.ltAs America gives women a right to all the best jobs
The Sun,
5 July 1965
AMERICA is nervously awaiting the first serious blow in the battle of the sexes, now that the country has bestowed equal rights on its women.
A new law allows a woman to take any job as long as she can prove she has the same capabilities as a man.
This right is handed out under a section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act which forbids hiring or firing on the grounds of race, colour, religion, national origin-or sex.
And it is the sex part that caught America napping. The word was only introduced, as a delaying tactic, when Deep South senators tried to block the anti-segregation bill.
Somehow it stuck, because integration supporters failed to realise the full significance of it.
Employers did not give sex discrimination a second thought when the bill was passed. But now they are beginning to understand the possibilities.
Possibilities like the woman weight-lifter who might decide her true vocation is digging up roads.
Or a leather-jacketed lorry driver who pulls up, lights a cigarette and checks her lipstick in the rearview mirror before hopping down from her cab.
Newspapers are faced with a problem in advertising "situations vacant," although there is not likely to be any misunderstanding in phrasing offers for an attendant in a ladies' or gentlemen's washroom.
Actually the law does allow for hiring on the basis of sex if it is "a bona-fide occupational qualification." But most fields are fraught with danger. Can, for example, a restaurant owner advertise for a waiter when women can possibly do the job as well?
Legal experts say that one way out for newspapers is to advertise jobs as of "primary interest" to men or women. But this would not provide immunity from prosecution.
A foundry owner may advertise for a worker in the belief that the job is of primary interest to men. But there may be many women capable of heavy work in the foundry.
Quick to realise these implications, the New York Times already print a notice informing job-hunters that they are free to apply for posts advertised in either the Male or Female Help Wanted columns.
A commission, headed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jnr., has been appointed to deal with complaints of sex discrimination. Their policy will be one of "persuasion rather than prosecution."
The possibilities and the vagueness of the law have left employers in a quandary. An airline official said: "What are we going to do when a girl walks in, demands a job as an airline pilot and has the credentials to qualify? Or when some guy wants to be a stewardess?"
A Tennessee tycoon who employs only women in an electronics components factory said: "I suppose we'll have to advertise for people with small nimble fingers. And we'll finish up having to hire the first male midget who shows unusual dexterity with his hands."
