The Equal Pay Act of 1963
The Equal Pay Act was designed to prohibit discrimination in pay between the genders. In spite of this law, the income gap continues to exist. An unintended, yet not entirely unexpected, consequence of the Equal Pay Act was a drop in the number of employers hiring women. Rather than hiring women at an equal rate, employers opted to hire more men, resulting in fewer jobs for women. See Title IX below.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on a number of factors, including sex.
The Comstock Act (1873), Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), and Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972)
The laws of the Comstock Act (1873) were intended to prevent the spread of obscene material through the post. Historically, the legislation was used to inhibit the sale of pornography and contraceptives. I choose to include the Comstock Act here because of two cases in particular: Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972). The rulings in these two Supreme Court cases overthrew the Comstock Act’s effective ban on contraception. The new availability of birth control allowed women to choose when to become pregnant, a shift that was partially responsible for an increase in the number of women in the workforce.
Title IX of Education Amendments of 1972
Title IX federally prohibits gender discrimination in federally funded education programs. Though it is most frequently associated with sports, Title IX originated from a concern about the low number of women hired by public schools.
Roe v. Wade (1973)
The ruling in the Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade declares that abortion is protected under the right to privacy ensured in the Fourteenth Amendment. I include this ruling because, like Griswold v. Connecticut and Eisenstadt v. Baird, it allows women to plan their families, which may allow them to remain in the workforce for a longer period of time.
Analysis of the Legislation