In the Broadway musical, Hamilton, the Schuyler sisters, Angelica, Eliza, and Peggy, sing about the revolution that was brewing in the American colonies in the 1770s. At one point, they sing:

I’ve been reading Common Sense by Thomas Paine
Some may say that I’m intense or I’m insane
You want a revolution? I want a revelation!
So, listen to my declaration:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.”
And when I meet Thomas Jefferson
I’m a’ compel him to include women in the sequel, work!

For more than a century after the United States was created, women were anything but equal, especially married women. Under the English Common Law doctrine of “coverture,” upon marriage, all the rights and interests of a woman were absorbed into the rights and interests of her husband. In short, once married, a woman had no legal rights whatsoever; she became her husband’s property. Accordingly, she couldn’t vote (most unmarried women couldn’t either), sit on a jury, hold title to property, have the right to wages that she earned, or have the right to divorce. Only in New Jersey between 1776 and 1807 were unmarried, real property-holding women able to vote.

The idea of allowing women to vote was considered insane. A voter needed to be a thoughtful, rational citizen. Women did not qualify because they were too emotional. Besides, the place of women in society had been ordained by God, going back to the time of Eve in the Garden of Eden. But women could rest assured they would be protected and well-represented by their husbands and the government elected by their husbands, or so men argued.

Most people picture Eve of the Garden of Eden as either weak-willed in connection with God’s commandments, or worse, downright evil. But I imagine Eve differently. I see her as an equal partner in the creation of humankind. Part of the negative stereotype of Eve stems from Genesis calling her a “help meet” for Adam, which we often misunderstand as synonymous with the term “servant.” But the dictionary defines “help meet” in part as “even with or equal to.” The English words translated from the original Hebrew go even further. Those words mean “equal” and “to be strong,” as a “savior.”

In 1848, in Seneca Falls, New York, Elizabeth Cady Stanton gathered a group of women and men who drafted a document known as “The Declaration of Sentiments.” Patterned after the Declaration of Independence, it stated that all men and women were created equal and listed many of the grievances of women, similar to those listed against King George III of England. It was signed by 68 women and 32 men. But it would be decades before many of the women’s grievances would be rectified. Charlotte Woodward Pierce, who attended that meeting in Seneca Falls as an 18-year-old, was one of only a few who lived long enough to witness the first time women could vote.

But women did not want just the right to vote. For example, even for single women who could keep the wages they earned, the pay was unequal. Susan B. Anthony, a teacher for 15 years, was paid about one-fourth as much as her male counterparts.

The meeting in Seneca Falls in 1848 was the first women’s conference in the United States. Two years later, eight women abolitionists organized the first National Women’s Rights Convention. One of the speakers at that conference was Lucy Stone, who, in the spring of 1848, became the first woman in the United States to earn a college degree. At the National Women’s Rights Convention, she spoke of women being only “the appendages of Society,” and looked forward to when women become “the coequal and helpmeet of Man in all the interests, perils and enjoyments of human life.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucy Stone became the perfect trio to espouse women’s rights: Cady Stanton for her writing ability, Anthony for her organizational skills, and Stone for her oratory skills. But none of them would live long enough to witness the universal right to vote in America granted to women in 1920 by the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

There were some partial victories before the passage of the 19th Amendment. Kansas became the first state to grant women the right to vote, but only for school board elections. Beginning in 1869, women were granted the right to vote in Western territories (Wyoming being the first), and in the decade leading up to the 19th Amendment, 23 states had granted women full or partial voting rights.

But women’s battle for equality was far from over.

While in law school in the 1970s, family and friends often asked me what I thought of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment (the “ERA”), which would have put women on equal footing with men under the Constitution. I told them I thought the ERA was a good idea but largely symbolic, because new laws and the U.S. Supreme Court would level the playing field regardless of the ERA. And in any event, women would ensure equality between the sexes. Or, as Helen Reddy sang back in the day, “I am woman; hear me roar in numbers too big to ignore.”

