many women were discouraged when the Supreme Court handed down a decision in a pay discrimination case, Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (2007) rejecting the complaint of gender-based pay discrimination. At almost age 60 retirement ready, Lilly Ledbetter found out she had been paid less than male workers at a Goodyear tire plant that she had worked at. She sued them, and a federal district court jury gave her $300,000 in compensation. Her victory did not last very long though. The Supreme Court decided that she had not met the law’s requirement of filing the law suit inside 180 days of the discriminatory act. The judges did not take Ledbetter’s argument that she could not sue about what she did not know

In 1936 the Supreme Court heard the case of West Coast Hotel vs. Parrish. The case originated from a 1932 law in Washington State entitled “Minimum Wages for Women.” This law was supposed to set up minimum wages for women and children because the state felt that these groups were likely to be exploited. The public and many industrial influences collaborated to come up with what they felt was appropriate. For Elsie Parrish who was a chambermaid at a hotel owned by West Coast Hotel that meant that she should be making $14.50 for every forty-eight-hour work week. However, this was not the case and Mrs. Parrish was not being paid the wages that had been set forth in the “Minimum Wages for Women” law. Elsie Parrish decided to sue West Coast Hotel in a Washington State Court for the difference between the wages she was act-ally making and what the law said the minimum wage for women was. West Coast Hotel’s defense of their actions was claiming that the law itself was unconstitutional. The state court ruling was in favor of the hotel. Parrish then appealed the decision to the Washington Supreme court, they reversed the decision of the state court and then ordered that West Coast Hotel pay damages to Parrish. West Coast Hotel then appealed the decision to the United States Supreme Court in 1936. West Coast Hotel, the appellant, was relying on the verdict of the Adkins v. Children’s Hospital case that had been heard by the Court. In the Adkins case, the Court had deemed that the

While gender inequality in business has improved over the years, there are still many encounters in the workplace in which women are discriminated against based solely on the fact that they are female. If you go back a few decades, when the iconic figure Rosie the Riveter was famous for it’s legendary propaganda campaign. Rosie delivered a message around the nation that targeted women employed to take traditional male-dominated roles such as miners, railroad worker, lumber and steel mill workers, and other male dominated industries. The message was that women should be empowered in the work force. The message also encourages

Why do women have to work overtime in order to obtain the equal amount of pay and provide for their family? Many women had an issue since the late 1840’s and it stills occurs today across the globe. Some men claim that women make more than them, while others admit of making more than a woman. Over all the women's rights movement is primarily wanting the political, social, and economic status of women equal to a men (Women’s Rights Movement). Women want the ability to achieve the same opportunities of a man in the household, educational field, and in the working environment. In “Testimony”, Gloria Steinem explores the idea of not being equivalent to a man, most notably in her use of catalogue and parallelism in order to convince men, women, and the government to balance the rights among a women and a man.