Amy Tannenbaum, Program Assistant

Amy Tannenbaum is the Program Assistant for Education and Employment. Prior to joining the Center, she worked at the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs in their EEO Project. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Hamilton College in 2010 with a degree in comparative literature; her thesis explored how women have used writing and performance to address sexual assault.  Outside of her work with the Center, she volunteers with several women-focused projects in the D.C. area and runs half-marathons.

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My Take

Five Fast Facts about Pregnancy in the Workplace

Posted by Amy Tannenbaum, Program Assistant | Posted on: September 24, 2012 at 02:20 pm

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act was introduced in the Senate last week. To help you learn more about the legislation and why it’s critically important to pregnant workers, here are five fast facts about pregnancy and the workplace.

1) Neither the Pregnancy Discrimination Act nor the Americans with Disabilities Act explicitly require employers to provide minor workplace accommodations if pregnant employees need them.

While the Pregnancy Discrimination Act extends Title VII employment discrimination protections to pregnant employees, all too often courts have held that it does not protect women who need minor adjustments on the job during pregnancy, such as being permitted to carry a water bottle, take more frequent bathroom breaks, or get a temporary reprieve from heavy lifting — unless the pregnant woman can point to someone else doing exactly the same work who needed and received exactly the same job adjustments but who wasn't pregnant. It will often be impossible to find this nonpregnant identical twin. The Americans with Disabilities Act also doesn't apply, because pregnancy itself is not a disability (although pregnancy complications, like preeclampsia or gestational diabetes, can be).

2) The United States does not have a federal law requiring paid medical or parental leave.

Although the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) provides twelve weeks of unpaid leave during which your employer, if large enough to be covered by the law, will save your job, most employers don't provide paid medical or family leave, and very few workers in low-wage jobs have access to more than a few days of paid leave for medical needs.

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Tags: Employment, Pregnancy, Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), Pregnancy, Parenting, and the Workplace, Employment | 3 comments

It Just Makes Sense: Support the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act

Posted by Amy Tannenbaum, Program Assistant | Posted on: September 19, 2012 at 04:06 pm

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act was introduced in the Senate today.

When I tell people about the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, they are often taken aback that there is a need for this legislation. I get it: it seems like common sense that employees should not be punished for needing medical accommodations like more frequent breaks to drink water, or a stool to sit on behind a cash register.

Yet, stories from across the country make clear that pregnant workers desperately need the protections offered by the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which would require that employers provide reasonable accommodations to employees for pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical accommodations, just as they do now for employees with disabilities. Pregnant workers have been forced onto unpaid leave – or even fired – simply for asking for accommodations like a bathroom or water break. When pregnant workers have challenged these decisions in court, they have lost. This is because courts have held that the Pregnancy Discrimination Act does not explicitly require employers to provide accommodations for pregnant workers – a loophole the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act would close.

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Tags: Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), Senate, Pregnancy, Parenting, and the Workplace, Employment | 2 comments

Women fought hard for the right to vote. It’s time to fight hard to keep it.

Posted by Amy Tannenbaum, Program Assistant | Posted on: August 27, 2012 at 03:08 pm

I will never forget the mnemonic from my seventh grade history class: “Amendment 19, in 1919, gave women the right to vote.” It is not totally accurate (although the House and Senate passed the amendment in 1919, it did not get ratified until 1920). But it did work. I still remember how it felt when I first learned that if I had been born 100 years earlier, I would not have been able to vote: I simply couldn’t believe that such backward ideas about women were persuasive in recent history.

It wasn’t until August 26, 1920 that a woman’s right to vote became law in the U.S. Yesterday, August 26, was Women’s Equality Day, commemorating the passage of the 19th Amendment and recognizing women’s ongoing fight for equal rights. It is a day both to remember the tremendous work of women like Susan B. Anthony, Ida B. Wells, and Alice Paul to win the right to vote, and a day to redouble our efforts to combat modern-day attempts to take the right to vote away from us.

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Tags: Voter Education, Voter ID Laws, Voter Education, A Women's Agenda | 2 comments

Flipping the Script: Enlisting Students who Bully in the Fight to End Bullying

Posted by Amy Tannenbaum, Program Assistant | Posted on: August 21, 2012 at 01:03 pm

It’s back to school time, and with the return to school comes anxiety on the part of students and parents about bullying. Bullying and harassment is especially a problem for girls, students who do not conform to gender norms, and LGBT students. While it is of course important to educate students and parents about effective techniques for avoiding and standing up to students who bully, most articles and lists about the best ways to avoid bullying are woefully one-sided. These lists address targets of bullying, rather than the students who bully, and can therefore tend towards victim-blaming. Instead of placing responsibility only on targets and bystanders of bullying, we need to charge students who bully with changing their attitudes. Here is a handy guide – for bullies – on how to avoid bullying:

  • If you see someone you don’t like, simply leave them alone. Don’t make disparaging remarks or tease them.
  • Don’t use slurs like “slut” and “whore” to describe classmates or peers, and don’t forward “sexts” or explicit emails.
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Tags: Bullying and Harassment, Education and Schools, Sexual Harassment & Bullying, Education & Title IX | Add new comment