 In 1971 Hyman helped found Ezrat Nashim, a Jewish activist group whose goal was the ordination of women as Conservative rabbis and cantors, a foreshadowing of her later position as a champion of gender equality in religious Jewish life.While at Columbia, Hyman and other Jewish feminists wrote a manifesto to call for the ordination of women rabbis and cantors in Conservative Judaism, which they then delivered to hundreds of conservative rabbis at a Rabbinical Assembly.The title of this manifesto was “Jewish Women Call for Change.”

In both her personal and professional life, Hyman championed feminist ideology and sought to end political and historical sexism.