My apologies to those women who have been fighting hard to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. I also apologize to any woman who has been a champion for women’s rights. I chose this title to get your attention and I hope I have.
Why is an Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution necessary?
- The Equal Rights Amendment would provide a fundamental legal remedy against sex discrimination for both women and men. It would guarantee that the rights affirmed by the U.S. Constitution are held equally by all citizens without regard to sex.
- The ERA would clarify the legal status of sex discrimination for the courts, where decisions still deal inconsistently with such claims. For the first time, sex would be considered a suspect classification, as race currently is. Governmental actions that treat males or females differently as a class would be subject to strict judicial scrutiny and would have to meet the highest level of justification – a necessary relation to a compelling state interest – in order to be upheld as constitutional.
- To actual or potential offenders who would try to write, enforce, or adjudicate laws inequitably, the ERA would send a strong preemptive message – the Constitution has zero tolerance for sex discrimination under the law.
- The ERA would require courts to go beyond the current application of the 14th Amendment by adding sex to the list of suspect classifications protected by the highest level of strict judicial review.
Women make up 51% of the population, yet in the last few years we have seen an explosion of anti-woman legislation. A great deal of it focuses on reproductive rights and abortion, but make no mistake, it’s about much more.
Contraception, fair pay and health clinics that help women who are between jobs, in school and/or can’t afford insurance are under attack. Without the benefit of being protected under the Constitution, women are easy prey to lawmakers with an agenda. Without precedent to cite in a court case, it is much easier to take away what have been considered as rights because those rights are not enshrined in the Constitution.
Why is this even an issue??? Why don’t enough women realize what is happening? Because most people don’t pay attention to these things until it happens to them. Well, it IS happening to you and every single woman in the U.S. needs to wake up and sign this petition. It takes less than five minutes and it will mean the difference between losing your rights and freedoms and securing your rights and freedoms. Which choice do you want?
Women currently earn an average of thirty percent less than men. Of course this isn’t every case and every job, it’s the average. What makes this more devastating is that women earn less in Social Security. They work just as hard or harder and when they retire, they have less to live on because it’s based on what they earned when they were working.
BRITAIN: The mother can take 52 weeks leave, the first six being on around 90 percent of salary, the remainder capped at 125 pounds (196 dollars, 142 euros) per week. Fathers can take two weeks’ leave on 90 percent salary, capped at 125 pounds.
DENMARK: 18 weeks, while men have a right to two weeks off after the birth. They receive between 2,500 and 3,760 kroner (335-504 euros, 463-697 dollars) per week.
FRANCE: 16 weeks split before and after the birth on 100 percent salary. The father has 14 days leave, of which 11 are paternity leave.
U.S.: “The U.S. is the only high-income nation not to have paid maternity leave, while almost all middle-and low-income countries offer it, too,” says Jody Heymann, founding director of McGill University’s Institute for Health and Social Policy. The exceptions include Swaziland, Papua New Guinea—and us.
These are just a few examples of issues that would improve if we get the ERA ratified. It boils down to this: the problem is not the presence of laws that deny equality; it is a lack of laws that enforce equality.
Share this on your Facebook wall. Keep sharing it. Send it in emails. Tweet about it. Ask yourself; why are we asking for rights that should be ours in the first place? It’s time to DEMAND these rights.
You can also take an extra step and tweet to progressive news programs and demand they report about this so that more women and men will be aware. They have millions of viewers.
Tweet: Please talk about the ERA on your show.
@Lawrence @TheLastWord @Maddow @edshow @billmaher @MharrisPerry @alexwagner
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