"Equality vs. Sameness"

Equality and sameness are two words wich I often have believed to be grouped together. However, after reading "When We Dead Awaken: Writing As A Re-Vision" I have changed my notions of these two ideas. Now, the word "equal" does not necessarily imply the word "same." For example, women in our society could achieve equality in rights with men, but they don't necessarily have to be the same as men. They don't have to behave in a male stereotypical way just because they now have rights that were once considered exclusively male in nature. This concept seems to resonate with Rich's discussion of male and female poetry.

"But even in reading these women I was looking in them for the same things I had found in the poetry of men, because I had wanted women poets to be the equals of men, and to be equal was still confused with sounding the same "(171). In desiring male and female equality in writing, she wanted the styles of men and women to be the same. However, this does not make the poetry necessarily good. It makes it the same. Poetry can be of equal caliber if the styles are different. The poetry can be just as creative and imaginitive.