The Equal Pay and Sex Discrimination Acts: Their Impact in the Workplace

Abstract

The women's movement has always been ambivalent about the value of legislation in bringing about real change. On the one hand women have campaigned vigorously for legislation to improve women's domestic, economic and political position. On the other hand, women inevitably find that laws, once passed, are unsatisfactory and that the inequalities they were intended to remove still remain. Disappointed and increasingly cynical, many women have begun to question the effectiveness of legislation as a weapon in their continuing struggle for equality.