Back in the 1970s when Second Wave feminists were trying to get the ERA passed, another group of women filled a bus going to Texas to protest. My former husband, who had come to pick up our children for the weekend, thought he could get my goat by saying he was proud of those Texas-bound women for standing up for what was right. He thought it was ridiculous that anyone would want to insist on women and men using the same rest rooms, women being drafted, and all that. I asked him, "Do you know the actual words of the amendment?" He didn't, of course. I happened to have a little card about the size of a business card with all 24 words on it. "Only 24 words?" He didn't believe me. I told him to wait a minute while I ran inside to grab the little card, which I have in hand as I type this blog post. Here's what it says:"There has never been an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. Currently only 35 of the required 38 votes have been garnered. A little insulting when we are busy passing laws to ensure that women's health choices with respect to abortion are radically curtailed; when women still earn less than men for the same job; when women make up more than half the work force, yet we have no meaningful childcare, healthcare, or dependent care measures. Yet, despite this, women are not marching on Washington, burning bras, carrying signs, picketing corporations. . . why?"
"Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex."
"Oh," he said, "this is it?" Yep, it doesn't ask for those other things he had heard. Just equal rights. After learning what H.J. Res. 208 REALLY said, he admitted he saw nothing wrong with it. Learn more, here: EqualRightsAmendment.org
12 comments:
Equal rights? I rememeber that nonsense.
Bonnie, I'm in a male dominated field - law enforcement. When I went into the field, few women were cops. I was the first female officer in a three county area back when I started.
I make the same money, get the same benefits, and do the same job as the men... but I didn't wait for the government to pass an amendment to grant me the right to do what I do. I decided what I wanted to do with my life and I went out and made it happen.
When women go work for companies taht treat them unfairly, they are basically accepting the rules as they are. There are companies out there that treat men and women as equals.
Don't like the pay/benefits/whatever of a job you're looking into? Don't take it.
Don't accept 'no' and don't take less than anyone else doing your job. It really is that easy.
cjh
You are assuming a lot. Not every company "allows" you to know what others make, so it's a little hard to "refuse to take less." Not everyone can be or wants to be in law enforcement. Not everybody can "make it happen" just because she decides to. I'm glad you made it work for you, but please don't call it nonsense because other women are still trying to got the jobs they want to do with the same pay men get.
It saddens me to the core that the ERA still hasn't passed. What is wrong with people? Are women so strong and scary that we need to be held down?
Whenever I stop to think about it, I just can't believe that those 24 words aren't part of our Constitution! I'm amazed by the amount of misinformation, fear, apathy, contempt, self-righteousness, and whatever else it is that keeps our country from being truly free.
YES! Women are so big and scary that we need to be held down--apparently!
Bonnie, thank you for your comments to the young police woman. Seems that so many young women today have no understanding or concept of what it was like BEFORE women began marching, picketing, bra-burning and the like.
Too many woman have no vision of what this country could/would be if we were fully-franchised citizen. It is, sadly, our own lack of vision and dedication to ourselves that is perhaps our biggest stumbling block!
This 'young police woman' is 51 and has been in law enforcement for going on 25 years.
Bonnie, are you suggesting that if you wanted to work for a company that you'd have no idea what the average salary for that type of work is? Why not? Salary ranges are posted everywhere these days.
There are enough laws already on the books that prohibit discrimination based on sex and race and everything else. It's called equal employment.
Salaries are a matter of negotiating. If a woman goes into a job interview not knowing what an acceptable salary for the sort of position she's interviewing for is, that's her mistake and, again, if she accepts less than what she thinks she's entitled to, that's her decision. No one makes a person take a job.
I've face more discrimination than most women will ever know or understand. I've heard insults most women will never have to put up with. I did not respond by running to the government for protection. I shut them up by doing my job, the job I told them I could do.
I'm sorry if what I said rubbed you the wrong way, Bonnie, but I'm really tired of people believing the government has to be involved in every facet of our lives. Can we not do anything for ourselves?
I guess my bottom line is that I know what I've been through, how hard I worked to get into my field and I cannot understand why any woman can't do the same thing.
I'll shut up now. Sorry again.
cjh
Thank you for this post, Bonnie (and for your comment). I am sad that my beloved home state North Carolina is one of the states that refuses to ratify the ERA.
CJ, I'm glad you are willing to talk to me about this. The key is "these days" in what you said this morning.
"Salary ranges are posted everywhere these days."
Part of the reason we have "equal employment" for jobs is that women like me fought against discrimination 40 years ago, when you were a little girl. Back then, there were separate want ads for men and women, and identical ads offered more for men doing the same job. It was legal, and it didn't matter whether a woman argued or not. She didn't get a chance to prove she could do the job as well as a man in a time when it was "normal" to tell a woman, "We don't hire women for that job." I was there (I'm 70), and I remember.
There were no women in law enforcement that I knew of and, though you are 19 years younger than I am, you were the FIRST female officer in your three-county area, you said. It took a long time for attitudes to change.
How would you have "made it happen" if nobody had to listen to you?
Yes, there are companies out there that treat men and women as equals -- NOW. Thank goodness! And thanks to those who raised the consciousness of a lot of people. We have a very different world now than we had in the 1970s.
Don't apologize. Let's keep talking.
I'm all for talking, doll. It's never a bad thing.
And, what you've said sort of proves my point.
Thirty years ago there might have been a bonafide need for something like the ERA. But now? It doesn't seem like it to me.
I know that there were others, like you before me and I am thankful for that fact. I am also willing to do what I can to make it easier for those who follow me.
I'm sorry, however, to say I see attitudes in the young women of today that I find disturbing. Attitudes like what I commented against - a sense of entitlement, of not having to prove themselves before they are accepted. It doesn't work that way. Not in law enforcement certainly, and as far as I've seen, not in life, either.
I feel the same way, btw, about unions. They were once necessary but today? Not so sure. It seems to me that they're more interested in pricing American workers out of jobs and protecting incompetent workers than they are in helping the good ones.
What I would like to see is that the best person for a job gets the job, regardless of race, sex, creed, or color.
cjh
CJ, your point was mainly about jobs, but "rights" is broader than that. I'm working on a book about "Women Unbound," which will include some of the history of the women's rights movement. I probably sound passionate about rights for women, especially after reading about inhumane things happening to women in third-world countries. I highly recommend two books, one about America and one focused mainly overseas:
When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present ~ by Gail Collins, 2009
and
Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide ~ by Nicholas D. Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn, 2009
To me the Constitution is the embodiment of our deeply-held beliefs as a people. Laws are made, and they are changed; depending on the political party in power, things become better (to my way of thinking) or worse.
But the Constitution reveals what the United States of America really is, what we as Americans really believe. It is basically the "mission statement" of the country. That's why a provision about not denying equality of rights - which (as Bonnie points out) goes well beyond employment issues - on the basis of sex should be part of the Constitution.
Well, here's an interesting take on the issue:
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hollywoodland/2010/08/18/worse-then-the-1950s-hyper-sexualized-pop-culture-destroying-feminism/
It's a side of the issue few proponents want to talk about and it's an outcome that hasn't done anyone any good, in my opinion.
I'm all for women having equal rights. How could I not be. I just believe there are enough protections already in place.
Even when trying to get into a 'man only' field, I never felt like I was being held back by any sort of 'faceless they'. I think that's my final point.
cjh
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