Document Type

Article

Publication Title

DePaul Law Review

Abstract

The papers of Professors Kathryn Abrams and David Strauss represent the stock responses to my basic position outlined in Gender Is for Nouns. While both Professors Abrams and Strauss recognize that some reform of current antidiscrimination law might be in order, they do not specify what shape such reform might take; but, by the same token, they do reject as precipitate and unwise my recommendation that the entire structure of the employment discrimination laws be dismantled, at least insofar as it applies to private employers. I think that a careful consideration of their arguments should lead the disinterested reader to the opposite conclusion: that the case for keeping the sex discrimination law is far weaker than even I had imagined. In order to support this conclusion I shall consider four separate topics raised by their two papers. The first is the nature and nurture dispute, and its relationship to social policy. The second is the meaning of that elusive term socially constructed. The third addresses the reasonable woman standard in sexual harassment cases, and the fourth the relationship between an antidiscrimination norm and the affirmative action principle. In this connection I also note the striking parallel between the arguments used in defense of the antidiscrimination laws and those once used in defense of socialism more generally.

First Page

1041

Volume

41

Publication Date

1992

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