On the Importance of Equality

We’re living in a strange moment, when the basic ideals of freedom and equality upon which the US was founded are under attack from a conservative, influential, and vocal minority. This minority is doing its best to institute laws that disenfranchise people of color; deny students access to books and courses of study that challenge racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia; prevent trans people from living their lives on their own terms; and deny women the right to make their own reproductive decisions. On top of all that is Project 2025, created by the Heritage Foundation and something of a blueprint for a possible Trump administration, which calls for radical changes to the structures of government and society, and rolling back the civil rights gains made by women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people; it’s basically a blueprint for white Christian nationalism (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/project-2025-conservative-presidential-list/story?id=111952315). The actions and rhetoric of the anti-equality folks have been the focus of much analysis and attention (consider Robert Reich [https://robertreich.org/] and Heather Cox Richardson [https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/]). But while many have noted the problems with this moment (not the least of which is the hypocrisy of insisting on one’s own freedom while denying others’), few have offered arguments in support of equality and freedom for all. This post and others to follow will attempt to fill this gap. I want to explore why these ideals remain worth striving for. I’d like to begin with the underlying assumptions that animate our founding documents.

Let’s begin with the Declaration of Independence. In explaining their decision to break from Great Britain and establish their own country, the founders wrote in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” The idea here is that human beings are, simply by virtue of being human, equal. Equality is based in our common reason—we can each think for ourselves. Being able to think for ourselves means that we are autonomous, that is, self-ruling: we can make our own decisions about how to live our lives, what we should value, and so on. Our shared capacity for thinking is thus the basis for basic equality: each of us is individually able to make our own life decisions; because we can do so, we have the right to do so. This assumption also grounds the move to democracy: if we are each capable of self-rule, the only legitimate form of government is itself based on the collective decision making of all citizens. Our right to make our own decisions for ourselves translates to our right to participate in the formation of our shared world.

All that’s required to be considered equal to our fellow citizens, then, is the capacity to think for ourselves. This capacity is what we might call the positive foundation for our ideal of equality. It does not mean that we will all be inclined to think the same way or to make the same decisions. As we all know, though, inequality was written into the Constitution from the beginning, with slaves being defined as 3/5 of a person and women, Blacks—both slave and free—and Native Americans denied basic citizenship. The founders’ thinking was that these folks aren’t autonomous at all, precisely because they didn’t believe that women, Blacks, and Native Americans were rational: they thought women were too emotional, and that Blacks and Native Americans were more like animals, driven by instinct rather than reason. These people needed white men to make decisions for them, the thinking went, and hence could not be citizens.

The ideal of equality remained very powerful, however, fueling social movements to expand its reach: the anti-slavery, women’s suffrage, Black suffrage, Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, Indigenous People’s Rights, and Gays Rights Movements all embraced the idea that we human beings are fundamentally equal to one another; each movement eventually led to an expansion of equal rights, from voting to marriage.  These movements embraced the underlying assumption that self-determination is an inherent right.

In the face of currents moves to roll back these various gains, the question before us is thus fairly simple: are women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, Indigenous people, and other targeted groups fully human? While the answer seems obvious to many of us, I don’t think we can take it for granted given the goals proposed by those who support Project 2025. To explore the question, let’s consider Mary Wollstonecraft’s argument from “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” from 1792. She wrote at a time when women were legally subordinate to men and barred from most educational and professional institutions; they were also denied the right to vote, with the men of their families seen as representing their interests in the voting booth. She argued strenuously against these exclusions, focusing mainly on education. In doing so, she directly addresses the assumptions identified above: she argues that women are indeed rational and hence can think for themselves, and that they should be trained to do so if they are to properly fulfill their social roles of wife and mother. The best way to train women to think for themselves is to educate them alongside men. Though she doesn’t think women should be confined to being wives and mothers, she focuses the bulk of her argument on their inability to fulfill even these roles well if they cannot use their reason.

The problem women faced at the time was indeed that they were expected to become wives and mothers to the exclusion of all else (well, white, middle- and upper-class women were; Wollstonecraft pays scant attention to poor and working women, let alone women of color): marriage was considered the only route to economic stability. To be considered marriageable, women were expected to focus on their looks and refinement rather than self-development. They were supposed to be beautiful and show their dependence on men through physical weakness; a woman who could attain these ideals was assumed to attract the right kind of husband—one who is devoted to her and wants to protect and take care of her. 

