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Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Sears, Roebuck &Company: A Personal Account
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• (S) Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Sears, Roebuck & Company: A Personal Account ALICE KESSLER-HARRIS THE CASE EXPLODED into my life in early September of 1984. Had I heard of the suit against Sears, Roebuck, said the lawyer for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on the telephone? Did I know that it was the last of the class action cases and that Sears was the largest employer of women outside the federal government? Discrimination , retail sales, a female work force-would I be willing to testify for the EEOC? But why, I asked, confusedly processing bits of information, do you need a historian to testify? ''Well, they've got one," came the answer, "and we want you to rebut her testimony . She argues that women were not interested in commission sales, and she cites your work as evidence that Sears was not guilty of discrimination. Do you agree?" No, I thought, I did not agree that women's lack of "interest" could absolve a company of charges of discrimination. Nor could I accept that the complex reality embodied in the notion of "interest" could be so readily simplified. I did think that there was some as yet undefined difference between men and women. I had argued as much myself. But I had not yet figured out what that meant in terms of historical analysis. And to equate different "interests" with an acceptance of the current distribution of rewards from wage work was, in myjudgment, to misunderstand the process by which women struggled for change, as well as to simplify the way difference and inequality have played themselves out historically. Layers peeled back in the months that followed and the clarity that now seems possible only slowly became visible. A female historian, identified as a feminist, had taken a position in a political trial. She was prepared to testify that other women-working class women, poor women, non-white women-had not wanted well-paying jobs, and would not willingly make the kinds of compromises she herself had made in order to succeed at them. What was to be gained by such testimony? A successful argument would damage women who worked at Sears as well as past and future applicants. Worse, it would set a legal precedent that would inhibit affirmative action cases in the future. For if defendants could justify the absence of women in certain kinds ofjobs on the 35 Radical Hist. Rev. 57 (1986). Copyright 1986 The Radical Historians Organization. Reprinted with the permission of Cambridge University Press. 594 Copyrighted Material A Personal Account I 595 grounds that insufficient numbers ofwomen possessed any interest in them, one could foresee the resulting cycle. Expectations and aspirations conditioned by generations of socialization and labor market experience would now be used to justify continuing discrimination against women. The potential consequences were terrifyjng. The absence of women from the ranks of plumbers, automobile mechanics or airline pilots could become evidence of their lack of interest in preparing for these jobs. Neither employers nor unions could be held responsible for their absence. Women were themselves to blame.... The elements of the case fell into place slowly. Accused of discriminating against women by failing to hire either new applicants or present employees into commission salesjobs, and by paying managerial women less than men in the same jobs, the company did not dispute the essential facts of the case. Before 1973 (when the EEOC, acting on the complaints of scores of women, and in the wake of the A.T.& T. decision, first brought charges), few women worked in Sears' well paying commission sales categories .1 Between 1974 and 1979, under pressure from the EEOC's threatened action, Sears had made some progress in some commission sales categories nationwide. Women had begun to sell such items as sewing machines and draperies, furniture and shoes. In one of the five regional territories into which Sears stores were divided, progress had been substantia1.2 But everywhere, the most lucrative jobs in automotive accessories, large appliances, home entertainment, sporting goods and installed home improvements remained stubbornly resistant to female workers. Overall, the EEOC argues , the proportion of women hired or promoted into such jobs was fifty per cent lower than they estimated it should have been. Efforts to reach an agreement with the company on an enforceable affirmative action plan failed, and in 1980 the EEOC determined on court action. In court, the EEOC relied on statistical methods to prove its case. Producing a few complainants among the more...