Heavy lifting at work and being female

[Nikia]

My superviser and I were having a discussion the other day. He said that some of the production guys complained that the other woman in our department and I occaisionally asked the guys to lift a bag or two (for checking the weights as part of quality checks). He said that when men held those positions that they never had that problem. He said that we both told the interviewer that we had no disability that prevented us from lifting 50 pounds. The occaisional bag or box that we ask them to weigh is actually 55 pounds and usually above shoulder level. I said that it was a small part of my job (about 15 minutes out of a 9+hour work day) and that it is not inconvient for them to occaionally help me. He said that as an able bodied adult I should be able to handle that weight as well as anyone else (the men). I said that the men by being male had a considerable strenth advantage and that I was doing the best that I could. He said that perhaps this job wasn't made for a woman, who wasn't above average in strength then.
I said that he was being sexist because it was a small part of my job and that perhaps the company was being sexist by having this as part of the job at all. The production guys could weigh the bags and the quality control person could record it. I said that perhaps the lifting part was there to discourage women from taking the job at all.
Perhaps, I was just reacting to this scenario, but in other places that I have worked or heard about, I have thought this to be the case. There were skilled jobs that required lifting a heavy object perhaps 2 or 3 times a day. There were skilled jobs that required no heavy lifting but required the person that was hired to have spent at least several months working at a job in the company that did required heavy lifting.
Do you think that such companies are being sexist in these scenarios? I realize that some women are very strong, but on average men are stronger by their physiology.

[itsrobert]

1. If that's the requirement for the job

You need to either do the job or find another position that doesn't require you to lift 50 pounds. Why should someone else do your job for you, unless you have a medical reason not too?

[Nikia]

7. My job is research and development and to cover quality

When that person has gone home and to handle issues. The job is to verify that the bags weigh the right amount which I do as a small part of my job (about 15 minutes out of a 9+ hour work day).
I only occaisionally ask for help. The reason that I ask for help is that I cannot physically lift it. I have gotten stronger so I can now lift 50 to the top layer and 55 to all but the top layer. I know that I am probably below average in arm strength but 55 pounds is haldf my weight. I don't have a disabilty now, although I worry about my back which often hurts.
Incidently, the previous job I worked at, the production workers always lifted their own product while I wrote down the weights. The product they were lifting was not heavy at all. At some companies this is standard practice because they have an interest in knowing whether the product is right on target or not.

[SharonAnn]

8. There are job requirements specifically written to exclude women. Still.

Yes, it sounds like it could be, but that doesn't get you anywhere.

Clarence Thomas basically dismantled the EEOC when he was in charge under Reagan.

The GOP has basically dismantled the legal right to sue for this kind of thing. Yes, I know anyone can sue, but it would be horribly expensive and you'd be unlikely to win. Probably no lawyer would take this one unless you could pay the fees and the would probably be in the 6 figures.

So, the question is, what is the best way to effect the change you need in your life. Is it possible to work with the present situation somehow? Is it possible to find another job? Is it possible to wait it out and maybe your boss will move on to another job?

What I mean is, while you can understand what the situation is, that doesn't help you until you figure out how you're going to deal with it.

My recommendation is to keep a low profile and do what you can to meet the job requirements as long as you want this job. If you escalate it any more, they might start building a case about why you're not able to do the job and then let you go.

[don954]

2. the question is

can you or cant you lift the object?

let me put on my flame-suit first here...


If you can lift the object, then just do your job. I work help desk and i have to lift 70# monitors, so do my coworkers, one of which is a 90# female, no one complains as we all do it. If you are trying to get an exemption because your female, your just going to generate resentment among your coworkers.

[Kagemusha]

3. All depends what's reasonable.

In the scenario you describe, it's borderline. It's probably not unreasonable to ask for help. It's not unreasonable for the supervisor to hope that you could handle it yourself, but if it's that small an amount of the job, it sounds like not something to raise a huge stink over. And it's above the requirements for when you were hired.

I know of situations which are nowhere near this borderline. Even if it's sexist, it's so narrow the issue should never have to rise above a polite argument. I hope it never does for your sake, Nikia. Take care.

