Fully acknowledging the diversity of women's experience begins with understanding how
the differences among women are constructed relationally in specific social processes. This
essay suggests, through an analysis of the historical roots of social classification systems,
that institutionalized racism is a form of sexism. Scholars must move beyond understanding
racism as purely an outgrowth of irrational prejudices and begin to think of race as a
widespread principle of social organization. Race as a social category relies on biological …