ABSTRACT
Working women in North America are usually found in “employment ghettos,” that is, areas in which women workers represent a large majority. According to a modern textbook of occupational medicine: In general, women’s size and weight are less than men’s; the hand is smaller, finer and suppler, with greater dexterity. The study of biological clocks is an active research area: an increasing number of biological parameters have been shown to vary in both sexes with time of day and over weeks or months. Night shifts gravely affect the basic biological cycles such as the sleep-wake cycle, temperature variations, digestive system cycles and eating schedules. A paid pregnancy leave is obviously a biological necessity for these workers, as is a paid leave for the final weeks of pregnancy for all women. The prevailing ideology attempts to justify employment ghettos by invoking a necessity to protect the health of women by respecting their biological specificity.
