Elsie Hill defines equality broadly, to include all manner of equal protections under the law and equal access to opportunities and legally ensconced freedoms. According to Hill, women are not entitled to control over their own earnings and even over their own children. Women are also excluded from serving in public office, even though they are taxpayers. Hill calls for the removal of any and all forms of discrimination. The author proposes the Woman’s Equal Rights Bill, which would create a federal standard for gender equality, thereby precluding the rights of states to perpetuate their own misogynistic laws. Hill also claims that the passing of the Woman’s Equal Rights Bill would promote a parallel amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing the rights of women.

Florence Kelley, on the other hand, opposes the Woman’s Equal Rights Bill, claiming that women need different laws from men because they are biologically different. Kelley assumes that passing the Woman’s Equal Rights Bill would also entail the removal of special protections of women, who the author believes are vulnerable and in fact, weak. While Kelley is correct to point out that racial discrimination also needs to be taken into account, her attitudes towards equal protection are categorically mistaken. Essentially, Kelley advocates for a position in which women are “separate but equal,” which goes against the fundamental principle of equality and sets a dangerous precedent not just for gender equality but also racial parity. Kelley also mistakenly interprets the Woman’s Equal Rights Bill to mean that it would preclude labor rights, when in fact both women’s rights and labor rights—as well as the rights of all people of color—can be covered under Constitutional law. There is no logic in Kelley’s argument, as there is in Hill’s.

The questions that can be posed by these primary sources include why the Equal Rights Bill was not passed, and why in fact it was not passed again in similar form when it was introduced in the 1970s. Many women like Kelley approached the bill with trepidation, believing that it would somehow hurt the special status afforded to women. Essentially, women destroyed the Equal Rights Bill—why?

References

Hill, E. (1922). Elsie Hill explains why women should have full legal equality.