The great suffragist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, once stated that “a woman’s place in society marks the level of civilization.” Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 promised to improve the lives of working women, because it proscribed discrimination “because of sex.” As chronicled in Gillian Thomas’ new book, however, the protections and opportunities women enjoy in the 2016 workplace have truly been created by a group of courageous women who used Title VII to fight sexism all the way to the Supreme Court. If the “level of civilization” in contemporary America surpasses that of 1964, this book highlights the main reasons why.
The author is a staff attorney with the Women’s Rights Project of the ACLU. To make the book accessible to lay persons, she does a creditable job in explaining the legal doctrines, litigation concepts, government agencies, court structures, and personalities that are critical to understanding the story. While these digressions at times slow the narrative, they are generally well edited and strategically placed. Lawyers will find the book a good read.
