Pregnant Workers and Lactating Employee Rooms: Gender Neutrality in HR's Family-friendly Workplace Discourse

• In Event: 2258 - The Policy Consequences of Work-Family Myths

Abstract

The Family Medical Leave Act of 1993 is a gender-neutral law allowing all qualifying employees twelve weeks job-protected unpaid leave to attend to personal sickness or family care needs. Yet, in both congressional hearings and the bill’s own justificatory language, the FMLA discusses that family responsibilities disproportionately affect female employees relative to men. Women also take more FMLA leave than men. In interpreting and implementing workplace law such as the FMLA, human resources professionals are highly influential in shaping workplace policies that meet the law’s requirements. How do human resources trade publications interpret the FMLA, which is gender-neutral in its language, but arguably gendered in its motivation and practice? This paper examines HR trade journals in the decade before and two decades following the signing of the FMLA and asks whether HR discourse will align with the gender-neutral law or gendered practice in their advice to HR professionals. I find that the frames and gender-typed language offers evidence of this complexity, particularly in describing decidedly gendered experiences in gender-neutral ways. I acknowledge the controversy and widely-held viewpoints regarding the merits of the gender-neutral FMLA law, but argue that the language and interpretation may undermine the law’s intent and implementation.

Author

• Krista Frederico, University of Arizona