ABSTRACT
It is generally accepted that European Community (EC) Law has had a significant influence upon the development of sex discrimination law in the legal systems of the Member States. In the United Kingdom, in particular, sex discrimination lawyers have seized eagerly upon provisions of EC Law as a means of challenging the inadequacy of rights enshrined in national legislation.1 Yet, although provisions of EC Law have undoubtedly advanced the cause of women’s rights in certain spheres, the argument I make in this essay is that the vision of equality offered by EC Law is ultimately limited. In particular, I will advance the argument that as long as EC equality law continues to separate falsely the sphere of work from the sphere of the home (and family), the equality it guarantees is incomplete.2 This rigid adherence to separate sphere ideology is, I argue, further evidence of the fact that EC equality law is constructed according to a male norm.3
