Jill Hasday
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jillhasday.bsky.social
Jill Hasday
@jillhasday.bsky.social
Law Professor, University of Minnesota. Constitutional Law • Family Law • Sex Equality. Three books—We the Men: How Forgetting Women’s Struggles for Equality Perpetuates Inequality, Intimate Lies and the Law, and Family Law Reimagined.
Sarah Josepha Hale was an activist & writer. You know her most famous work: “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” In 1863, she successfully pushed President Lincoln to proclaim a national day of Thanksgiving, to be held on the 4th Thursday in November. Happy Thanksgiving! #WeTheMen
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November 27, 2025 at 2:31 PM
On this day in 1883, Sojourner Truth died. Born into slavery in New York, she became a suffragist and abolitionist. Truth probably never used the refrain “Ain’t I a Woman,” but she did mock white men who opposed women’s rights. #WeTheMen

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November 26, 2025 at 3:36 PM
On this day in 1792, Sarah Grimké was born. Her father was a wealthy slaveholder but she became an abolitionist & woman’s rights pioneer. Her Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women (1838) was one of the first woman’s rights pamphlets published in the United States. #WeTheMen
November 26, 2025 at 2:00 PM
On this day in 1883, the Washington territory extended suffrage to women. But a court invalidated that law in 1887. When the legislature enacted a new woman suffrage law in 1888, a court invalidated the 2d law a few months later. Women in Washington state didn’t win the vote until 1910. #WeTheMen
November 23, 2025 at 1:40 PM
On this day in 1971, the Supreme Ct decided Reed v. Reed. The Ct’s holding that Idaho could not prefer men over women as the administrators of estates was the first Sup Ct decision invalidating a law for denying women equal protection. It had been 103 years since the 14th A’s ratification. #WeTheMen
November 23, 2025 at 12:47 AM
On this day in 1910, Pauli Murray was born. While a law student at Howard in the 1940s, Murray wrote a paper that the NAACP used to develop arguments attacking racially segregated public education. In 1964, Murray wrote a memo that helped save the sex discrimination prohibition in Title 7. #WeTheMen
November 20, 2025 at 2:58 PM
On this day in 1948, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Goesaert v. Cleary. The Court upheld a 1945 Michigan law that prohibited women from bartending in larger cities, while the Justices proclaimed that there had been “vast changes in the social and legal position of women.” #WeTheMen
November 19, 2025 at 1:59 PM
On this day in 1882, Felix Frankfurter was born. As a Sup Ct Justice, he upheld a Mich law banning women from bartending. Anne Davidow, who represented the plaintiffs, later reported that Frankfurter “heckled” her from the bench while informing her that “the days of chivalry aren’t over.” #WeTheMen
November 15, 2025 at 3:55 PM
On this day in 1917, more than 30 suffragists jailed for picketing the White House endured a “Night of Terror” at the Occoquan Workhouse. Guards threw Mary Nolan, 73, into her cell & knocked Dora Lewis, 55, unconscious. Alice Cosu, 49, had a heart attack because she thought Lewis had died. #WeTheMen
November 14, 2025 at 3:58 PM
I was excited see that my new book, We the Men: How Forgetting Women’s Struggles for Equality Perpetuates Inequality, received a “highly recommended” review from Choice Reviews. #WeTheMen
November 13, 2025 at 2:32 PM
On this day in 1815, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born. She helped organize the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, the 1st woman’s rights convention in the US. The convention’s Declaration of Sentiments declared: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.” #WeTheMen
November 12, 2025 at 2:48 PM
On this day in 1993, the Vietnam Women’s Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C. Former army combat nurse Diane Carlson Evans proposed the memorial in 1984 to honor the 265,000 American women who served during the Vietnam era. #VeteransDay
November 11, 2025 at 8:37 PM
Today at noon, I will be at the University of Minnesota Women's Club speaking about my new book, We the Men: How Forgetting Women’s Struggles for Equality Perpetuates Inequality. I am looking forward to the conversation! #WeTheMen
November 11, 2025 at 4:55 PM
On this day in 1917, police arrested 41 suffragists picketing outside the White House. Mary Nolan was 73 when arrested. She said: “I have come here to picket, feeling it my conscientious duty. I am in the work for good to the end of my life.” #WeTheMen
November 10, 2025 at 1:51 PM
On this day in 1918, Florence Chadwick was born. In the 1950s, she held the world record for swimming the 21-miles from England to France. Here she is congratulating Bill Pickering, who broke her world record by 36 minutes. Six weeks later, she beat Pickering’s time by 11 minutes. #WeTheMen
November 9, 2025 at 6:17 PM
On this day in 1910, women in Washington state won a constitutional amendment prohibiting sex-based disenfranchisement. The vote (52,299 to 29,676) made Washington the fifth state to extend voting rights to women. It ended a 14-year period with no state-wide suffragist victories. #WeTheMen
November 8, 2025 at 6:53 PM
On this day in 1916, Jeannette Rankin became the first woman elected to Congress. In 1917, she told fellow suffragists: “I may be the first woman member of Congress, but I won’t be the last.”

Rankin is still the only woman to have represented Montana in Congress. #WeTheMen
November 7, 2025 at 4:07 PM
On this day in 1874, Nellie Griswold Francis was born. She became a suffragist and civil rights champion. After a white mob lynched three black carnival workers in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1920, she wrote an anti-lynching bill and helped push the reform through the Minnesota Legislature. #WeTheMen
November 7, 2025 at 1:38 PM
On this day in 1917, NY women won equal voting rights. The referendum victory—703,129 votes to 600,776—came after years of suffrage marches in NY and a hard-fought loss in a 1915 NY referendum. The victory helped set the stage for the final push for the Nineteenth Amendment. #WeTheMen
November 6, 2025 at 2:00 PM
On this day in 1968, Shirley Chisholm became the first African American woman elected to Congress. When she reintroduced the ERA in 1969, she argued that women's "incredible scarcity in the upper level jobs” proved that “existing laws are not adequate to secure equal rights for women.” #WeTheMen
November 5, 2025 at 4:51 PM
On this day in 1872, Susan B. Anthony voted in the presidential election, decades before NY enfranchised women in 1917. She was arrested and fined $100. Anthony refused to pay, and legal authorities did not pursue enforcement because they wanted to block her ability to appeal. #WeTheMen
November 5, 2025 at 2:02 PM
On this day in 1970, Phyllis Schlafly lost her congressional race. While campaigning, she acknowledged that her opponent “says a woman’s place is in the home.” After her defeat, she launched an anti-ERA campaign that denied the persistence of discrimination against women. #WeTheMen
November 3, 2025 at 2:19 PM
On this day in 1936, Rose Elizabeth Bird was born. She became the first woman to serve on the California Supreme Court (1977-1987). She lost a retention election after conservative critics mobilized around her opposition to the death penalty. #WeTheMen
November 2, 2025 at 3:28 PM
On this day in 1929, a stock market crash launched the Great Depression. Public & private employers responded by intensifying their longstanding hostility to hiring married women. Before the crash, just 39.0% of cities would hire married women as teachers. That dropped to 23.4% in 1930–31. #WeTheMen
October 29, 2025 at 4:58 PM
OTD in 1886, suffragists protested while men dedicated the Statue of Liberty. Lillie Devereux Blake explained that “while men at the base of the great statue are honoring Liberty represented as a woman, we women on board our boat will uplift our voices in demanding liberty for woman.” #WeTheMen
October 28, 2025 at 1:38 PM