First I want to thank Carnacki on his diary about the objectification and sexism that women face in the world today. It was a thoughtful, well-expressed diary and was a welcome addition to the several insightful diaries that Steven D has written about women’s issues. It inspired me to get off my butt and write this diary which was triggered by a newspaper story I saw on Sunday.
The story by Rob Hotakainen, of McClatchy Newspapers, was about the reintroduction of the Equal Rights Amendment.
Wait a minute. The Equal Rights Amendment was reintroduced? How’d I miss that? Surely the MSM was all over that story – or not.
Well, it appears that I was not the only one unaware of this development. According to Sarah Rosenfeld Clark, writing in the Bay Area Business Woman , many people missed it.
I told my mom, who spent the bulk of her career initiating and managing programs to empower women and girls, that the ERA had been reintroduced in Congress. She said, “How come I didn’t hear about that?”
When I mentioned the ERA reintroduction to a member of my church who is active with the League of Women Voters, she said she “hadn’t seen anything about that.” My Mom lives in Boston and my church is in Oakland. Based on my quick personal survey, intelligent, politically-involved women from coast to coast are unaware that the ERA, now renamed the Women’s Equality Amendment, is back on the political landscape.
Imagine my surprise when my research led me to the information that the Equal Rights Amendment has been introduced every year since 1982!
On March 27, 2007, the newly renamed iteration was introduced with many co-sponsors by Carolyn Maloney (NY) in the House of Representatives and Edward Kennedy (MA) in the Senate.
The Amendment reads as follows:
Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.’.
That’s it in a nutshell. Who wouldn’t want to co-sponsor that? What Democrat wouldn’t want to co-sponsor it? What woman wouldn’t want to?
The answer apparently includes Democrats Claire McCaskill of Missouri (darling of the netroots), Mary Landrieu, of Louisiana, Blanche Lincoln, of Arkansas, and Amy Klobuchar, of Minnesota. Oh by the way, none of the five Republican women in the Senate are behind the legislation, either.
Apparently McCaskill isn’t against equality for women — she’s just not sure it is worth the fight.
The ERA — just because of the history of it, just in and of itself — is an incredibly divisive thing, and sometimes I’m not sure that the divisiveness is worth it.
McCaskill’s fearless rationale for not sponsoring the amendment (although she claims she would vote for it) is as follows:
It’s not that I’m against it. It’s not that I don’t support the concept, but frankly we’ve all seen how amending the Constitution doesn’t necessarily get America there. You know, we did a lot of changes to embrace African Americans in this country, and clearly putting it into law doesn’t make it happen.
As for our sporadically progressive Speaker of the House, whose name is not to be found among the sponsors, Nancy Pelosi had this to say:
Women want what men want: an equal opportunity to succeed. Yet in terms of policies to assist women, we are lagging behind. That is why I support the Women’s Equality Amendment. We are working hard to promote this legislation, but until we have significant support for it, we will not bring it to the floor. Nevertheless, I am hopeful that we can get it done.
Wow. That was truly inspired!
I mean seriously what the hell is going on? Why is this even debatable? Are we willing to allow this to be another pro forma ritual? Or are we going to insist that women have equal legal footing in the United States of America in the 21st century?
There is a lot of good information about the history of the ERA here. A list of states that previously ratified the amendment can be found here. And information about whether or not those ratifications may still be valid can be found here.
Whatever you do, don’t news google the abbreviation ERA – all you’ll get is baseball stats!
