Thus, poverty is much more common among women and their dependents. Contrary to the positive misrepresentations that have been made by opponents of the equal rights amendment, white women in professional and managerial positions are victims of gross employment discrimination as the following comparison of the median earnings of year-round professional and managerial workers in central cities shows:

White men $9,545; Negro women $6,209; Negro men $6,208; and white women $5,910 (U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census: CPR-23, No. 27, 1967 statistics).

Furthermore, the differentials mentioned above cannot be justified on the ground that men are better educated than women. In fact, the statistics of a few years ago show that there is little advantage to the average woman in having some college training. White women earned less than men with inferior educations regardless of race: $3,082 for white women with some college education as compared to $3,735 and $4,881, respectively, for nonwhite men and white men with only eighth grade educations (U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Census: CPRX60, No. 60).

The reasons for these differentials is more often not because women are receiving unequal pay for equal work but because women are more likely than men to be confined by the discriminatory tactics of employers to low-paid, undesirable jobs. The excuse most often given by such employers is that women must be confined to such jobs. to protect them.

Employers who are sued by women plaintiffs under title VII of the Civil Rights Act frequently make the specious, seemingly humanitarian defense that the denial of job opportunities to women is occasioned by a desire to "protect" them. For instance, in the case of Mengelkoch v. Industrial Welfare Commission, supra, now pending in the ninth circuit, Velma Mengelkoch was denied employment in the positions of running functional test equipment, of working as a final assembler and holding supervisory positions because of California's law prohibiting employers from employing women over 8 hours a day or 48 hours a week. In the Rosenfeld case, supra, Leah Rosenfeld was denied the position of agent-telegrapher on four different occasions because of the same California hours laws and California's weight-lifting law under which women employees were not permitted to carry objects weighing 10 pounds or more up stairways rising more than 5 feet from the base thereof.

In Bowe v. Colgate Palmolive Company, supra, women employees in a plant having 600 potential jobs were confined to less than 100 of the lowest paid jobs. The defendant company did not have the phony excuse of a State law on which it could defend its discriminations since Indiana, where its plant was located, has no such laws. In desperation it argued that because there were weight-lifting prohibitions against women in other States it could adopt a private policy of adopting weight limitations for women employees to "protect" them.

The insincerity of this claim was demonstrated by the fact that some women workers were required to lift 17 tons of soap products a day while men operated automatic machines or handled empty plastic bottles. The women plaintiffs lost their case in the district court but

won it in the seventh circuit, which held that the discriminations against them were "blatant."

However, after 5 years of administrative proceedings and litigation the women plaintiffs in this case are still struggling to have the company's discriminatory system of department seniority replaced with a nondiscriminatory system of plant seniority.

In the case of Weeks v. Southern Bell Telephone Company, supra, Lorena Weeks was denied a job as a switchman allegedly because of the State of Georgia's regulation prohibiting women employees from lifting over 30 pounds. Ridiculous arguments were made by the company such as its claim that in case of a fire Lorena Weeks might have to lift a fire extinguisher, which when full weighed approximately 31 pounds. After losing her case in the trial court, the fifth circuit upheld Mrs. Weeks' claim of sex discrimination, but for years she was deprived of the job to which her abilities and her seniority entitled her.

None of the women involved in these cases were professional women. All of them were family breadwinners. The Mengelkoch and Bowe cases were class actions involving hundreds of women working for large corporations. In the Bowe case, the highest rate of pay for female jobs was identical with the lowest rate of pay for the so-called male jobs, from which women were excluded.

Other sex discriminations cases under title VII in which employers attempted to defend the denial of better jobs to women on the ground that they were "protecting" them were: Richards v. Griffiths Rubber Mills, 300 F. Supp. 338 (D. Ore. 1969); and Cheatwood v. Southern Central Bell Telephone Company, 303 F. Supp. 754 (N.D. Ala. 1969).

Employers have even tried unsuccessfully to assert the "protective" law defense in suits brought under the Equal Pay Act, which applies to discriminations between men and women employees performing equal work. (See Wirtz v. Rainbo Baking Company, 54 L. C. 31,884, 17 W.H. 598 (E.D. Ky. 1967); Wirts v. Wheaton Glass Company, 284 F. Supp. 33 (D. N.J. 1968), reversed 421 F. ed 259 (C.A. 3).)

