Created Equal

Confronting the Gulf Between our Ideals and Reality

On this 4^th of July, I find myself reflecting on this nation’s ideals and realities – even more so than I normally do on this day. I remember being taught that this was a country of freedom and equality, but life is never so simple. I keep thinking of the phrase from the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence: “. . . all Men are created equal. . .” Historically, we haven’t met the ideals of equality. Some examples. . .

Even accounting for the fact that the patriarchal language of the time treated “men” as the term for humanity as a whole, the simple reality is that cisgender women weren’t included in the assumptions made in the Declaration of Independence. We didn’t get so much as the right to vote until 1920. To this day, rights to equal pay, equal treatment, and freedom from sexual violence and harassment are denied for many people strictly on the basis of sex. And nonbinary individuals? They weren’t event considered. (Many of the indigenous tribes who lived here before Europeans massacred them did, in fact, acknowledge more than a binary view of sex and gender. But, it’s not like their wisdom or knowledge were considered.)

Created equal. . .