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We the Men: How Forgetting Women's Struggles for Equality Perpetuates Inequality
In a nation whose Constitution purports to speak for “We the People,” too many of the stories that powerful Americans tell about law and society include only "We the Men". A long line of judges, politicians, and other influential scene setters have ignored women's struggles for equality or distorted them beyond recognition by wildly exaggerating American progress. Even as sexism continues to warp constitutional law, political decision making, and everyday life, powerful Americans have spent more than a century proclaiming that the United States has already left sex discrimination behind.
Jill Elaine Hasday's We the Men is the first book to explore how forgetting women's struggles for equality-and forgetting the work America still has to do-perpetuates injustice, promotes complacency, and denies how generations of women have had to come together to fight for reform and against regression. Hasday argues that remembering women's stories more often and more accurately can help the nation advance toward sex equality. These stories highlight the persistence of women's inequality and make clear that real progress has always required women to disrupt the status quo, demand change, and duel with powerful opponents.
America needs more conflict over women's status, rather than less. Conflict has the power to generate forward momentum. Patiently awaiting men's spontaneous enlightenment does not. Transforming America's dominant stories about itself can reorient our understanding of how women's progress takes place, focus our attention on the battles that are still not won, and fortify our determination to push for a more equal future.
Jill Elaine Hasday's We the Men is the first book to explore how forgetting women's struggles for equality-and forgetting the work America still has to do-perpetuates injustice, promotes complacency, and denies how generations of women have had to come together to fight for reform and against regression. Hasday argues that remembering women's stories more often and more accurately can help the nation advance toward sex equality. These stories highlight the persistence of women's inequality and make clear that real progress has always required women to disrupt the status quo, demand change, and duel with powerful opponents.
America needs more conflict over women's status, rather than less. Conflict has the power to generate forward momentum. Patiently awaiting men's spontaneous enlightenment does not. Transforming America's dominant stories about itself can reorient our understanding of how women's progress takes place, focus our attention on the battles that are still not won, and fortify our determination to push for a more equal future.
310 pages, Hardcover
Published March 13, 2025
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November 5, 2025
Excellent exploration of historical and current state of US law in relation to women's rights. Copious footnotes (nearly 90 pages of them!); clear explanations of legal issues; thorough examination of how rights have changed over time. I was surprised at how much legal sex discrimination still exists.
An important aspect for me was author's central argument that even as sexism and inequality continue to exist and undermine women's opportunities, scholars and jurists tout a fantasy that sex discrimination is a thing of the distant past. Hasday documents again and again the history of legal sex discrimination and how men in power have both embraced it AND at the same time declared that it doesn't exist. She also describes how some women have fought to maintain discriminatory laws (for example: Phyllis Schlafly - opponents to ERA - anti-choice activists). She also stresses that, contrary to what we're often told, women always have had to fight for change, that it hasn't been handed to us by "enlightened" men.
This book is a must-read for anyone seriously interested in American women's history (actually, for anyone interested in American history). It helps sensitize readers to the reality of sexism at many levels across time. It is also a call to action. From the dust jacket of the book: "... real progress has always required women to disrupt the status quo, demand change, and duel with determined opponents."
The final section of the book, "HOPE," is uplifting – a necessary upbeat path to a better future.
An important aspect for me was author's central argument that even as sexism and inequality continue to exist and undermine women's opportunities, scholars and jurists tout a fantasy that sex discrimination is a thing of the distant past. Hasday documents again and again the history of legal sex discrimination and how men in power have both embraced it AND at the same time declared that it doesn't exist. She also describes how some women have fought to maintain discriminatory laws (for example: Phyllis Schlafly - opponents to ERA - anti-choice activists). She also stresses that, contrary to what we're often told, women always have had to fight for change, that it hasn't been handed to us by "enlightened" men.
This book is a must-read for anyone seriously interested in American women's history (actually, for anyone interested in American history). It helps sensitize readers to the reality of sexism at many levels across time. It is also a call to action. From the dust jacket of the book: "... real progress has always required women to disrupt the status quo, demand change, and duel with determined opponents."
The final section of the book, "HOPE," is uplifting – a necessary upbeat path to a better future.
Displaying 1 of 1 review