Consider all those period shows that depict middle- and upper- class British women as they seek marriage: friends and sisters alike compete with each other for the “best match,” because marriage is the only way for women to live well. The most naturally beautiful woman had the best chance of gaining the attentions of a well-positioned man. Even Netflix’s Bridgerton, which depicts strong and self-possessed women, makes clear that a woman who remains unmarried is in deep trouble.

Any education a woman receives here is seen as enhancing her beauty rather than enriching her own character. A middle-class woman should be beautiful, well-read, she should have some musical talent, etc. All of these accomplishments could be seen as valuable in themselves, but in this setting, their value comes from marriageability: a woman shouldn’t value literature because it will ennoble her life, allowing her to expand her worldview, but because a man might find it appealing to chat about literature; playing a difficult piano piece is valuable because a man might want to be entertained, not because she has developed her own talent by learning to play it, and so on.

These pursuits, then, were valued only instrumentally for women. If a woman values a pursuit only because it might lead to marriage, she is not developing herself but her marriage prospects. Her relationship to a man has greater importance than her own self-development. A woman is in an important sense not fully human but a vehicle of her hoped-for husband’s pleasure.

As with beauty, so with weakness, both emotional and physical. The ideal woman needs a man. She is too delicate and innocent to confront the difficulties of life. She needs a man to earn a living for her, to vote for her, to protect her from crime and violence. Wollstonecraft gives the example of a woman who fit this ideal: she was, W. says, “more than commonly proud of her delicacy and sensibility. She thought a distinguishing taste and puny appetite the height of all human perfection, and acted accordingly,” lying around on the sofa all day. She saw her lack of appetite as itself a virtue, because it showed how delicate she was! Her physical weakness stands in for her character, which is basically one of dependence and heightened sensitivity. Wollstonecraft points out that this woman was completely incapable of taking care of her children and household, precisely because she was too tired from barely eating. Though she embodied the ideal of female weakness, she was unable to fulfill her duties as a wife and mother. Female virtue, she suggests, is at odds with women’s social roles.

One obvious problem with these ideals of beauty and weakness is that they reduce women to dependency on men and to objects of their desire rather than treating them as full-fledged human beings. And one of the obvious problems with this state of affairs is that beauty doesn’t last: a man who marries his wife because she is beautiful and knows how to please him will fall out of love as she ages and becomes less beautiful and less pleasing. What will she have to offer then? Well, nothing!

The best a woman can hope for on this view is to marry a “sensible man” who makes decisions for her but does not make her feel lesser for it. Remember that a woman is not supposed to use her reason but make sure that she is attractive and appealing to her husband; he must think for her in all matters, including the raising of children and running the household.

And yet, Wollstonecraft argues, a mother who cannot think for herself cannot be a good mother, because she will know nothing about child-rearing. She won’t be able to ask, for instance, whether it’s better to encourage creativity and exploration in her children or the discipline of rule-following. She won’t know if one approach is best for the child’s development, and for their ability to live in the world as they grow up. Nor will she be able to make specific decisions. Consider a particular example: a teenager has a curfew of 11 pm but stays out until 1 am. Should she be punished? And what should the punishment be? How does one decide? Do the circumstances matter? Perhaps she stayed late at a party because a friend was drinking too much, and she wanted to be sure the friend stayed safe. Is that relevant to the situation? This seemingly simple example suggests that parenting takes thought. A mother who is not able to think for herself will have nothing to say about these matters; she will be like a child herself, simply following the demands of her husband.

On top of that, not all men—perhaps very few, really—live up to the male ideal of protecting and caring for women; indeed, many are no more than tyrants to their wives, abusing their power over them rather than protecting them in their innocence. This fact is one of the reasons JD Vance’s suggestion that women should stay in abusive marriages has gotten so much attention.

Undermining women’s equality thus requires substituting their autonomy with male domination and control. Wollstonecraft’s analysis makes it very clear that subordination serves women poorly, by making them dependent on men who are often themselves in need of a good dose of reason, by leaving their basic humanity unfulfilled, and by confining them to narrowly defined social roles such as wife and mother. Though her focus was women’s rights, I think her argument can be extended to any other group denied the basic right to self-determination. To deny women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, Indigenous people, and others the ability to make their own life choices denies them their full humanity; that may be the most important point to make in these strange times.

Resources:

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/

https://robertreich.org/

The Declaration of Independence: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

The Constitution: https://www.senate.gov/about/origins-foundations/senate-and-constitution/constitution.htm

Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/wollstonecraft-a-vindication-of-the-rights-of-woman)

https://www.project2025.org/