[bowens43]

4. I don't see it as sexist.

If it's a job requirement, you should do it.

[Arkansas Granny]

5. I have worked in the past where I had to lift heavy boxes and

stock them on shelves in the warehouse that were often over shoulder height. Sometimes the guys I worked with would help me without being asked, but I never asked for that help because stocking the shelves was part of my job.

The job I have now is strictly office work so now if I have to get a heavy box of records down from a shelf, for example, I have no problem asking one of the guys for help. In this position, lifting heavy objects is not part of my job description.

[Nikia]

12. Technically, lifting isn't part of my job description

I have my job description and it does not say that anywhere. My job when I am doing the quality check part of my job is to verify the weights. At my previous job, verifying the weights meant that the production workers lifted the product and I wrote down the product weight. At this job, the production workers are not required to put the product on the scale for me to weight down the weights. They lift the bag on to the pallet either way. I need their help on average twice per week. If you needed heavy boxes of records down from a shelf twice a week, would you be offended that the guys you asked complained about you and suggested that you weren't qualified to do the job?

[Warpy]

29. I would check with human resources

about whether or not humping bags and boxes really is part of your job. It might not be.

There is no reason for a 110 pound woman to be required to lift 55 pound weights. Our bones and joints are simply not designed for it. Ignoring biology in this case will cause us to be disabled sooner than later.

30 some years ago, a public utility in the northwest realized they were going to have to hire a few women, so they invested in lighter ladders and a few smaller tools. What they found is that the men also preferred the new, lighter, smaller gear.

Another poster was correct in saying that job requirements have been written specifically to exclude women. However, these requirements are also very hard on males and produce significant stress injuries in them, too.

Still, it's appropriate to clarify your job description since your last job didn't require you hump all the heavy boxes and bags onto the scale. I'm sure the men will shut up very quickly once they're told it was never your job in the first place.

[juno jones]

6. My advice

As a professional cook who has worked up from dishwasher at a time when many of my fellow male cooks thought cucumbers were a funny joke and held the esteemed opinion that women were unsuited to cook professionally...Do what you can. If you really want this job,
tough it out if you have to. If the weight is absolutely too much (I have carried 100# bags of potatoes...in a miniskirt!!!), ask politely for help. Actually, I have had very good luck in getting help from my male counterparts...once I showed them that I could handle it...its messed up, but it seems to be male psychology, yes, if you are blazing trails in a woman-deficient industry you might have to prove something from time to time...

However, you do have an interesting point there with the possible sexism in the skilled hiring. If you are mandated to lift 50 pounds for several months before you can be hired for skilled work, that could quite possibly be sexist...I know many women who could not lift that weight constantly ...if they would not hire a woman with the pertinent skills for a skilled desk job until they had cleared an arbitrary physical barrier, THAT would be sexual discrimination. If this pertains to you and you have a lot of time in with this company, you might want to check in with a civil rights lawyer.

Otherwise, If it is that bad, take this experience, part on the best terms possible and find a job with a similar company...maybe keeping an eye out for businesses either owned or operated by women. Not always a guarantee, but it might be a change...

[Nikia]

