EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- 'Beyond Orwellian': Outrage Follows Revelations of Vast Domestic Spying Program
- The Bill of Rights Exists: An Open Letter to Dianne Feinstein
- The World Economy Is a Ticking Time Bomb (and The Fuse is Burning)
- Major Loss to Organic Farmers as Court Rules in Favor of Monsanto
- Naomi Klein: 'Anti-Shock Doctrines' Show the Way to Resist
Popular content
Today's Top News
U.S. Needs a Women's Equality Amendment
A Law Against Gender Bias Is Only As Strong As The Next Congress and President.
Some members of Congress are looking to do something long overdue: pass the Equal Rights Amendment. Recently renamed the Women's Equality Amendment and introduced by its chief sponsors, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., the amendment would grant equal constitutional rights to women -- something we have yet to achieve. This simple concept had the blessing of both political parties until the Republicans struck it from their platform in 1980, with the Democrats following suit in 2004.Why is the amendment needed? Twenty-three countries -- including Sri Lanka and Moldova -- have smaller gender gaps in education, politics and health than the United States, according to the World Economic Forum. We are 68th in the world in women's participation in national legislatures. On average, a woman working full time and year-round still makes only 77 cents to a man's dollar. Women hold 98 percent of the low-paying "women's" jobs and fewer than 15 percent of the board seats at major corporations. Because their private pensions -- if they have them at all -- are lower and because Social Security puts working women at a disadvantage and grants no credit for years spent at home caring for children or aging parents, three-quarters of the elderly in poverty are women. And in every state except Montana, women still pay higher rates than similarly situated men for almost all kinds of insurance. All that could change if we put equal rights for women in our Constitution.
Some say action isn't needed because the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment already guarantees rights for women. It would be great if that were so. But courts have failed to hold sex discrimination to the same level of scrutiny under the 14th Amendment as is applied, for example, to race discrimination, meaning that many discriminatory practices -- barring women from certain military jobs, establishing boys-only public classrooms and schools, and open discrimination against women in insurance programs, to name a few -- are still legal.
Yes, we have laws outlawing sex discrimination. But a law is only as strong as the next Congress and president. Laws and regulations guaranteeing protection against sex discrimination can be overturned by a simple majority in Congress or by the president. Courts have narrowed protections originally guaranteed by statute, resulting in women having to campaign constantly to restore these rights when they're taken away or weakened. What's more, federal laws have usually been narrowly crafted and don't reach into many areas in which state laws discriminate against women and girls.
The history of Title IX, the law guaranteeing equal educational opportunities for girls and women, is an instructive example. Passed in 1972, it opened colleges, law schools, medical schools and athletic opportunities to women at institutions receiving federal funds. Opponents fought its implementation from the beginning, and in 1984 they succeeded in gutting the law. The Supreme Court's decision in Grove City vs. Bell declared that only individual programs receiving federal funds were subject to the law, not institutions as a whole. Women's groups had to mount a four-year fight to pass legislation overturning Grove City and restoring the original intent of Title IX. With a patchwork of state and federal laws that provide only statutory guarantees and many loopholes, the job is never done. The Bush administration has also weakened Title IX through a back-door provision in the No Child Left Behind Act that permits the creation of sex-segregated public schools for little or no reason.
The ERA was ratified by 35 states before the time limit contained in its preamble was reached. Even though it has been reintroduced in every congressional session since, there has been no action since the 1980s -- until now.
Whether the Women's Equality Amendment must be passed with a new drive for 38 states, as opponents declare, or by merely adding three states to the 35 that have already ratified the amendment (the women's movement is pursuing both avenues) is irrelevant to the central truth: We need women's constitutional equality in this country. Women are not, and cannot be, legally equal to men without it. The United States must declare that women are equal under the law, no matter which state we live in, without reservation.
Ninety percent of Americans believe that the Constitution should make it clear that women and men have equal rights, according to a 2001 poll, and it won't cost taxpayers a dime. It will benefit not only the women of the United States but also the men, in this and all generations to come. That would be a real legacy for the new Congress.
Martha Burk directs the Corporate Accountability Project for the National Council of Women's Organizations. Eleanor Smeal is president of the Feminist Majority.
© 2007 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
16 Comments so far
Show AllThere are not any differences between "men" and "women." Further, if this act comes, it better mean that if the right wing idiots that 1/2 of the US population voted in enstate the draft, it will not be only one sex that is forced to go; but both.
ERA failed before and it will fail again. I think it is a good idea, but resurrecting it will give a rallying point for the evangelical nut cases and the insecure white men. The MSM will play along and all you will hear is all the terrible things ERA will do to our morals and our country. The pro ERA side will never be heard. America is far to fascist at this point in history to pass an ERA.