Fifty years later, I am both right and wrong. Thanks to laws such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Higher Education Act, and court cases enforcing those laws, discrimination in employment and sports is illegal, and sexual harassment is unlawful. But despite these advancements, women still lag behind their male counterparts.

But let me be clear. I do not believe men and women are the same. For example, generally speaking, from a purely physical standpoint, men are stronger and can jump higher than women. And thus, I doubt I will ever see a woman star in the NFL (except perhaps as a placekicker) or the NBA. But I tip my cap to Olivia Pichardo, who became the first woman in history to play Division 1 college baseball.

But treating women equally is not the same as treating them the same. I agree with Virginia Woolf, who said, “Men and women are different. What needs to be made equal is the value placed on those differences.” I also agree with author Carol Lynn Pearson when she said, “Being treated with politeness, consideration, even respect is different from being treated as an equal.” And finally, I agree with what Jo March (played by Saoirse Ronan) says at the end of this scene from Little Women:[i]

Billie Jean King helped equalize the pay between women and male pro tennis players in the 1970s. Her efforts were chronicled in the film The Battle of the Sexes.[ii] This scene from the movie illustrates how women were thought of back then:

Ms. King’s efforts were largely successful in securing equal pay for women tennis pros. Recently, the U.S. Women’s National Soccer team received equal pay with their male counterparts. And just this past month, the WNBA announced a new agreement with the players that will dramatically increase the salaries of women’s pro basketball players (although still lagging behind the NBA).

But those are the exceptions, not the rule. Not too long ago, I read an article in the Dallas Morning News about the pay disparity between men and women. A study analyzing Census data found that in my home city of McKinney, Texas, women make $25,000 less than men among full-time workers with four-year college degrees. My neighboring town of Frisco, Texas, was even worse. According to the Dallas Morning News, the median income of college-educated men in Frisco who are older than 25 is nearly $124,000; Frisco women of the same criteria bring in only $57,389. Nationally, women make 18 percent less than their male counterparts, Census data show, with men who work full time making $60,428 and women earning $49,263.

I realize that equal pay for women is often more complicated than just a set of numbers, but it shouldn’t be this way. In fact, it might be illegal. The film, Lilly,[iii] is the true story of Lilly Ledbetter and her battle for equal pay. Her efforts resulted in the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. Here is the trailer for the film:

Treating women as equals might require a paradigm shift in our basic attitudes toward them. Carol Lynn Pearson, in somewhat echoing the words of Lucy Stone at that first women’s convention in 1850, describes that paradigm shift as follows:

“Long ago, humanity shifted scientific theory from … the earth at the center of the solar system to … the sun at the center of the solar system. I yearn for the paradigm shift that moves the male-female relationship theory from the patriarchal system (the male at the center of the universe with female orbiting around him) to the partnership system (male and female dancing in perfect balance at the center of the universe). No one is personally harmed by the fiction that the earth is the center point of everything, but this other fiction – the fiction that maleness is central and femaleness auxiliary – this affects the daily life of every woman and every man that it touches and leaves us disoriented, many of us displaced and disheartened, and some of us seriously abused.”

Joseph Conrad acknowledged that “Being a woman is a terribly difficult task since it consists principally in dealing with men.” Men, let’s make that task easier for the women we love. Let’s make sure we truly value them as equals. 

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[i] Little Women:

• Production Companies: Columbia Pictures, New Regency Productions, and Pascal Pictures
• Director: Greta Gerwig
• Writer: Greta Gerwig (based on the novel by Louisa May Alcott)
• Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, and Florence Pugh
• Release date: December 25, 2019

[ii] Battle of the Sexes:

• Production Companies: Fox Searchlight Pictures, TSG Entertainment, and Decibel Films
• Directors: Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
• Writer: Simon Beaufoy
• Starring: Emma Stone, Steve Carell, Andrea Riseborough
• Release date: September 29, 2017

[iii] Lilly:

• Production Companies: Flashlight Films, Dollface Films, and Artemis Rising Foundation
• Director: Rachel Feldman
• Writers: Rachel Feldman and Adam Prince
• Starring: John Benjamin Hickey, Angela Saint’Albano, and Patricia Clarkson
• Release date: October 10, 2024