17. In a way, it pertain less to me

For example, the women that do other work in the company cannot learn how to operate the machines which pays more until they have spent time learning to palletize heavy bags. This was also true at the previous company that I worked at.
The thing that gets me is that they already make accomodations for me and any other person in the job that are not lifting related. For example, I sometimes need to check product or ingredients that has already been stacked onto the racks or get ingredients or product for a sample that I am making. I am not a fork lift driver so I have to have one of the warehouse people get the product down for me. Sometimes, I need to send out a sample of prototype to a foreign country, which requires special paperwork that is filled in on a typewriter. The company secretary does that for me since she regularly uses the typewriter and knows how to fill out the forms. There is no reason that I could not learn these jobs for myself, but the company insists that these other people do them for me. For some reason though, this does not apply to lifting even though it is a small detour, much less than the forklift driver, for the lifters to put the bag on the scale instead of directly on the pallet. The company has already picked small parts of my job which it has delegated to others who do those tasks as their primary tasks, but not that one.
Your comment about female owned and operated businesses reminded me of one company that I interviewed with. It was at a larger company, but the research and development department seemed to be dominated by women. During the interview, they asked if I could lift 25 pounds. I said that I could. Then they said that if I couldn't lift it off the higher shelves that it was perfectly fine to ask someone else for help. This company is male dominated. It does seem like they might be trying to do some female affirmative action in that the company has gone from approximately 10% female to 20% female in the past year even hiring two women, who had done lifting jobs at other companies, to do jobs that would be considered heavy labor at many other companies. I am the highest ranking, highest payed non owning family member woman there and wondering why this lifting requirement is even part of my job. It is not that I think that I am too good to do it or anything. It is just that it is hard for me and in some cases still impossible and that this might be more true of the average woman than the average man and doesn't really have anything more to do with my job than operating a fork lift or filling out typewritten forms.

[Quantess]

31. Your (this) post clarifies a lot.

However, just because a female owned and operated business (or male owned & operated) quoted 25 lbs, doesn't mean anything. 25 pounds should be understood as a light weight, if lifted from below the waist and above knees. 25# is light, if you have proper lifting conditions.

"Not more that 25 lbs from above the shoulders" is a big distinction. That is a huge burden on your back, taking weight in your arms, from above. You would need special training, to take that much weight from above the shoulders.

Sorry if I misunderstood you.

[noamnety]

9. during the interview

did they tell you that the ability to lift 55 pounds above your shoulders was a job requirement?

Is there a way to accommodate you (not in a disability-legal sense, but just a practical sense) so you can get the job done without needing help? In my office right now, because we're working on murals, I have a step ladder/scaffolding sort of thing, more stable than a ladder with wider steps, so it's actually like walking up 5 stairs. It's on collapsing wheels, so when I stand on it, the wheels retract from the weight so it doesn't move.

Seems like if you had something like this, you could get the bags to the right height without having to lift them above your head.

That's not a sexist requirement - it's what most of us refer to as ergonomic working conditions. And it would be smart for the employer to provide that for you, because I'm sure the last thing they want is for you to injure yourself and file a claim.

http://news.thomasnet.com/IMT/archives/2001/01/the_debate_over.html?t=archive

[Nikia]

11. I was asked if I could lift 50 pounds

I said that I could, but I had difficulty lifting that weight above my shoulders. During the interview process, I did not tour the plant. I had no idea that they also had 55 pound bags (actually 25 kg bags for export). I had no idea that the reason the question was asked was that I had to lift bags to verify the weight of the product.
I was hired to do reasearch and development and quality.
As far as the step ladder idea, one of the women who was temporarily transferred to that department because they were short on people used one. In that position, a large part of their job is to lift the bags. The supervisers thought that was actually more of an injury risk (fall off the ladder and have the bag land on her) and decided that she probably couldn't do the job after all. If I was 6 feet tall, this probably wouldn't be an issue because it would be below shoulder level. I would also probably be heavier which might help me lift easier.

[happyslug]

10. Is the job being performed as it is NORMALLY Performed in the National Economy?

Jobs based on differences between men and women are a complex area of the law. First you have to look at how the job is Generally performed, then how it is being performed and finally what is a reasonable accommodation.

Lets look at some pass examples. Air lines refused to hied women pilots in the 1970s for they did not have the height to fit the seats of the planes nor the arm strength to pull on the levels. The fact that the levels were already power assist and all it would take was to increase the power assist so women could fly the plane was NOT viewed as reasonable (Through I should mention by the 1980s most Airlines had made the adjustments and hired female pilots).

Another case was police Department demanding recruits to be able to haul a dummy "dead body" of 250 pounds. This was struck down when it was determined that in the previous 30 years such a scenario had never occurred (The "test" was just to exclude women).

My favorite was the GM Battery case, where the Supreme Court ruled that the fact that ovums inside a woman could be affected by the exposure to lead could NOT be used to exclude women from doing the battery job (The excuse that if the ovum would later become a baby and than an adult and shown to be harmed by the lead could sue GM, could not be used by GM from permitting women to work in the battery shop).

