Because of Sex: One Law, Ten Cases, and Fifty Years That Changed American Womens Lives at Work

Description

Best known as a monumental achievement of the civil rights movement, the 1964 Civil Rights Act also revolutionized the lives of Americas working women. Title VII of the law made it illegal to discriminate because of sex. But that simple phrase didnt mean much until ordinary women began using the law to get justice on the joband some took their fights all the way to the Supreme Court. Among them were Ida Phillips, denied an assembly line job because she had a preschool-age child; Mechelle Vinson, who brought a lawsuit for sexual abuse before sexual harassment even had a name; Ann Hopkins, denied partnership at a Big Eight accounting firm because the men in charge thought she needed “a course at charm school; and most recently, Peggy Young, UPS truck driver, forced to take an unpaid leave while pregnant.

Through first-person accounts and vivid narrative, Because of Sex tells the story of how one law, our highest court, and a few tenacious women changed the American workplace forever.

Author Information

Gillian Thomas is a Senior Staff Attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Women’s Rights Project. She lives in Brooklyn.