ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the choices discrimination victims make in light of the perceived social constraints and the vision of protective law. Legal protection also reflects assumptions in dominant research paradigms in law and society. Research on antidiscrimination policies has often relied on the model of legal protection as a consequence, it has been uninformed by the social-situational viewpoint of women and men of color. The legal concept of discrimination has a historical and analytical basis in the identification with a group cause. Avoiding acts of discrimination given its ever-present nature is impossible; what is dreaded is the status of "being a victim of discrimination," a role that seizes and marks its possessor. The model of legal protection would suggest that the failure of persons to use the law stems from the victims' inability to serve their own needs: lack of information and knowledge about their rights and their limited resources for utilizing legal channels.