In my opinion the key issue is how little such lifting is involved with your job. So a man would NOT have to weight for another man to pick up the bag, how much off task would that make the women (and the man who is asked to lift the bag)? It is so minor, I just can NOT see it being justification to exclude women from the job (and this is supported

Furthermore it is recommended (If not required in most places) that is someone is to life more than 50 pounds that person must either do it with someone else or a machine (Back Injuries even among men is high and most employers try to minimize such injuries by limiting how much heavy lifting is taking place). Now some jobs require heavy lifting (Nurses aide for example, a field almost exclusively filled by women) but such jobs are more often done by two or more people working together.

All together given how little such lifting occurs, and the need to minimize such lifting do to back injuries, I doubt this is a job that has to be done by a man, or if a man did it he would not require assistance as often as you do.

[Nikia]

32. Thank you for your reply

I guess that this was really my point to my boss when he said that perhaps they shouldn't have hired a woman for the job.
I wasn't hired to lift bags. I was hired to do research and develpment and quality work. The fact that my job might even include lifting those few bags was a choice made by the employer. I don't know how it is in most plants, but at my previous quality position, the production workers lifted the product onto the scale and the quality control worker recorded the weight. At my father's company, the production workers weigh their own products often and record the results themselves.
Then there is the subject of the people who are hired to lift the bags. There have not been any women hired to do that since I have been there. In fact, all of them that stayed more than a couple of days have been men in their 20's. The couple of older guys who were hired to eventually run the machines quit after they learned that they would have to be just lifitng the bags for the next few weeks to months before they would be allowed to learn that.
When I asked my boss why the bags were 50 pounds anyway, he said that was because that was what the typical person could lift. Is typical a young man in his 20's?
Lately, we have had a couple of injuries. I don't know if this will lead to any changes or not.

[SemperEadem]

13. ...

"I said that it was a small part of my job (about 15 minutes out of a 9+hour work day) and that it is not inconvient for them to occaionally help me."

It not being inconventient for them or it being 15 minutes out of a 9+ hour work day is beside the issue. The issue is that you told the interviewer that you could handle the lifting requirements for the job.

I worked for a parcel delivery service and I had to be able to lift 70lb boxes in and out of my van. I would be out on my delivery route by myself and had no one to help me with lifting. I certainly couldn't call back to the warehouse and ask that they send a guy to help me lift the heavy boxes. When the van I drove (full of boxes) had a flat tire, I had to change the flat, by myself in the pouring rain and make my deliveries on time. If I did not do that, I would have been in serious trouble.

I would say to start building upper body strength if you have no disability to prevent you from doing that, that way, he has nothing to say to you and you can do what your job description requires without anyone's assistance. With companies downsizing and combining job duties, I doubt that they are going to pay for two people to do the job they can get one person to do. It has nothing to do with being sexist as it has to do with their bottom line and profit margins. They're not going to have two people doing one job. Those days are over.

[Nikia]

15. The people who would help me are lifting the bags anyway

Actually, I told the interviewer, who is the owner of the company, that I could lift 50 pounds, but had trouble lifting it above my shoulders. That is true, but they hired me anyway. In nine months on the job, I can now usually lift 50 pounds to the top layer but not 55 pounds. Five pounds doesn't sound like a lot, but it is when you have reached your maximum lifting capacity. I have also developed the arm strength to retrieve 80 pound bags of ingredient from waist to chest level and put it on a cart.
When I don't need them to put the bag on the scale, the process goes something like this: Put bag on filling machine, press button to fill bag, take bag off machine, stack directly on pallet.
When I am there and need a weight for my check, they take put the bag on a scale after taking it off the machine, before putting the bag on the pallet. These people lift over a couple hundred bags per day whether I need their help or not. Them going twenty seconds out of their way to put it on the scale is not a huge inconvience. Not suprisingly, everyone that they have hired, since I have been there nine months ago, and stayed more than a week, has been a young man in his twenties who had done some kind of heavy lifting job before. I would have never applied for this job myself. Their primary job responsibility is to lift the bags.
My primary job responsibilities are ensuring the quality of everything that leaves the plant, which includes quality checks of the process and product at every stage of process and many laboratory tests. I am responsibility for developing new formulas for product, including matching and/or improving competitor products.
There is another employee who is primarily responsible for quality checks and the standard quick tests that go with it. This employee does this job for her entire shift, which includes three checks. I do a final check after she goes home which includes checking the weight of a bag from each product running. I have a superviser who does a lot of paperwork as his primary duty. The department has been three people since the company was about a third of its current size. They aren't going to eliminate a position. In fact, they are considering adding a position which I hope gets me away from doing any routine quality checks. Personally, I don't think that I am going to get fired because I have developed a few products that will make them a lot of money and made a few good saves that have prevented the company from losing money and am rapidly improving.