Will men have equal reproductive rights?
The Equal Rights Amendment is three states from ratification.
The Equal Rights Amendment shall be the law of the land in this generation, but it would be a good beginning this year or the beginning of next.
Equality for all, for without it there is equality for none
"Will men have equal reproductive rights?"
Hm. Does that mean that men will get to be pregnant for 9 months? And go into labor for hours and hours and be poked and prodded by a bunch of strangers?
Does it mean that men will take on equal responsibility for child care including getting up in the middle of the night, staying home from work (yes - lots and lots of new mothers go right back to work after having a baby) because the baby is sick, doing housework and laundry in addition to working and caring for the kids? Does it mean trying to find a way to nurse a baby while working full time? Finding and dealing with babysitters and day care?
It surely gets tiresome to hear whiny men complain about how downtrodden they are. There is no such thing as "equal reproductive rights" because men and women have physically different reproductive roles. There was a time when physical differences also dictated differing cultural or working roles. But, for the most part, this is no longer true except for explicitly heavy physical work.
Men are not compelled to have sex, they are not restricted from having vasectomies or forced to have them. They are expected to support children they father, and they don't have the same right to terminate a pregnancy. This much is true.
However, women are much more easily forced into having sex when they don't want to and are far more often victims of rape, they bear the brunt of responsibility for caring for the child after it's born, and they are the ones who take on the physical consequences.
I was married for a long time - 25 years - to a man who expected me to have sex every single day. If I was sick, tired, or just not in the mood, he was so insistent, I literally (not virtually or figuratively, but actually literally) never refused. He was so adamant about not wanting another child, he told me that if I got pregnant and wouldn't have an abortion, he would leave and I'd have another baby and no husband. He also refused to have a vasectomy, insisting that I had to have my tubes tied. Which I did.
Oh, yeah, and he had affairs in spite of our very active sex life.
I realize this all sounds silly in retrospect because I didn't have to put up with it. But everything in my background and in American culture made me think pleasing my husband was virtuous. Over a long period of time, I began to understand that he was a sex addict who was imposing his needs on me. Finally, I divorced him and met a man who is a real treasure. We've been happily married for 13 years.
Women do not have equal reproductive rights, equal working rights, or equal cultural status. We are taught from infancy that men's needs come first and ours don't matter. White men are not the victims here, in spite of their indignation that someone might acquire the same rights they've been accustomed to all their lives.
"Ninety percent of Americans believe that the Constitution should make it clear that women and men have equal rights, according to a 2001 poll, and it won't cost taxpayers a dime."
Does this mean that Congress is actually listening to what the people have to say, in addition to interpreting "equal" as meaning equal?
Will wonders never cease!
I have a tendency to think TOO much, but I never thought of an amendment for women's equality. GREAT IDEA!!!
The ERA is a terrible idea for precisely the reasons outlined. No insurance company on earth makes women pay more because they don't like women any more than they would make blacks pay more because their white supremecists. Insurance companies charge according to what insurance costs to provide. If women pay more its cause the cost more. Health insurance costs more cause they live longer and life insurance cost less for precisly the same reason. Title IX made some decent changes in the begining but now is a ightmare for anyone. I am a junior in college and in my three years here 3 popular student organizations have been shut down because their facilities had to be given to girls sports teams. The kicker... All those teams already had state-of-the-art facilities. They were for inconviences like, and i'm serious, crossing the street to play. Even the female atheletes hate title nine and what it does to schools.
imagine all the old feminists who thought we had this one won before only to come a vote or two short in three state legislatures. we were so close then, and we can do it now.
remember, women are slightly more than half the population. it is high time we had constitutional equality.
"Will men have equal reproductive rghts?" - don't hold your breath, "America is far too fascist at this point in history" for THAT to happen!
Of course the term "fascist" is far more appropriate for feminists than for masculists, being the blending of government power for private interests.
Unless you see many laws actually favoring men anywhere? Any departments, agencies or anything really, specifically for men?
Sure, most people in positions of overt power are men. Which is meaningless if you look at the actual laws passed.
ERA not passed? Well as pointed out that would make women liable for the draft, make men equal in terms of choosing an abortion (or dumping the kid in a 'safe haven' and walking away, or simply killing it and getting the slap on the wrist of "infancide") etc etc.
Most western countries already do treat women a lot better than they've ever treated men - actual equality would be a loooong drop down from that pedastal ladies. Don't worry though, there's plenty of chivalry-infested morons still in power.
For now.
S.
Smurfy May 2nd, 2007 5:08 am
"Will men have equal reproductive rghts?" - don't hold your breath, "America is far too fascist at this point in history" for THAT to happen!"
Is anyone forcing men to have vasectomies? If not, then men already have reproductive rights. That in itself does not give them the right to impregnate a woman who doesn't want a child and insist that she incubate those seeds.
