In pursuit of equity
Tracing changing ideals of fairness from the 1920s to the 1970s, Kessler-Harris shows how a deeply embedded set of beliefs, or 'gendered imagination', shaped seemingly neutral social legislation to limit the freedom and equality of women. While law and custom generally sought to protect women from exploitation, and sometimes from employment itself, at the same time they assigned the most important benefits to wage work. She shows how ideas about what was fair for men as well as for women influenced old age and unemployment insurance, fair labor standards, Federal income tax policy, and the new discussion of women's rights that emerged after World War II. Only in the 1960s and 70s did this gendered imagination begin to alter.
- Creator
- Kessler-Harris, Alice