[Bunny]

14. I'm not sure why anyone, male or female, is lifting 55 lb.bags over

their shoulders. That sounds like a Worker's Comp paradise to me. Surely there is some sort of lifting device that can be used by ALL workers when this is required.

[Nikia]

16. We actually have a number of injured people

Including some young men who one would think would be least likely to get injured doing heavy lifting.
We are a single location manufacturing business under 100 people. There are several areas that we are making full use of modern technolgy. This is one of them.
It seems that most of the young men whose job is primarily lifting do take pride in the fact that they are doing heavy lifting. They feel that they are superior to management and others who do not lift because they lift. They make fun of the injured. Evidently, they complain behind the back of the young woman who occaisionally has trouble lifting the weights because she is inferior to them in her lack of strength.
That last statement is speculation, but it goes along with everything else that I know that they have said and did.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

26. The Macho factor

I spent many years in manufacturing and my experience mirrors yours. In addition, as a female you were always the ambassador of your entire gender. If Bob screwed up, it was just Bob screwing up. If Cathy screwed up, not only did she screw up but I told you those broads can't do this job!

[Nikia]

18. I would actually like to discuss this topic in more general terms

In all actuality, I probably am not going to be fired for having difficulty lifting a few bags. At this company, the job I hold really is the job for me of the current positions that they have.
The question is what is included in the duties of a job and what isn't? For people in jobs who could get promotions, what tasks must they have done to be considered promotable?
I used my situation as an example. In another post in the thread, an offic worker mentioned that she asked for help getting heavy boxes of records but did so easily because it was not part of her job description. Why couldn't the company make retrieving heavy boxes that she needs part of her job? I mentioned in another part of the post that the company has already decided that some aspects of performing my job do include asking other people for help, such as asking the fork lift driver to take down a pallet for me. If the company had some sort of preference for people who have experience driving work lift though, they could have made being a fork lift driver a requirement for my job. As I said before, some women can lift as much as the average man. Lifting requirements, whatever they are though are more easily achieved by the average man, which is largely because of physiology which is why some athletes take steroids to get stronger more easily. By having them for jobs which lifting is not a main responsibility, they seem to seek to discourage women.

[Orrex]

19. Job requirements may be subject to change

If, at the time of hiring, you signed anything that made a statement along the lines of "I understand that my employer may make reasonable revisions to the requirements of my position in response to changing need and circumstances," then you're out of luck. The 50-pound guideline is fairly standard as far as I'm aware, so it doesn't surprise me that a job that doesn't nominally seem to entail moderate lifting might nonetheless have that requirement.

Also, while it's understandable that the 50-pound requirement might appear as a deliberate obstacle to women, it might also be a means of protection for the employer, so that an employee can't subesequently refuse to lift a 30-pound box of paper or the like. Alternatively, if she does happen to sustain injury while lifting that box, then the employer might be protected against some liability, on the grounds that, by signing her consent to the 50-pound guideline, she had given her explicit assurance that she could lift up to that much.

It's kind of shitty, but I'm not sure of what a good, general workaround might be.

