women with children as overly preocuppied with their families and not sufficiently committed to their jobs to be offered equal opportunities in assignment, advancement, and so forth. On the other, employers do not provide the child care assistance and short term parental leave policies that would free women from undue anxieties about their children during working hours.
Summary of The Bill:
The Working Mothers Protection Act of 1992 extends to employed mothers of children the same standards that are now applied to mothers of children who are applicants for jobs. It extends the standards of Title VII to conditions on the job, as well as to job applications. That is, discriminatory practices in assignment, promotion, work hours, and other conditions would be permitted only when "an employee's sex is a bona fide occupational qualification for the job" ("Classifications," no date, 835).
A bona fide occupational qualification exists only where the employer can show that the necessary nature of the work characteristics which cannot be changed by simple modifications of job requirements requires discrimination against mothers of young children. Employers are not at liberty to allege broad or vaguely general grounds for discriminatory retention and promotion practices.
To craft a legislative and political strategy for the Working Mothers Protection Act of 1992, we must consider first the general political
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