美国历史中的妇女(九)

编辑: 逍遥路 关键词: 初中历史 来源: 高中学习网

女权运动的第二次浪潮: 民权运动时期对“平等”的追求

In controversies over women’s rights, which 中考 gained prominence in the atmosphere of rights consciousness created by the civil rights movement, the Burger Court generally adhered to a traditional conception of equality before the law. Responding to changes in public attitudes and to legislative initiatives against sex discrimination, the Court seriously weakened, if it did not decisively undermine, the principle of classification by gender that formed the legal basis for long-standing federal ? and state-sanctioned denial of equal rights to women. To grasp the dimensions of this development a brief considerationof the constitutional status of women before this time will be helpful.

妇女权利在民权运动创造的权利意识的氛围下突显出来。在有关妇女权利的争议中,博格法院(最高法院的首席大法官叫博格,故称)一般坚持法律面前人人平等的传统概念。 为回应反对性别歧视的公众态度和立法动议的变化,最高法院,如果没有决定性地损坏、至少是严重削弱了性别分类的原则,这一原则长期以来是联邦和州支持剥夺妇女平等权利的法律基础。为把握这一发展过程的各个方面,简短地回顾该时期以前妇女的宪政地位有助于我们的理解。

Despite significant steps toward the emancipation of women resulting from such measures as the married women’s property acts, nineteenth-century state law, reflecting the male-dominated social consensus, consigned women to an inferior status in public life and in the world of private household and domestic relations. Women were generally excluded from voting, office holding, and jury services, denied educational and professional opportunities available to men, and in numerous ways defined as the subordinate partner in the marriage relationship.Nor did the Fourteenth Amendment, which temporarily raised feminist hopesofa major advance toward legal and political equality, alter this pattern of discrimination. Two notable constitutional cases of the Reconstruction era made this fact clear.

尽管诸如已婚妇女财产法案等,使妇女解放有所进展, 但反映男人主宰社会共识的19世纪州法律,把妇女在公众生活、在私人家庭世界和家庭关系中置于低人一等的地位。总体上讲, 妇女被排除在选举、担任官职和司法行业之外;被剥夺了男人享有的受教育权和从事专业的权利;在婚姻关系中,以数不胜数的方式把妇女定义为处于从属地位的伙伴。曾一时激起女权主义者在法律和政治平等方面取得进展希望的第十四条修正案,它也未能改变这种模式的歧视。重建时期两个著名的宪法案子,更清楚地反映了这一现实。

In Bradwell v. Illinois (1873) Supreme Court rejected the claim of a Chicago woman that the right to practice law was an attribute of U.S citizenship protected by the privileges-and immunities-clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The states, declared the Court, could regulate admission to the bar as they saw fit. In an equally important holding the Supreme Court declared, in Minor v. Happersett (1875), that states could restrict suffrage to men, the right to vote not having been conferred on women by the Fourteenth Amendment. Although the Nineteenth Amendment at length guaranteed women the right not to be discriminated against in voting on account of sex and although states gradually adopted reforms recognizing a greater degree of legal autonomy and equality for women, before the 1960s numerous forms of discrimination continued to restrict women in American society.

在布拉德维尔对伊利诺伊州一案(1873年)中,最高法院拒绝了一位芝加哥妇女的要求:从事法律工作的权利是美国公民权的一个标志,它受第十四条修正案中优惠和豁免条款的保护。最高法院宣布,各州可根据合适与否而自行规定是否允许[妇女]担任律师。 在同样重要的一个司法解释中,即迈纳对哈珀塞特一案(1875年)中,最高法院宣布:各州可以把选举权仅限于男子,因为第十四条修正案没有赋予妇女选举权。虽然第19条修正案最终做出妇女在选举权上不得受性别歧视的保证,而且各州逐渐实行的改革对妇女在法律、在自主和平等上有更大程度的承认, 但在20世纪60年代以前, 五花八门的各种形式的歧视继续限制着美国社会中的女性。

In the context of the civil rights movement, women activists’ long-frustrated demands for full equality before the law began to receive mainstream political recognition. In 1963 Congress amended the Fair Labor Standards Act to require equal pay for equal work as between men and women. In Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Congress declared unlawful employment practices that discriminated on the basis of sex, and in 1967 President Johnson, under Executive Order No. 11375, prohibits sex discrimination by employers under federal contracts. The women’s rights movement made further gains in the 1970s as Congress submitted the Equal Rights Amendment to the states for ratification and enacted a series of laws baring discrimination on account of sex in federally supported educational programs. Congress also strengthened the authority of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce the ban on sex discrimination in employment contained in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

在民权运动的大背景下,长期令妇女积极分子沮丧的“法律面前完全平等”的诉求,开始获得主流政治的承认。1963年,国会修正了要求男女同工同酬的公平劳动标准法。在1964年民权法案第七款中,国会宣布建立在性别基础上的歧视性招工措施为非法。1967年,约翰逊总统在11375号行政命令中,禁止与联邦政府有合同的雇主实行性别歧视。20世纪70年代,国会把平等权利修正案送到各州进行批准,联邦支持的教育项目中开始实行一系列禁止性别歧视的法律时,争取妇女权利运动取得了更大成果。国会也增强了公平就业机会委员会的权威性,并实行包含在1964民权法案第七款中的禁止就业性别歧视。

The Burger court consistently upheld these administration statutes. In Philips v. Marietta Corporation (1971), for example, it found that a company’s refusal to hire women with preschool-age children—a policy not applied to men—violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Court affirmed the Equal Pay Act of 1963 against the practice of paying women day workers less as a base wage than men night-shift workers where performance of the same task was involved.In still another typical case the Burger Court invalidated an Alabama law that effectively excluded women from employment in state prisons by stipulating minimum height and weight requirements for prison guards. This law also violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

博格法院不断支持这些政府法令。例如,在菲利普对玛丽埃塔公司(1971年)一案中,最高法院发现该公司拒绝录用有学龄前子女的妇女的做法(这一政策不约束男子)违反了1964年民权法案。反对妇女计日工的基本工资比干同样工作的夜班男工工资低的做法,最高法院批准了1963年同酬法案。在另一起更典型的案例中,博格法院宣布阿拉巴马的一条州法律非法。该法对在州监狱担任监狱保安职务的妇女体重和身高的要求,实际上有效地排除了妇女在州监狱的就业。最高法院认为该法律也违反了1964年民权法案。

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历史理解要点:

1.美国女权运动第一阶段的主要成就是:争取选举权,妇女获得法理上的政治平等;但是,妇女并没有获得社会平等,在社会生活的诸多方面仍受到歧视。

2.第二阶段:20世纪60年代,民权运动为妇女争取社会平等提供了强大的助力。 美国的立法、司法、行政机构都开始了有利于妇女获得平等的做法。根据美国联邦宪法第14条修正案中的“平等”概念,最高法院一般倾向于作出有利于妇女的司法解释。


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