Discrimination against women has taken a different form from discrimination against other groups. Men have historically cherished women, so long as they conformed to the domestic role. The mind-set through which men limit women in the name of loving them is known as “separate spheres” -- an ideology under which men inhabit the public sphere of work, culture, and politics, while women inhabit the private sphere of hearth and home.

Today, the most obvious forms of separate-spheres ideology have been abolished. Few places exist where the state or an employer can post a “No Women Allowed” sign. Nonetheless, this way of thought still has contemporary traces. Men often require women who enter traditionally male workplaces to display the attributes of both spheres. If women are not “masculine” enough to be respected as workers, they will be asked to cover. If they are not “feminine” enough to be respected as women, they will be asked to reverse cover. Separate-spheres ideology has continued life in the imposition of these two contradictory demands, which theorists variously describe as a “Catch-22,” a “double bind,” or a “tightrope.”

Women can cover along all four axes: appearance (avoiding “feminine” clothes, hairstyles, or accessories), affiliation (not having children or not mentioning them if they do); activism (refusing the label “feminist,” laughing along with sexist jokes); or association (avoiding other women). But women who cover too much are pressed back in the opposite direction, because they violate expectations about how women should behave. Recent workstyle manuals for women tell women that they need to be more “feminine” to get ahead.

Notable cases in which women failed to get legal redress when forced to cover include Wislocki-Goin v. Mears (1987), in which a woman was fired for being too “feminine,” and Piantanida v. Wyman Center (1997), in which a woman was discharged for becoming a “new mom.”