Abstract
Protective labor legislation for women can be seen as one aspect of the trend towards rationalization of the work process, but also as a response by the state to the specific situation of women: responsible both for domestic labor in the home and (low-wage) work in the industrial labor force. This paper examines the shift in legal ideologies which permitted these laws to become legitimated, and then shows how protective labor laws for women (like the movement for scientific management) was a means used to undercut workers' organizing, by attempting to establish a neutral "objective" method of determining the length of the working day. This paper then analyzes minimum wage legislation, which shows that these laws were never intended to make women self-sufficient (like men); therefore the laws also reinforce women's primary role in the home.
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