People do not understand the difference between being a woman and being a pharmacist.
Think about this country's great movements for equality. What comes to mind? Suffragettes, Civil Rights, AIM, Americans with Disabilities, Queer Nation, La Raza? All of these equality movements were generated to address an imbalance in the way society treats people with innate differences. Often society is horrible to people with innate differences. We have come to agree that this is bad, and so we seek Equality.
There are other differences between people. I may be a vegan, and you may eat T-bones, and we may disagree about which is the "right" way to live, but hey, that's life. I am choosing to disagree with you, and this is not a trivial thing. In fact these disagreements over time can change the normative idea of what is "right". And that's good.
But it's not the same thing as Equality.
Check out the comparison below,
List #1: Some things (in no particular order) that most people have no control over being:
Turkish
a woman
in a wheelchair
born to an immigrant family
deaf
gay
a man
born to descendants of slaves
shorter than average
American
blind
born into a particular religion
a child living in poverty
left-handed
Japanese
List #2: Some things that most people do have control over:
Food to eat
Books to read
Who to vote for
Music to play
Length of hair
Religion to practice (or not)
Body parts to shave
What to wear
Career to pursue
Personal Heroes to embrace
Although there are normative answers to most of list #2, there is a broad spectrum of possible choice. The decisions you make about list #2 are just as important to your life as the realities of list #1.
But it's not the same thing as Equality.
Nothing on list #1 makes you better or worse than anyone else. This is Equality. Equality has become the basis for the laws that allow us to make the important decisions in List #2.
The things on list #2 are often better or worse. Sometimes much worse. Some haircuts are just plain bad. You can get a bad haircut, but I have the freedom to tell you it looks awful. There are good ideas and bad ideas, good opinions and bad opinions, good heroes and bad heroes.
These days, the difference between list #1 and list #2 seems to be blurry. People are confusing the right to say something with the right to have their "something" given credence.
We all know the Media has trouble distinguishing the two. Liberals want more women and people of color represented (list #1). Conservatives want more, well, Conservatives represented (list #2). So what does the media do? They bend over backwards to avoid any accusations of having a spine, and bring in representatives to cover both sides of the "flat earth debate" and put Gwyn Iffil (bless her) on every panel. "See!" They shout, "We are promoting equality and freedom of thought!"
Somehow, the things from list #1 and list #2 have become the same. They are not.
Liberals are very afraid of being called hypocrites. "You Liberals!" The Freepers shout. "You are always talking about equality and free speech, and yet when I say that I think napalm is the best thing since refrigeration, you tell me to shut up! You say I am wrong! Ha! You can't be for free speech and against napalm at the same time! I caught you! Neener neener!"
The fallacy of this argument is plain to any of you reading this, but we liberals just want to be understood. "No, no, Mr. Freeper," we say, "You have the right say you love napalm. And I have the right to say I hate it. We can all say anything all the time! But government studies show that napalm....." Alas, we find we are talking to ourselves. While we were explaining ourselves, Mr. Freeper went next door to his friends and told them all about the crazy hypocritical liberal he just "had a conversation with."
The latest manifestation of this confusion is the brewhaha about liberal professors. "Hey!" Says the Right. "I demand equality for conservative thought on college campuses! Studies show that liberals have overrun the place. You liberals have demanded equality for women, and blacks, and every other `special interest group'. So Ha! You can't say anything now without being a big hypocrite!"
Hmmm.
List #1 = innate differences
List #2 = personal beliefs
Let's not confuse them.