[btilly]

There is actually quite a bit of evidence suggesting that the reason why discrimination on gender is illegal in the USA is that the term was slipped in as a rider when the Civil Rights Act was going down to defeat, and then after JFK died in the rush to pass it they forgot to take that rider out.

See http://www.siop.org/tip/jan11/12highhouse.aspx for arguments both ways. (The one that I just presented was the conventional view back when I was being educated about women's rights some 20 years ago.)