[RazzleCat]

20. Interesting question

I am a clerk, my job required that I lift 40lb boxes up to (my) hip height. No problem for me, I weigh 100lbs and stand 5'3". Now when I do my job I can do it, however lately I have been relocated to the dock. I am still lifting the same weight box to the same height until we load the pallets, then I just can't do it. We stack 6 boxes high which makes box 6 on the stack over 5' up in the air, this means I would have to lift a 40lb box up over my head to get the last box on. So far no problems with any of the guys on the dock, they can see that I do my "fair share" of box tossing and moving and stacking, they can also see that I am just plain too short to get to the last box. I could see this being a problem if I had been hired to work the dock, rather than relocated to assist them get the shipment out on time. In my general experience most guys have no problems with working with women in physical jobs so long as the woman does what they do, or in my current situation, does more of X because I just can't do Y. One last note, a short guy would also have problems with getting that last box on, quick calculation average pallet height is 5", boxes are 12" tall each so a pallet stacked with 5 boxes is about 5'6" in height, 3" above my head.

[Orrex]

23. That's kind of screwed up.

Why the hell would they require someone to lift boxes to head-height when those boxes weigh 40% of what she does? Do they have a policy requiring 200# males to lift 80# boxes over their heads? Or might some poor heavyset guy be required to lift a 120# box? This just seems unreasonable to me.

My wife used to work in a mailroom with two other women, and the job had the same 50# guideline. Nonetheless, they routinely received monitors and pieces of furniture weighing well over 100#, and they were still required to lug them around.

Frankly, I think it's even more basic than a sexist requirement; it's just stupid to demand that people repeatedly lift a substantial fraction of their own body weight, and it's pretty much begging for an expensive injury. I'm also amazed that they don't have some kind of system in place to facilitate this kind of loading.

It seems that you've reached a good balance at your job, and that you work with an accommodating/understanding crew. But if you feel that you're being subjected to unreasonable physical demands, you should consider contacting either OSHA or your state's Department of Labor, if not both. At the very least, you would learn for certain what the guidelines are.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

21. The men shouldn't be lifting those bags either IMO

It's flat out stupid that your company hasn't figured out a way to perform that task without requiring a human to lift the bag, particularly since it involves lifting it above shoulder level. They must like paying workers comp claims. For years, I worked at a major company who wouldn't let anyone lift anything over 35 lbs without a partner or a lifting device. Not surprisingly, this company has consistently had the best safety record and lowest injury rate in it's industry for decades.

There are very few jobs anymore that require brute physical strength - firefighting comes to mind. But unless you're carrying 250 lb people out of burning buildings, there's no reason to subject your employees to the risk of back injuries and hernias.

[FloridaJudy]

28. Amen

I worked as a nurse for over 30 years, and nurses (who are still 90% female) are required to lift and turn patients weighing way far more than 55 pounds. We usually did it as a team, but still the vast majority of nurses eventually wind up with chronic back problems.

Hospitals have finally started getting wise to the fact that it's a heckuvalot cheaper to supply their staff with devices to assist with the lifting than to pay out a fortune in worker's comp (never mind that it's the right thing to do to protect your employees from injury). 55 pounds in way too much for anybody but a professional weight-lifter to be lifting over his or her head without assistance. One slip and you're under the care of a chiropractor for a really long time.

[femrap]

22. After reading some of the male replies to your

OP, I think it would be required reading for them to read this:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/5/12151/28456


You know, there's a theory out there that men have become obsolete now that we can clone. Look at the wars that males start and lives that are ruined as a result. War's casualties are over 70% women, children and elderly. And let's not forget that men are 95% of the prison population.

So maybe the next time, a woman asks you to kindly lift that 50 POUND box, maybe you could just say, 'It'd be my pleasure.' What whiney little schmucks....'she can't lift 50 pounds....fire her.'

And to think a woman diapered and fed you as an infant.

[Katherine Brengle]

24. Get stronger.

Seriously - your supervisor sounds like a wank, but the best defense would be to do the job yourself. 55 lbs really isn't that much - within a short period most women on a solid weight training program could military press that from the shoulders.

