You gotta be joking.

These people are hired for the way they look. Maternity changes that, you know.... Thirty years ago, I used to be a hottie, too. But I'm not anymore...that's just the way the um, cookie crumbles. I can't imagine going back to Hefner and saying, "Well, Hef, I've raised the kids now, and I'm ready to come back to work...."

Not that I personally give a crap, because I think the Rockettes are about as asinine as the Miss America "pageant," but really...what kind of skank wants to see a line of high-kicking grandmas exposing their crotches on national TV anyway?

Perhaps now the Cockettes will demand representative casting for men.

but no. another "aren't i clever to want it both ways and be a girlish fem post fem semifeminist lefty babe" beginner blog. only by a group of people who have not spent much time in the women's (or grrls or broads etc etc) community and are all pleased by their cuteness. sorry. "girls gone wild"?

where'd you leave your brains, o my sistahs?

Dear Editor,

Thank you for illuminating this disturbing story about the Rockettes and their hideous bullying by Cable Vision. Their predicament and treatment are indeed indicitive of a "Slice of American Life" for many American women. They are underpaid, undervalued and seen as only eye candy without the rights and dignities of possessing employment that allows them to fulfill any personal ambition, namely financial security and child bearing; something that clearly does not serve the male dominated corporate world. They are truly dancing on the stage of the American experience, one that is increasingly shared by many American workers. Their plight seems particularly sad, as they are indeed a visual throwback to an age where women were only "viewed" as a faceless line of dancing female parts, without a heart or a mind attached. How sad that the truth of that image is in fact revealed to be as dehumanizing as it actually seems.

--Susan McIntosh

I don't think grandma is going to be kicking up her heels as a Rockette any time soon. While age and gravity eventually get the better of all our figures (plastic surgery just delays the inevitable), that isn't necessarily true for motherhood.

The real issue here is that Cablevision is undermining the Rockette's union by threatening to replace them with scabs unless they agree to harsh contract terms. The maternity leave issue is a nasty little bonus on Cablevision's part designed to pit younger Rockettes against older Rockettes and traveling Rockettes against New York-based Rockettes. It's the oldest trick in the book: divide and conquer.

There must be more to this story. I'm not an expert, but wouldn't the Family & Medical Leave Act, which guarantees at least a 12-week unpaid leave to most new parents, make Cablevision's actions illegal or, at the very least, the labor contract unenforceable? Is the company really giving its employees an ultimatim: remain childless or risk losing your job? Or is the benefit at stake here something different than the traditional time off to care for a newborn -- perhaps leave before the baby comes, when the dancer in question (at least temporarily) no longer matches the physical mold of a typical Rockette? If you're going to write a story meant, I presume, to elicit some kind of reaction, we really need to know what's going on here.

And while I applaud the idea of a feature focusing on issues of interest to women, I have to say, you're not off to a fabulous start. You introduce the new feature with a headline declaring us "girls," state your intention to heavily salt the blog with celebrity pap that I assume you think is just the kind of information with which we'd like to fill our pretty lil' heads (as opposed to serious, well-informed pieces on real issues facing women), and your inaugural story is (1)full of informational holes, and (2) written by a man.

The same day that this article came out, a friend sent out an email that she's been laid off during her maternity leave. According to this friend, "Apparently this is part of a larger reduction-in-force which is how they can get around the FMLA protections." This is NOT the first incident of women I know experiencing maternity-related firings.

I am 28 years old and married. While I'm not planning to have children anytime soon, this trend of eliminating maternity leave and/or retaliation against those who use it scares me to death. Pregnancies are not always planned, and if I did become pregnant, I would have to seriously consider abortion if I could not rely on keeping my employment. My husband and I could not afford to pay our mortgage (or for food AND heat) without my income.

This now-unemployed woman's husband was recently laid off and they were solely dependent on her now-gone income and benefits. With her income gone, they will most likely have to sell their home. As our economic system disallows the possibility of living with one breadwinner in the family, how can we simultaneously force mothers out of the workforce? Are we to eliminate child rearing all together?

As a couple of your correspondents have already noted, your story is incomplete without a discussion of the Family and Medical Leave Act ("FMLA"). The Act provides for up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave each year, with job protection, for the birth or placement for adoption or foster care of a child (as well as some other reasons). FMLA applies to employers who have at least 50 employees in any 20 calendar weeks of the current or preceding calendar year. To be eligible for leave, an employee must have worked for the employer for a total of 12 months, must work a total of 1,250 hours in the 12 months preceding the leave request, and must work at a location where the employer has at least 50 employees within 75 miles.

The Act applies to exempt employees as well as non-exempt. Collective bargaining agreements (CBA's) which provide for lesser rights than those required by the Act are not enforceable--see 29 CFR 825.

The only obvious loophole is the 1,250 hours of work per year requirement. It's possible, I suppose, that a combination of rehearsal and performance time doesn't amount to 1,250 hours. If that's the case, the author should have told us.

So if the Rockettes are eligible for FMLA leave, the story is a non-starter--the U.S. Dept. of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, which enforces the FMLA, or the courts, will remedy the problem. If the employees are not eligible, then we should be told that, and why. Then the Rockettes would truly be at the mercy of their employer, and there's your story, including an inquiry into why their union is so ineffectual.