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Yesterday was National Women's Equality Day. On August 26, 1920 the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution went into effect.

That having been said, however, the reality is that there's no such thing as equality. (I think I've said this before.) It's purely a philosophical construct. Just as there are no two identical snowflakes, there are no two identical people. We differ in many aspects – sex is certainly one of them, though not always the most noticed in modern society. (And certainly not “gender.”) The visible differences between people are often masked by clothing, or minimized by style.

But that doesn't mean they don't exist. Nor other differences. We differ in height, weight, strength, intelligence, abilities and talents, interests, and a host of other features that are apparent to ourselves and to those we meet.

There are hidden differences as well, however. You're probably unaware of your basophil count or your serum creatinine, unless they were just drawn and you looked at the laboratory report. You probably don't know (or care) how many times your heart has beaten in the last twenty-four hours, unless you're attached to some monitoring device that does the counting. The chances are good, however, that the numbers are not equal to those of the people you'll meet today. Or any other day. Even your identical twin.

For just as we differ in terms of our natures, we differ in our experiences. Even before we're born. So “identical twins” – at least as the term applies to matching DNA – may not be identical. (See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/science/06qna.html?_r=0) Even the DNA itself is subject to mutation, so differences may occur there as well. But the differences related to those we meet and befriend, the schools we attend, the programs we watch, and whatever else we see or hear, or otherwise experience, will also play a part in who we are and in what we manifest to others.

And while differences in religion may not be obvious unless we make them so, they're likely to affect the way we act (ditto our ethnicity) – even if we reject the philosophy behind them. (The tension, however, between a secular society and a religious tradition can be a source of contention for us all. “Blue Laws” and other secular concessions to religious laws may limit us – especially if our religion doesn't accept the laws – while secular norms may affect the religion itself. E.g. must the Catholic Church accept the idea of women as priests since an egalitarian society would like it that way?) That's not to say that everyone considers all religions equal, or that atheists and believers would accept each other – especially their ideas.

But none of that really deals with the question of what constitutes equality. We're certainly not all the same. In fact no two of us are the same. In terms of our characteristics and our capabilities we're all different. We're not equal. And there's no concept of equality in the animal world from which, according to Darwin, we're all descended. Not between dinosaurs and dogs, and not even between two lions. There's a hierarchy in every society: a pecking order. And, whether or not it corresponds to our societal fashions and political correctness, the pecking order is related to sex and to strength. Nature doesn't know from equality. It's a purely human concept.

It's unlikely that anyone takes the idea of equality seriously. At least not in the sense that suggests that we all have equal capabilities. We may not want to admit it, but we're aware of it. We've even developed language that acknowledges the reality. We speak about “special” education rather than admit aloud the fact that some are not as intelligent as others. And we idolize sports figures who have greater physical abilities than we. We know that different people have different talents from ours, and that's not a bad thing. We're all different.

Our founders were surely aware of those differences. Yet they spoke of equality anyway, even though they clearly recognized that no two of us were the same. They certainly disagreed with each other regarding many things. In all likelihood they understood the concept of equality, however, in political terms rather than in respect to the characteristics obvious to those with whom we interact. Their goal was to provide us all with the opportunity to benefit equally from society – politically, economically, and socially. And their view of who might be a recipient of the rights they assigned may not correspond with our own, but their vision of the concept of equality does, though over the generations there has been “tweaking” of the list of those who should benefit from the political equality they envisioned. Hence the nineteenth amendment and others that have extended rights to other Americans.

We fool ourselves, however, when we speak of equality. We long for sameness rather than diversity, as we simultaneously praise diversity. But it would be a very boring world if we were all the same. Political equality is reasonable, however Nature (or G-d for those who believe) has given us different assignments. It's only when we superimpose human “norms” on those that we get into trouble. Perhaps we should all vote (at least those defined as “we” at any particular time), but it's only because we aren't all equal that we don't all think and vote the same way.

Inequality is what makes life interesting.