As far as the draft is concerned, if women expect equal rights, they should be called upon (as are men) to participate in defending our country from imminent threats, not the ones fabricated by the men who are holding "overt positions of power".
If any foreign country invaded us, most women would be out there fighting in full force to defend their children and what's left of the sovereignty in this country.
It's waaay past time for the ERA. That it is still necessary and not yet law is a sad thing that reveals how much it is needed, as do some of the responses here.
It occurs to the poet that women are a lot like poetry. For instance:
***************
It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there . . .
William Carlos Williams
There is much suffering and misery in this world from failing to pay attention to the counsel of women. Too many of us men are like Professor higgins in My Fair Lady demanding "Why can't a woman be more like a man?!"
***********************
Poetry is not a luxury.
Audre Lorde
Of all the wasted resoiu7rces in the world none is wasted quite so much as women. To many men have yet to realize that women are good for more than just bearing and nurturing children, keeping a house, and providing sexual release.
Given how screwed up this world is today, how could giving women's input an honorable consideration make it any worse? we are at a point where this is not just a nice idea but critical for our survival as a species.
*********************
It's almost impossible not to write a poem that is political, if you are a person who loves.
Philip Levine
************************
Women have to be political not only because they love but because politics needs their love to be cleansed from its vulgar machinations towards corrupting destruction.
Or have you been asleep for the past 6+ years?
No offence but that's a big pile of horse-dung.
Men throughout the west have been taught that women and children always come first - but hey, selective vision is handy huh?
"Does it mean that men will take on equal responsibility for child care including getting up in the middle of the night, staying home from work (yes - lots and lots of new mothers go right back to work after having a baby) because the baby is sick, doing housework and laundry in addition to working and caring for the kids? Does it mean trying to find a way to nurse a baby while working full time? Finding and dealing with babysitters and day care?"
Two words - "maternal gatekeeping". Look it up - and by the way, I'm a househusband. Not because I'm unusual, but because my wife is...
"I realize this all sounds silly in retrospect because I didn't have to put up with it"
Not silly at all, I put up with a violent and abusive ex for over 3 years. Hindsight is an amazing thing :)
"There is no such thing as "equal reproductive rights" because men and women have physically different reproductive roles"
That's right up there with saying that because men are generally larger and stronger they have the right to beat crap out of women. Nature built them more for combat, so shut and deal with it...?
Sorry but to me the entire point of sexual equality is over-coming such physical differences, not falling back on them as an excuse when it suits and claiming it makes no difference when that suits instead. Few things disgust me more than hypocrisy.
If I said a woman should not be given a responsible job "because men and women have physically different reproductive roles" and she might get pregnant, or that she might suffer bizarre mood swings every month, you'd squeal and screech about "sexism!"
But suggest a man should have some say over being held responsible for the financial costs of "..a woman's decision" and suddenly different strokes for different folks eh?
Pass the paper bag...
S.
What originally attracted me to the women's movement was equal pay for equivalent work. We still don't have it across the board -- and there's an Amendment I'd fight for. Then came our demand for equal access to insurance, another important struggle that was won. But as for the opportunity to go to college, even back in the 1950s there was no problem if one was academically qualified.
As time when on, though, the women's movement morphed into something I could not relate to, particularly the tendency to blame men in general for one's lack of success, which has now devolved into outright hostility to the male sex. (If a charter school wants to have an all-male student body, WHY would that be a problem?)
When I was young I had many male friends, and looking back now I realize we all assumed the French were right: Vive la difference! Equality of humanity, of course, but enjoying the differences between the male and female way of interacting with each other and the world. It goes without saying that this attitude -- which allowed romance to flourish (remember when we "made love" instead of "having sex?") -- has been replaced by something seriously problematic. Suspicion, solipsism, encouraging females to perceive themselves as perpetual victims, demonizing men -- all these things have been driving us apart for years now. Men tend to define themselves by what they DO, and unless they're in the top 1% of this Darwinian economy I would argue they're having a harder time psychologically than women are, because we view ourselves more holistically.
The first thing we need is to start building loving bridges of understanding between men and women -- and women must take the lead in this because we're better at it. The last thing we need is another divisive shot at trying to put the ERA into the Constitution.
Warren Farrell has an excellent book on 25 ways women could earn more money - if they wanted to.
Strength? Hardly relevant today, PMT, chips on shoulders and anti-male sentiment are far more of an issue, along with the bending over backwards to create non-"hostile" environments and lawsuits for "harrassment" and "discrimination" at the drop of the perceived hat.
Do you really want your surgeon or airline pilot promoted for a quota or suffering PMT?
Me neither, but don't say anything, that would be sexist...
S.