[Nikia]

25. Do you know what the best weight exercises for that would be?

My biceps are strong enough, as are my legs. I don't have any problems lifting it off the ground or to my chest area now. Lifting above my shoulders is the difficult part. I know that it isn't good to have unbalanced muscles but I think that my current activities now and in the past have favored my legs and biceps.

[Katherine Brengle]

27. Sure --

and I hope you didn't take my original post as offensive, it wasn't meant that way.

In order to be completely safe lifting a significant weight overhead from the shoulders, you'll really want to be strong all over - squats, deadlifts, bench presses, and row variations are the best collection of exercises for overall strength.

For the upper back, arms, and shoulders specifically: pull-ups (most gyms have assisted pull up machines if bodyweight reps are too hard, they often are at first - if yours didn't have a machine, simply attempting pull-ups a couple of times a week will help, and eventually most people can get there), bench press, push ups, dips, overhead presses (like a military press) -- you can check out exrx.net for exercise form for various parts of the body, it's a great resource.

:D

[Quantess]

30. So, let me get this straight.

Your supervisor is saying that you, as a woman, should be able to occasionally lift 55 lbs. And you're disagreeing with him. Do I have that right?

Well, can you lift it (without straining your back), or can't you? I guess that's what a woman in this situation needs to ask herself.
If you can't, then don't feel bad, just tell your supervisor you can't, and insist that you can't, if you really cannot. You might be able to work up to 55 lbs lifting ability, even though right now, your capacity is less.

Women typically can handle smaller weights for longer periods (more weight endurance over longer periods of time) while men have their famous advantage at lifting larger weights. As a woman, I know that lifting with a little difficulty, without straining myself, is a good parameter for gaining strength. But then, each person is different, and maybe you don't really want a physically active job, perhaps? Nothing wrong with that. There are many jobs out there with minimal physical demands. There may be another woman ready to take your place, who loves a little exercise.

So no, I don't think that the companies you describe are sexist. The guys who lift the stuff for you are probably just feeling overworked, when they could be doing other things.

[WildClarySage]

33. Interesting that so many replies here

are blaming the OP for asking for minor and occasional accomodations. If the employee in question was disabled, rather than female, would those same accomodations be considered unreasonable? Not according to the ADA.

[Orrex]

34. I think that it's dangerous to equate "being female" with "being disabled"

I know that that's not your intent, but it could be misread to imply, by extension, that men are non-disabled. Men are thereby established as the default model of employee, and we're thrown back several decades.

And the issue of blame is tricky, too. If an employee agrees to terms of employment, and if those terms are legally valid, then there's little room for complaint when those terms later become objectionable (barring disability, illness, advancing age, etc.)

[Nikia]

35. But I think that is the problem

That the default employee is male.
I did not mention in the main post that the employees taking the bags off the machine and putting them on a pallet are always male. No female has had that job at that company as her main job. They have purposely hired some women, with experience in heavy labor positions, to do what would be considered heavy lifting jobs at other companies. When these women, who were hired because they were above average strength, were temporarily given this job, they all had trouble. Granted, these women had less trouble than me and probably would be able to lift the bags to the top level as frequently as I do.
I had asked my boss though why the bags are 50# or 55# (25kg which we export.) He said that is because it is what a "normal" person can lift. Considering that the employees who always lift those bags as their primary jobs are male, I think that "normal" means male.
The interesting thing about my job description is that there is no mention of lifting at all despite the fact that it is three pages long. It is still considered part of my job though because it is assumed to be a task that "normal" people in my position could do.

[Orrex]

36. "Measure of a man," once again

It sounds to me as though you have legitimate grounds for a formal complaint beyond going to your company's HR department (such as it is). Contact your local OSHA representative or your state's Department of Labor to see what your options are.

I've spoken with several people who work for the DoL, and the consensus seems to be this: even if one's job requirements stipulate that the employee must "occasionally lift weights of up to 50 pounds," that is absolutely not a requirement that they engage in repeated heavy lifting above waist-height.

And, of course, even the idea of "normal" as it applies to males-only is absurd; my boss and I are about the same height, but he weighs about 150 pounds more than I do. Which of us is normal? And which should be used as the benchmark for establishing what is "normal" exertion in the workplace?