2. 考研
  3. Defenders of special protective labor legislation for women often maintain that eliminating such laws would destroy the fruits o

Defenders of special protective labor legislation for women often maintain that eliminating such laws would destroy the fruits o

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问题     Defenders of special protective labor legislation for women often maintain that eliminating such laws would destroy the fruits of a century-long struggle for the protection of women workers. Even a brief examination of the historic practice of courts and employers would show that the fruit of such laws has been bitter they are, in practice, more of a curse than a blessing.
    Sex-defined protective laws have often been based on stereotypical assumptions concerning woman’s needs and abilities, and employers have frequently used them as legal excuses for discriminating against women. After the Second World War, for example, business and government sought to persuade women to vacate jobs in factories, thus making room in the labor force for returning veterans. The revival or passage of state laws limiting the daily or weekly work hours of women conveniently accomplished this. Employers had only to declare that overtime hours were a necessary condition of employment or promotion in their factory, and women could be quite legally tired, refused jobs, or kept at low wage levels, all in the name of "protecting" their health. By validating such laws when they are challenged by lawsuits, the courts have colluded over the years in establishing different, less advantageous employment terms for women than for men, thus reducing woman’s competitiveness on the job market. At the same time, even the most well-inattentioned lawmakers, courts, and employers have often been blind to the real needs of women. The law makers and the courts continue to permit employers to offer employee health insurance plans that cover all known human medical disabilities except those relating to pregnancy and childbirth.
    Finally, labor laws protecting only special groups are often ineffective at protecting the workers who are actually in the workplace. Some chemicals, for example, pose reproductive risks for women of child-bearing years; manufacturers using the chemicals comply with laws protecting women against these hazards by refusing to hire them. Thus the sex-defined legislation protects the hypothetical female worker, but has no effect whatever on the safety of any actual employee. The health risks to male employees in such industries cannot be negligible, since chemicals toxic enough to cause birth defects in fetuses or sterility in women are presumably harmful to the human metabolism. Protective laws aimed at changing production materials or techniques in order to reduce such hazards would benefit all employees without discriminating against any.
    In sum, protective labor laws for women are discriminatory and do not meet their intended purpose. Legislators should recognize that women are in the work force to stay, and that their needs—good health care, a decent wage and a safe workplace—are the needs of all workers. Laws that ignore these facts violate woman’s rights for equal protection in employment.
The passage suggests that which of the following is a shortcoming of protective labor laws that single out a particular group of workers for protection?
选项 A、Such laws are often too weak to be effective at protecting the group in question.
B、Such laws exert no pressure on employers to eliminate hazards in the workplace.
C、Such laws are usually drafted by legislators who do not have the best interests of workers at heart.
D、Compliance with such laws is often costly for employers and provokes lawsuits by employees claiming discrimination.
答案A
解析 事实细节题。第三段首句提到，保护特定群体的劳工法在实际当中通常是无效的，并以化工厂举例说明。A项与之相符，故为答案。文中并未提到向雇佣者施压和雇员提起诉讼的情况，故排除B项和D项。最后一段第二句提到，立法者应该注意到女性劳工的各项需求，没有说这些法律大多由谁制定，C项表述与原文不一致，故排除。
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