On Excusing the Founding Fathers for Ignoring Women

In a small fit of frustration, a friend participating on a recent Zoom call about democracy and governance asked if we might just get over the fact that the US Constitution is all about men, not mentioning women at all. "That's just the way things were then," he said.

Maybe not. One of the inspirations for the US Constitution turns out to be the Haudenosaunee Confederacy's Great Law of Peace, so after his question, I quickly asked ChatGPT: "Does the The Great Law of Peace  mention women?" The answer was yes, and quite fairly: Women played a different, but very important role in Six Nations' governance. They were most definitely in the script.

So it seems it wasn't common to talk about men only in that era, ignoring women, but rather that our famous Founding Fathers were more like modern Bros, thinking mostly about themselves and removing power, agency and authority from everyone else. (See the Three-Fifths Compromise.)

Maybe they should be called the Founding Bros?

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