Title
Document Type
Working Paper
Publication Date
2-8-2010
SSRN Discipline
Legal Scholarship Network; Law School Research Papers - Legal Studies; Law & Society eJournals; Law & Society: Public Law eJournals; LSN Subject Matter eJournals; Law School Research Papers - Public Law & Legal Theory; Constitutional Law, Jurisprudence & Legal Philosophy eJournals; Employment, Labor, Compensation & Pension Law eJournals
Abstract
Sexstereotypes are of perennial concern within antidiscrimination law and theory yet there is widespread disagreement about what constitutes a "sexstereotype" This article enters the debate surrounding the correct understanding of "stereotype" and posits that the concept is too thin to serve as a criterion for distinguishing "discriminatory" gender generalizations from nondiscriminatory probabilistic descriptions of behavior Instead "stereotype" is a heuristic that has been used by courts and commentators to crudely capture judgments about the justness of applying sexrespecting rules In this light the article argues for abandoning the stereotype heuristic in favor of a rulecentered analysis of sexrespecting generalizations Arguing that courts and commentators have not objected to gender generalizations because they are descriptively inaccurate as the stereotype heuristic suggests but because they also exert unique prescriptive force the article provides a new understanding of the theoretical basis for subjecting gender generalizations to antidiscrimination scrutiny
Recommended Citation
Meredith Render,
Gender Rules,
(2010).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.ua.edu/fac_working_papers/628