Traditionally, in America, equality has meant equal treatment under the law and equal access to political power. This model focuses on the individual and her relationship to the state. The equality promoted by affirmative action demands eaual access to wealth and opportunity. This model focuses on classes of people and their relationship to other classes, or to society in general. These two concepts are incompatible.
Affirmative action flies in the face of equal treatment under the law.
And that is a right for which women have fought, and fought hard, for centuries. When Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton battled to have women explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, it was in order to secure equal treatment under the law. Affirmative action does nothing for women whose goal is legal equality. Affirmative action aims at socioeconomic equality. It calls for distributive justice.