ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the quieter anti-egalitarian forces currently playing out in the domain of gender stratification. The clearest evidence of resistance to egalitarian pressures emerges in comparing the rate of desegregative change with corresponding rates of change elsewhere in the gender stratification system. It argues that the empirical puzzles have emerged in the literature because stratification scholars tend to treat sex segregation in unidimensional terms and accordingly fail to appreciate that a complex amalgam of processes underlies gender inequality and renders some forms of segregation more entrenched than others. New multidimensional model is useful to begin by asking whether the underlying structure of sex segregation is consistent with unidimensional accounts of segregation. The main arguments is that liberal variants of egalitarianism serve principally to undermine the presumption of male primacy rather than gender essentialism; and, consequently, horizontal forms of segregation may prove to be quite resistant to egalitarianism.
