ABSTRACT
The existing historical and legal literature tends to portray the end of maternal-ist labor laws as the dawn of a new era of sex equality. The state laws regulating women's hours, wages, and conditions of work arguably offered protection from exploitative employment conditions but also restricted women's job opportunities. In addition to neglecting the harms that the end of state protective laws posed for working class women, the prevailing narrative also overlooks labor feminists' struggle to realize universal labor standards. In 1966, the head of the Women's Department of the United Auto Workers (UAW), Caroline Davis, addressed 200 women union members. Defenders of maternalist labor standards took a pragmatic rather than aspirational position on gender roles. The UAW was privileged compared to HERE, moreover, because its membership enjoyed coverage under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). For the UAW, it promised the hope of equal employment opportunity within workplaces subject to federal labor standards and good union contracts.
