Masthead for Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony's "The Revolution"
The Idea - An Overview
The Idea is a systematic argument that women's equality is the most important idea in all of human history.
The Argument
It is impossible to conduct a most-important-idea competition among every notion that has ever crossed a human mind. Instead, I build the argument from the proposition that for most people, most of the time, the central purpose of life is to love and be loved. The most important kind of love is a long-term partnership commitment to one other person. Since authentic partnership love between adults requires seeing the interests of the other as your own, it requires accepting the other as an equal. Hence, for most people, women's equality makes fulfilment of the central purpose of life possible for the first time in history. That clearly makes it our most important idea.
Of course, women's equality is also important because of its broad effects on our collective health, wealth, and wisdom. And, I argue, it has unappreciated implications for all of our major religious traditions.
Taking women's equality seriously requires significant changes in our personal lives, particularly on the part of men.
Equally important are the changes required in our social and institutional lives. Realizing the great promise of women's equality will require restructuring our workplaces, as well as our social and religious institutions.
The Audience
This book is aimed at a general audience. I hope especially that it will find an audience with men who need to better understand the nature and importance of women's equality in order to make personal and institutional changes.
Current Status
The manuscript is complete and available for review.