Sexual Harassment of Working Women: A Case of Sex Discrimination

Gender Equality: States as Laboratories

“…141 Worse yet, a court may use this asymmetrical standard to uphold invidious protectionist discrimination against women "which, in practical effect, puts women, not on a pedestal, but in a cage." 142 A critic of MacKinnon has argued that the subordination approach makes a return to such an era of invidious protectionist discrimination "all too likely," 143 noting that Muller v. Oregon, 144 a protectionist Lochner 145 era case restricting women's working hours on the rationale that women's primary function was to bear children, was cited approvingly by a 1974 Supreme Court case upholding remedial legislation on behalf of women. 146 Thus, the dangers inherent in applying a double standard to gender-discriminatory laws militate against MacKinnon's subordination approach to gender equality.…”