BRINGING GENDER AND RACE IN:

Abstract

When passed, the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act established two distinct views of employment discrimination and two different enforcement structures—one aimed at sex and the other at race discrimination. To explain this bifurcated approach to employment discrimination, it is necessary to examine not only social class but also gender and race relations. Sex and race discrimination bills addressed some of the problems of postwar capitalism in the United States. At the same time, however, the bifurcated discrimination policy enforced women's dependence on men in families. But it did this differently for white men than it did for men of color.