“Absent firm constitutional foundation for equal treatment of men and women by the law, women seeking to be judged on their individual merits will continue to encounter law-sanctioned obstacles.”  p18

“At the very least the Court should reverse the presumption of rationality when sex -based discrimination is implicated and, rather than requiring the party attacking a statute to show that the classification is irrational, should require the statue’s proponent to prove it rational.”  p18

“[T]he distance to equal opportunity for women—in the face of the pervasive social, cultural, and legal roots of sex-based discrimination—remains considerable.” p20

“Sex, like race and lineage, is an immutable trait, a status into which the class members are locked by the accident of birth. … [T]he characteristic frequently bears no relation to ability to perform or contribute to society.  The result is that the whole class is relegated to an inferior legal status without regard to the capabilities or characteristics of its individual members.”  p28 quoting The California Supreme Court

“He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.”

“He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.”

“He has endeavoured, in every way that he could, to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.”

p28 quoting a declaration of women’s rights drafted at the Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls (1848)

“The nineteenth amendment gave women the vote in 1920, after almost three-quarters of a century of struggle.” p30  Note that: it took 75 years for women to be allowed to vote.

“By accepting a ‘woman’s place’ and relieving her husband of the burdens of child and home care, she forgoes the opportunity to acquire earnings and property of her own.” p31

“Most states permit girls to marry without parental consent at an earlier age than boys.  The differential, generally three years, reflects two presumptions: (1) the married state is the only proper goal of womanhood; (2) men need more time to prepare for bigger, better, and more useful pursuits.” p32

“While a very young woman is considered dangerous for her sexuality, in adult life she is considered far less passionate than the adult man.” p33  (Funny, that.)

“… which provide ‘dependency’ allowances automatically for the spouse of male members of the uniformed services, whether or not the spouse is in fact dependent on the member for any of her support, but which provide such allowances for the spouse of female members of the uniformed services only upon a showing that the spouse is in face dependent on the member for more than one-half of his support” p54

“…. additional housing allowance that would have been granted automatically to males with spouses” p55

“… assumes that the male is the dominant partner in marriage …” p56

“Although the method of communication between the Creator and the jurist is never disclosed …” p65 (referring to “The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfil the noble and benign offices of wife and mother.  This is the law of the Creator.”

“… these laws, however ‘protective’ in origin, were ‘protecting’ [women] from better-paying jobs and opportunities for promotion” p66

“In 1972, two legal scholars—both of them male—examined the record of the judiciary in sex discrimination cases.  They concluded that the performance of American judges in this area ‘can be succinctly described as ranging from poor to abominable.  With some notable exceptions … [judges] have failed to bring to sex discrimination cases those virtues of detachment, reflection and critical analysis which have served them so well with respect to other sensitive social issues …'” p68

“…the preciousness of the bond between parent and child [means] that a proceeding to terminate parental rights [can] not be treated like other civil actions.  A proceeding to declare a parent unfit [is] barely distinguishable from criminal condemnation in view of the magnitude and permanence of the loss at stake” p125

“The Roe decision might have been less of a storm center had it both homed in more precisely on the women’s equality dimension of the issue …” p149

“The woman [U.S. Air Force Captain Susan Struck] wanted both to keep her baby and to remain in the service.  Ginsburg argued that since men in the Air Force were not barred from having children, the policy requiring a woman to choose between motherhood and service violated equal protection.” p150

“Challenges to undo restriction on abortion procedures … do not seek to vindicate some vague or generalized notion of privacy.  Rather, they home in on a woman’s autonomy to decide for herself her life course and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature.” p153

“[The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act] cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this Court—with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women’s live.”  p167-8

“It is only when the disparity becomes apparent and sizable, for example, through future raises calculated as a percentage of current salaries, that an employee … is likely to comprehend … and, therefore, to complain.” p176

“… the disparity arises not because the female employee is flatly denied a raise, but because male counterparts are given larger raises.” p179

“One [woman] was paid less than the men she supervised.” p183