PREGNANCY DISCRIMINATION LITIGATION - LEGAL EROSION OF CAPITALIST IDEOLOGY UNDER EQUAL-EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY LAW

The mobilization of equal employment law for pregnant workers in the 1 970s and 1980s accomplished more than many legal scholars presently be lieve In supporting this claim, this article argues that pregnancy dis crimination litigation uniquely revealed the gender bias of equal empl oyment opportunity law and of capitalist economic relations. This liti gation also elicited employers' beliefs about presumed economic impera tives for not accommodating pregnant workers and surprisingly eroded s ome of those imperatives in federal courts of appeal. The outcome of t his legal struggle provided a necessary, but insufficient, condition f or the development of accommodationist legislation in the 1980s and ea rly 1990s. This new legislation for addressing work and family conflic ts partially shifted responsibility for accommodating workers' family obligations from workers to employers.