Women's History and the Sears Case

Abstract

positively and seek greater recognition and status for traditionally female values and forms of behavior? This tension between equality and difference has divided feminists in a variety of contexts. It is central to the debates over culture in feminist historical scholarship, for example.' Scholars analyzing women's experience, of course, can hedge on the issue, aiming for a balanced perspective that incorporates the insights of both positions. But in more immediately political contexts, this luxury is seldom available. The issue has deeply split feminist activists working on pregnancy disability policy, with some advocating special treatment for pregnant women, and others insisting on equal treatment (that is, that pregnancy-related disabilities must be treated exactly like any other disability).2 Now the scholarly and political dimensions of the question have been joined together in a sex discrimination case brought by the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) against Sears, Roebuck and Co. The case was tried in 1984 and 1985 in U.S. District Court in Chicago, and in early 1986 Judge John A. Nordberg decided in favor of Sears. The EEOC is appealing the case, however. Women's history and the issue of difference figured prominently in Sears's trial defense, based primarily on the claim that the underrepresentation of women in high-paying commission sales jobs was not due to discrimination, as the EEOC charged, but to women's own job preferences. Two well-known feminist historians, Rosalind Rosenberg and Alice Kessler-Harris, testified as expert witnesses in the case, presenting conflicting historical inter-