Obviously restrictive laws like California's law prohibiting women from carrying 10 pounds up steps 5 feet high are not to "protect" women but to restrict them. Any woman who has ever carried a small baby or a pail of water knows that this restriction is absurd. All these cases are clear examples of how State restrictive laws and the insincere claim of "protection" are used to deny women the right to earn their own livelihoods and to support their dependents.

These laws are one of the greatest obstacles to women who are entitled to prompt relief from employment discrimination under title VII. As the discussion above demonstrates, the advocates of restrictive laws fall in three classifications:

1. Male-dominated labor unions who wish to keep women from competing for some of the more interesting and higher paid jobs; 2. Employers who find sex segregation in employment to their economic self-interest, since women who lack bargaining power in the job market can be confined to tedious, low-paid jobs; and

3. Unenlightened Government officials and legislators who mistakenly assume that some benefit remains in such laws.

Unions and employers in groups one and two above cannot afford. to admit that they wish to keep women relegated to poorly paid posi

tions because of their selfish economic interests. They, therefore, wish to rely on the "protective" law defense as a cloak for sex discrimination.

It is much more "chivalrous" to claim that "we want to protect the little women" than to admit that it is lucrative to cheat them.

Restrictive laws are used to defend and promote sex segregation in employment. American industry has thousands of jobs from which women are arbitrarily excluded. There is no humanitarian justification for sex segregation in employment. The earmarking by employers, unions, and employment agencies of all well-paid interesting jobs as "male" jobs and most poorly paid tedious jobs as "female" jobs is a cruel means of keeping women in a condition of poverty and degradation.

The difference in strength between an "average" woman and an "average" man is not relevant in any fair program of job placement. The relative strength of persons of both sexes varies so greatly that only a system of job placement based on individual qualifications is nondiscriminatory. It is a myth that certain jobs must be reserved. for "males only" because of their alleged superiority. The Department of Labor's studies of approximately 75,000 job situations rated such jobs in terms of physical strength required as "sedentary," "light," "medium," "heavy," and "very heavy." (Selected Characteristics of Occupations by Worker Traits and Physical Strength, supplement 2 to the Dictionary of Occupational Titles-U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Employment Service, 3d edition 1968.)

The low-paid job of "charwoman," which is traditionally considered a "female" job was rated as "heavy," while highly paid “male” jobs such as "concrete-mixing truck driver" and "power-excavator operator" are rated as "light," and the "male" job of "power shovel operator" is rated as "medium." Very few jobs are rated as "heavy" and a negligible number of them were listed as "very heavy." In this machine age differences in strength between men and women as a class are not relevant in employment situations. In today's economy ablebodied persons of both sexes can perform practically all jobs.

The equal rights amendment would be of tremendous aid in eliminating employment discriminations and the traditional concept that women should be confined to lowly jobs. In the first place, it would eliminate all the limitations in employment imposed against women by State or Federal statutes so that honest employers would not run the risk of violating such laws in employing qualified women for the jobs which they prefer.

In the second place, while not directed toward prohibiting private discriminations, the equal rights amendment would have a tremendous psychological effect on sex-bigoted employers and unions who could no longer delay and frustrate women litigants in sex discriminations cases pleading restrictive laws as a defense. Without these spurious defenses, the sex bigots would have to give up and comply with the anti-discrimination laws.

EDUCATION

The equal rights amendment would be of great value to American women in that it would prohibit restrictions of public schools to students of one sex and prevent public institutions from discriminating

against women students in their admission policies and against women teachers and professors in employment.

So great is the discrimination against women in public universities and colleges that in one State alone during a period of 3 years 21,000 women were denied college entrance while men of comparable abilities were accepted. (See statement of Dr. Bernice Sandler, Women's Equity Action League, subcommittee hearings, page 412, 434.)

Public educational institutions are rejecting qualified women by the thousands, thus denying them an opportunity to prepare for occupations of their choice. Women professors and teachers, who are not within the scope of title VII, are discriminated against in employment by colleges and universities. When they are employed, they are frequently arbitrarily denied tenure and confined to lower paid positions. (See Fact Sheet on Earnings Gap-U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bureau, supra, note 4.)

