SEXISM , RACISM AND OPPRESSION . By Arthur Brit

If sexism and racism are the twin evils of contemporary American society, constitutional law must be judged by its ability to deal effectively with these persistent problems. To the accompaniment of much intellectual trumpeting and academic celebration, legal doctrine has developed various devices to combat racial and sexual oppression. Yet the efficacy of such doctrinal reforms remains at best questionable.4 For instance, although general standards of living have improved, the wage and employment inequality between blacks and whites has worsened over the last thirty years; at 25%, unemployment among black high school graduates is the same as that for white high school drop outs; almost 50% of black children live in poverty; and 27% of Americans still believe that interracial marriage should be illegal. There are many complex reasons for the incapacity of the courts to deal effectively with sexism and racism. One of the contributing causes is a general theoretical ignorance or, more pertinently, a failure to unearth and critically reevaluate the flawed assumptions that tacitly underpin legal thinking about racism and sexism. There has been a marked tendency to take a crude, onedimensional view of very complicated phenomena and to respond with correspondingly blunt legal proposals. As a partial antidote to this sociojurisprudential myopia, Arthur Brittan and Mary Maynard offer a thorough critical analysis of the many extant theories about racism and sexism. Although the authors are English sociologists and the main focus of the book is English society, there are sufficient arguments and general insights to warrant the book's recommendation to an American legal audience. The basic thrust of the book is that the available theoretical accounts of racism and sexism are unconvincing. The authors es-