Having attended a women's college and spent half of my professional life affiliated with a female institution, I know better than to believe that women are naturally more sharing, caring, and cooperative than men, although in general, they may be more polite. I'm not denying the existence of distinct masculine and feminine cultural styles or different male and female perspectives based largely on experience. I'm simply asserting what was once recognized as a basic tenet of liberal feminism: sex is no predictor of character or moral sensibility.

Ask state and federal legislators if they believe
that legal rights should be extended or withheld on the basis of sex. Most would
probably say no, and many of them would be lying. Adoption of the Equal Rights
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution remains a feminist fantasy. Its simple
declaration of fairness--"Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or
abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex"--cannot win
congressional support. The ERA has been introduced in every session of
Congress since 1985, only to be buried in committee. This year's sponsors are
Democratic Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York and Senator Edward Kennedy