Women are not considered worthy of education by the admissions officers of public colleges and universities. In recent years the situation of women in this respect has deteriorated. In 1967 women earned only 35 percent of all master's degrees, while in 1930 they earned 40 percent of such degrees. In 1967, they earned only 12 percent of all doctor's degrees, after having achieved a high of 15 percent in 1920 and 1930. (See Fact Sheet on Trends in Educational Attainment of Women, U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bureau 1969.)

Obviously, women cannot become lawyers, doctors, or engineers when college admissions officers make the highhanded decision that they are to be excluded from college altogether.

REBUTTAL OF OPPONENTS ARGUMENTS

In our modern-day society, the right to follow the profession or occupation of one's choice and the right to acquire an education in order to do so are so important that persons who are denied such opportunities are consigned for life to the status of second-rate citizens unable to cope with life's problems. The social injustice that is being perpetrated against 52 percent of America's citizens exceeds in its enormity most of our other domestic problems.

It is absurd to say, as the opponents of equality have said, that the mountain of discriminations barring women from equality should be raised by "special bills for special ills." It is comparable to saying that the mountain should be removed bit by bit with a teaspoon. Of course, the equal rights amendment cannot destroy in the mind of each sex bigot all the pettiness and prejudice directed against women, but it can eliminate governmental discriminations which foster and condone such discriminations and offer alibis for them.

It is further insulting to American women for the opponents of equality to argue that a constitutional amendment is not necessary and that the exploitation of women can be eliminated by a few statutory provisions. Women have been subjected to discriminations and abuses since our Nation was founded, indeed since civilization began. There could be no area in which constitutional protection is more obviously needed than it is for the purpose of guaranteeing to women the same freedom that men have long considered theirs as a matter of

course.

The question as to whether women might not ultimately achieve their rights under the 14th and fifth amendments has frequently been raised by adversaries of the equal rights amendment, their real motivation being a desire to obstruct women in their fight for equality. Had the 14th and fifth amendments been properly interpreted by the courts, unquestionably women would already have many of the rights which they now seek under the equal rights amendment. The 14th amendment and fifth amendment's guarantees extend to all persons. Under the rules of constitutional construction, words must be given their logical meaning. Accordingly, under a proper construction, no person can be deprived of the rights guaranteed by these amendments on the basis of normal human traits permanently determined by birth, such as an individual's sex, skin color, or national origin.

The case of Muller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 412, and companion cases should not be regarded as determinative of woman's right to full protection under the 14th and fifth amendments. That case did not involve a woman litigant seeking her rights to due process or equal protection under the 14th amendment; instead, it involved an employer attempting to defend against violations of a State criminal statute. Furthermore, as one professor of constitutional law pointed out at these hearings, cases such as Muller, decided in 1908, and reciting the dogma that women are weak and should be protected are antiques and not entitled to weight as modern day legal precedents. The more recent case of Goesart v. Cleary, 335 U.S. 464 (1948) upholding the constitutionality of a State statute preventing a woman from working at a bar is no longer viable since the principle on which it was based was repudiated by the Supreme Court in Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1 (1958), wherein the Court held that "law and order are not to be preserved by depriving (persons) of their constitutional rights."

Be that as it may, women citizens have no reason to believe that their rights which have been neglected for centuries are going to suddenly be vindicated and upheld by the 14th and fifth amendments which have been part of the Constitution for over 100 years. As recent as Hoyt v. Florida, 368 U.S. 57 (1961), the Supreme Court cited the Muller case as though it were still viable, antique though it is.

In two cases, Heaton v. Bristol, 317 S.W. 2d 86 (Tex. Civ. App. 1958) certiorari denied 359 U.S. 230, rehearsing denied 359 U.S. 999, and Allred v. Heaton, 336 S.W. 2d 251, certiorari denied 364 U.S. 517, rehearing denied 364 U.S. 944, the Supreme Court refused to grant certiorari in the case of women plaintiffs who had denied the right to enter all male colleges because of their sex. While certiorari is not a matter of right and its denial does not necessarily indicate approval of the decisions below, the different treatment received by women and persons of racial minorities is dramatic. (See Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).) It would be difficult to find cases wherein the 14th amendment is more obviously applicable than in the Bristol and Allred cases. These cases alone are ample proof of the need for the equal rights amendment.

The advocates of equality of rights for women have a right to simultaneously press for the equal rights amendment and to fight in court for the rights of women under the 14th amendment. The fact that the equal rights amendment would achieve some of the same purposes that would have been served by the 14th and fifth amendments had