Title VII and the Complex Female Subject

The United States Supreme Court's failure to understand the relationship between individuals and groups in its equal protection jurisprudence has resulted in jurisprudence that makes no sense. The Court's inability to recognize the forms of bias associated with group membership has hampered the realization of the equal protection ideal. Analyzing the Court's gender equality decisions, the author proposes another path in equal protection jurisprudence that would analyze systemic privilege, recognizing the structures of subordination and domination. Examining equal protection through a privilege lens would clarify the interrelation of individuals to groups, provide an avenue for addressing biases, and sidestep the intent requirement currently mandated in cases alleging discrimination. A privilege analysis would ensure that the vision of democratic participation, central to the meaning of the Equal Protection Clause, could become a reality.

Harvard Law Review, 1990

Twenty-five years after title VII prohibited sex discrimination in employment, most women continue to work in low-paying, low-status, traditionally female jobs. Employers have avoided liability for sex segregation by arguing that women lack interest in more highly rewarded nontraditional jobs. In this analysis of title VII decisions addressing the lack of interest argument, Professor Schultz contends that courts have failed to recognize the role of employers in shaping women's work aspirations. Courts attribute sex segregation either to women's choice or to employer coercion. Both these explanations, however, incorrectly assume that women form stable preferences for traditional or nontraditional jobs before they begin working. Sociological research confirms that women develop their job preferences instead in response to changing structural and cultural features of work organizations. Professor Schultz draws on this research to propose a new way of understanding sex segregation that will enable courts to fulfill title VII's unrealized promise to working women. * Assistant Professor of Law, University of Wisconsin. Although it is not traditional to do so in a scholarly article, I wish to express my gratitude to my mother and father, who have worked hard in sometimes unrewarding jobs to give me opportunities they never had. In keeping with my argument in this Article, I acknowledge also the powerful influence of the women and men with whom I have had the good fortune of working in my formative years as a scholar and lawyer. My appreciation goes to my colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, where a culture of support for intellectually ambitious scholarship still thrives. I am particularly indebted to Dirk Hartog, David Trubek, Martha Fineman, Neil Komesar, Carin Clauss, Jim Jones, and Bill Clune, whose unfailing faith, constructive commentary, and inspiring example have sustained me throughout this project. I have been blessed also with talented research assistants from the

The Yale Law Journal, 1983

Despite the valiant efforts of feminists, the position of women in the United States and elsewhere in the industrial world is still characterized by significant inequality and oppression." Women are segregated into lowpaying, low-status jobs; 2 under-represented in political institutions and t Associate Professor of Law, Rutgers University-Camden. I wish to thank the friends and colleagues who offered helpful comments on earlier drafts, particularly

Feminist Legal History, Introduction, 2010

2008

T he Washington College of Law and the Women's Bar Association of the District of Columbia share an important historical connection; Ellen Spencer Mussey and Emma Gillett founded both institutions together, in 1898 and 1917, respectively. Mussey and Gillett were pioneers in legal education, legal reform, and the development of women lawyers. 2 More significant than the work they performed during their lives, however, is the legacy of activism, reform, and support that they ignited by founding two institutions that advance women in the law. These institutions have trained and supported generations of women lawyers through world wars and depressions, through the abeyance and resurgence of the women's movement and the ensuing backlash, and through the dramatic changes in the legal profession and legal education that accompanied these events. We celebrate and explore their legacy in this essay.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, since about 1980, has been painted as a feminist committed to "formal equality." Recent work has contested this depiction. This Article uncovers additional evidence that Ginsburg's goal was not mere formal equality; her goal was to deconstruct the breadwinner-homemaker system in which men and women were seen as belonging to separate spheres. Ginsburg saw this system as subordinating women, and in that sense is an antisubordination theorist. Yet lumping her together with Catharine MacKinnon, often seen as legal feminism's foremost antisubordination theorist, proves confusing for a number of reasons. A chief difference is their attitudes towards men. While MacKinnon often paints men as oppressors, Ginsburg saw men, as well as women, oppressed by gender roles. Ginsburg is more accurately seen as a reconstructive feminist, whose chief goal is to deconstruct separate spheres-its breadwinner-homemaker roles and the descriptions of men and women that justify them-and to reconstruct gender along different lines. Today, progress towards her goal has stalled. The key to jumpstarting the stalled gender revolution is to change gender pressures on men. Much of this work involves cultural shift, but in recent years, progress has been made in litigating separate spheres under Title VII, as evidenced by the recent growth of litigation involving family responsibilities discrimination ("FRD"). The Article concludes with a critique of a recent FRD case, EEOC v. Bloomberg L.P.

Nevada Law Journal, 2017

Rechtstheorie, 2017

The development of feminist themes and trends in legal thought reveals a diversity that suggests anumberofwaystogoaboutinvestigatingthathisto ry. But whichever angle we may takein suchaninvestigation, we cannot es cape the conclusion that this history and development has brought about a breakpoint, abreach torn in the canvas of aculture that–onaccount of an ancient and deep-rooted legacy–isused to seeing social and legal discrimi nation against women not as oppressive but simply as natural and justified.

International Social Science Journal, 2008