Women in Procrustean Beds: Strength Testing and the Workplace
本文质疑当前就业前力量测试对女性的歧视性，指出测试基于男性表现方式，无法预测女性实际工作绩效，并提出应重新定义体力要求，使至少75%的工人能胜任体力工作。
Pre‐employment strength testing in its present form supports employment practices which exclude women from manual handling tasks traditionally assigned to men. However, several lines of reasoning lead us to think that pre‐employment testing is a Procrustean bed which imposes unreasonable requirements on most women. Examination of some tests and their scientific underpinnings leads us to conclude that they may result in discrimination. Women often approach manual tasks in ways different from men, so that pre‐employment tests developed around the ways men usually perform these tasks are poor predictors of women’s performance at real‐life jobs. We also question the fact that pre‐employment testing involves the types of requirements imposed in men’s traditional work, but not women’s. This perspective leads us to propose a less rigid notion of physical strength and to introduce the concept of human‐task interaction. Representations of human capacity based on sexual stereotypes may conceal health and safety problems in job requirements which should be addressed directly, leading to more constructive propositions regarding job design and employee selection. We propose that standards be set for job requirements, such that all manual handling jobs become physically accessible to at least 75% of all workers.