There is evidence of improvement in the degree of regulatory and research attention paid to women workers and to occupational health hazards that disproportionately affect women. As we enter the 21st century with workplaces still organized around the norm of male bodies and male biographies, it will be difficult to prevent women's differences from being conceived of as deviance and unfitness. Clearly, there are biological differences between women and men. However, the relevance of these differences for occupational medicine or for OSHA regulators is often far from clear. Observed differences in health effects or outcomes between any two groups of people can result from a complex interaction of environmental, sociological, and biological factors.
Reproduction is the most contested domain of gender difference relating to workplace regulation.
Reproductive regulation is one arena in which nondiscrimination law intersects rather uncomfortably with occupational health and safety law. Until 1991, many employers had fetal protection policies that excluded nonsterile women from certain jobs in which they risked exposure to suspected teratogens or mutagens. There were no policies excluding men from work environments due to the possibility that they would father children with disabilities. Because men produce sperm continuously, and because they do not gestate, they were believed by employers and biomedical researchers alike to be relatively invulnerable to exposure-related reproductive risks. The case involved the exclusion of nonsterile women from jobs where they could be exposed to lead - jobs that paid more than other jobs at the company.