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4 Tex. J. Women & L. 171 (1995)
Privilege in the Workplace: The Missing Element in Antidiscrimination Law

handle is hein.journals/tjwl4 and id is 181 raw text is: Texas Journal of Women and the Law
Volume 4
Articles
PRIVILEGE IN THE WORKPLACE:
THE MISSING ELEMENT IN
ANTIDISCRIMINATION LAW
Stephanie M. Wildman*
The workplace presents an example of how supposed neutrality in
language, the very words we use to describe work and the location in
which it occurs, masks systems of privilege. The invisibility of the
operation of privilege in the workplace perpetuates the systemic nature of
disadvantage. With Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, federal law
aimed at ending workplace segregation by focusing on discrimination in
employment. Antidiscrimination doctrine developed under this statute has
ignored privilege, ensuring the replication of systems of subordination.
The resulting denial of access to jobs and to promotions serves to maintain
existing economic disparity that income would alleviate and serves to
perpetuate systems of privilege.
01995 by Stephanie M. Wildman. Professor of Law, U.S.F. School of Law; VisitingProfessor
1994-95 Santa Clara Law School; J.D., Stanford Law School, 1973; A.B., Stanford University,
1970. I have appreciated conversations with Margalynne Armstrong, June Carbone, Adrienne Davis,
Trina Grillo, Mack Player, Margaret Russell, Michael Tobriner, and Catharine Wells and
outstanding research support from Janet Lee, Lee Ryan, and Marian Shostrom. Thanks also to the
organizers and participants in the October, 1994, conference, Women in the Workplace: A
Symposium, sponsored by the Texas Journal of Women and the Law, for which this essay was
prepared. Another version of this essay will appear in STHANm M. WuLDMAN wrrH
CONTMRBU7tONS BY MARGALYNNE ARMSTRONG, ADRPmNE D. DAvis, AND TRiNA GRILLO,
PRPVILEGE REvEALED: How INvISmLE PREFERENCE UNDERMINES AMERICA (N.Y.U. Press,
forthcoming 1996).

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