Sex Equality Achieved - 90 Years Ago!

A hallmark characteristic of the Progressive Era was a faith in government power, law making. I do not have any handy statistics to illustrate the increase in local, state, and federal laws passed between 1890-1920, but I imagine it would be quite revealing. (I think I just gave myself a new side project.) The faith Progressives held in the power of laws to solve problems is quite striking. In my research, I have encountered several shockingly bold statements about sex equality and the law. To wit, this passage taken from the San Francisco's League of Women Voters "President's Report, 1926-1927" explaining a minor setback in the context of their much broader success:

As you recall, we started a program of work in 1911, sixteen years ago. This program,
which was inaugurated to remove the legal discriminations based purely on sex against
women, has now been completed. With the passage of the community property and
age of majority bills, the sixteen years of constant work has meant that in California
all of the outstanding legal discriminations against women have been removed.

Not only is that horribly untrue but I have also been surprised by a lack of comment, from these otherwise highly-educated, very smart people, to acknowledge the non-legal barriers to gender inequality, that is, the cultural and social practices buried deep within our society that continue to prevent an informed person from saying, even today, ninety years later, that we have gender parity. These blindspots are readily apparent even in this same report. The very next sentence following the passage above stated: "In our final victory the utmost credit must be given among others to Mrs. Frank Law."† 

Buried within this observation is also a inchoate critique of historians who reproduce this phenomenon by ending a discussion of any given topic with the passage of a law rather than a law being just one more aspect of the topic under consideration. 

† "President's Report, 1926-1927," League of Women Voters Records. ["Reports"], California Historical Society, North Baker Research Library. The archivists at the CHS are currently reorganizing the LWV papers and the MS numbers have changed. I found this report in a box that was labeled "Reports."