Cite as: 538 U. S. 721 (2003)
Opinion of the Court
States v. Virginia, 518 U. S. 515, 533 (1996) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). The State's justification for such a classification "must not rely on overbroad generalizations about the different talents, capacities, or preferences of males and females." Ibid. We now inquire whether Congress had evidence of a pattern of constitutional violations on the part of the States in this area.
The history of the many state laws limiting women's employment opportunities is chronicled in—and, until relatively recently, was sanctioned by—this Court's own opinions. For example, in Bradwell v. State, 16 Wall. 130 (1873) (Illinois), and Goesaert v. Cleary, 335 U. S. 464, 466 (1948) (Michigan), the Court upheld state laws prohibiting women from practicing law and tending bar, respectively. State laws frequently subjected women to distinctive restrictions, terms, conditions, and benefits for those jobs they could take. In Muller v. Oregon, 208 U. S. 412, 419, n. 1 (1908), for example, this Court approved a state law limiting the hours that women could work for wages, and observed that 19 States had such laws at the time. Such laws were based on the related beliefs that (1) a woman is, and should remain, "the center of home and family life," Hoyt v. Florida, 368 U. S. 57, 62 (1961), and (2) "a proper discharge of [a woman's] maternal functions—having in view not merely her own health, but the well-being of the race—justif[ies] legislation to protect her from the greed as well as the passion of man," Muller, supra, at 422. Until our decision in Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71 (1971), "it remained the prevailing doctrine that government, both federal and state, could withhold from women opportunities accorded men so long as any 'basis in reason' "—such as the above beliefs—"could be conceived for the discrimination." Virginia, supra, at 531 (quoting Goesaert, supra, at 467).
Congress responded to this history of discrimination by abrogating States' sovereign immunity in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 255, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-2(a),
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