Majority Rules

When our nation’s Founding Fathers wrote the U.S. Constitution in 1787, they had the foresight to include a provision for amending it in case they left anything out, like over half the population!
The inspiration for the essays in “Majority Rules” is one of the 27 Constitutional Amendments to date, Number 19, and the milestone year of 2020 when that amendment celebrates its 100th anniversary. The 19th Amendment, granting women’s voting rights, represents the first important step towards women’s equality, a journey that continues today.
Although I grew up in a family where strong women were very much the numerical majority – my mother and father each had four sisters, and all were born before women could vote – it was the outnumbered men who had the power and authority. Although I got an outstanding education in an all-girls school and women’s college, I never learned about the history of American women’s long struggle for equal rights.
So my purpose in this book is to honor the past by shedding light on some of the remarkable women left out of our history books, to enrich the present by sharing some observations from my many decades on this planet (more than half of which have been devoted to working for the advancement of women), and to help shape the future by framing some goals to complete the unfinished business of women’s equality.
These themes reflect the mission of Vision 2020, and I invite you to take the journey with me, looking back to our rich history and taking a glimpse into a bright future.