Reconstructive Feminism: Changing the Way We Talk About Gender and Work Thirty Years After the PDA

This Article seeks to challenge and change the way that we talk about gender-ways that make it difficult to progress on the work/family front. In the thirty years since the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) was passed in 1979, while the roles of men and women have changed dramatically, the American workplace has changed only incrementally, leaving women and men who wish to participate actively in childrearing still struggling to navigate both work and family successfully. The way we currently think about work/family matters reflects a number of unstated and undefended assumptions, as well as an inability to move beyond recycling the "sameness" versus "difference" debate, which asks whether women just need access to traditionally male opportunities and rights or whether women have real physical and psychological differences from men. Yet this and other debates within feminism-for example, antiessentialism's debate over differences among women or the difference versus dominance debate-look very different once masculine norms are placed at center stage. This Article introduces what I have termed "reconstructive feminism," which, instead of focusing on women and women's identities, focuses on the gender dynamics within which those identities are forged. Reconstructive feminism picks up on the insight that what women need is equality, but argues that attaining equality first requires changing our existing masculine norms. The central tenet of reconstructive feminism is that gender differences, real and imagined, create social disadvantage when women are measured against unspoken and unacknowledged masculine norms. The fundamental reason that working women's pregnancies or disproportionate load of family work creates gender disadvantage is that we still define the ideal worker as someone who t Joan C. Williams is 1066 Foundation Chair, Distinguished Professor of Law, and Founding Director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. This Article is an excerpt adapted from Williams' forthcoming book, CLASS ACTS AND GENDER WORKS: RESHAPING THE POLITICS OF WORK AND FAMILY (forthcoming 2010). The author wishes to thank Lisa Mak, Hillary Baker, and Genevieve Guertin for their research assistance, and Stephanie Bomstein for her editing help. Copyright ( 2009 by Joan. C. Williams HeinOnline -21 Yale J.L. & Feminism 79 2009-2010 Yale Journal of Law and Feminism works full force and full time, uninterrupted for thirty years straight-that is, someone supported by a flow of family work from a spouse, which most women never receive. Once these masculine norms are unmasked, reconstructive feminism provides a new framework within which to think about gender equality at home and at work. IN TRODUCTION 80 I. THE FRAMEWORKS OF FEMINISM 82 A. Is Feminism's Goal To Illuminate Identity or To Examine G ender D ynam ics? . . .. . .. . .. . .. .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . . . . 82 B. Such Great Heights: Do We Need a Trowel or a Back Hoe? 85 1I. RECONSTRUCTIVE FEMINISM: MOVING BEYOND THE SAMENESS/DIFFERENCE DEBATE 89 A. Assimilationist Feminism: Equality for Tomboys 90 1. The Limitations of Assimilationist Feminism: Pregnancy ........ 93 2. Assimilationist Feminism in Popular Culture 94 B. Difference Feminism: The Traditional Approach to Equality for Fem m es 97 C. Reconstructive Feminism: Deconstructing Masculine Norms ......... 98 1. How Masculine Norms Create "Real Physical D ifferences": Pregnancy 100 2. Women's Supposed Psychological Differences 102 3. Using Past Discrimination To Justify Future D iscrim ination 105 III. THE RELATIONSHIP OF RECONSTRUCTIVE FEMINISM TO OTHER FEM IN ISM S 111 A . Q ueer T heory 111 B . D om inance Fem inism 112 C . A ntiessentialism 113 D . Third-W ave Fem inism 116 C O N CLU SION 116