Total Equality: A Feminist Manifesto

Recently Obama called for the American legislature to require equal pay for equal work. There have been a lot of conversations about that.

I would argue his call is premature, not because I don't want that. I do. I absolutely completely do. I just think the problem is bigger than that.

You can't eradicate a symptom if you don't cure the disease. The disease, in this case, is sexism, and it is pandemic. The body politic is infested with this horrible, debilitating illness. And we need a cure. We can treat the symptoms, but they will keep coming back in one way or another, until we address the illness as a whole.

It is for this reason I wrote and published TOTAL EQUALITY. I don't think people realize how pervasive sexism is in America. I don't think people realize how damaging it is, how painful it is, as a woman, to be systematically disregarded over and over again (my brown skinned friends know this very well, and I empathize with that hot mess because there is a lot of overlap). I wrote this because I wanted it to be absolutely clear, in one place, easily understood, just what is required for women to be equal to men.

Obama is right. It should happen now. It has been a long time. But let's be clear - this is still a big task, especially when America won't admit there is a problem in the first place.