The problem with the author’s suggestions is that no Republican would ever vote for any of them. Republicans would rather die than vote for universal health or sex education or free contraception or free child care. And require men to stand up and take responsibility? That would certainly never happen under a Republican majority. They would never vote for eradicating our assault and rape culture—that would take away a human right from men. Make it a law that women earn as much as men for the same job? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! A thousand times NOOOOOOOOOOO! That, too would disadvantage men and send the economy into the toilet!
“Make sure society has a support system in place for those who exist on its margins: for those with addictions, for those with mental illnesses, for those who live on the streets, for those who spend their teenage years bouncing from foster home to foster home, for those who face domestic violence or partner abuse”, publicly funded child care? literacy and healthy-lunch programs? “family drop-in centres and community kitchens and kids’ sports programs and arts programs, for parenting courses and every other kind of support you can think of to give vulnerable kids – kids who don’t come from stable, middle-class backgrounds like yours, like mine - a solid start in life”? Is she kidding? That would be SOCIALISM! All that would do is encourage people to be lazy and expect the government to take care of them. Much better to ban abortion and force childbirth under the guise of “pro-life”. What we don’t need is SOCIALISM! RUN FOR THE HILLS!
That reminds me, How’s that Equal Right Amendment to our US Constitution doing?
https://www.equalrightsamendment.org
Twenty years after she first introduced it, Alice Paul rewrote the ERA in 1943. It was given a new title — the "Alice Paul Amendment — to better reflect the language in both the 15th and the 19th Amendments. The new version stated:
“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”
But the labor movement was still committed to protective workplace laws, and social conservatives considered equal rights for women a threat to existing power structures.
Well women have only had the vote for what (90 or 100 yrs?). Surely they will get around to an ERA at some point. Unless some women don’t want equal rights.
Well women have only had the vote for what (90 or 100 yrs?). Surely they will get around to an ERA at some point. Unless some women don’t want equal rights.
I’m all for an ERA.
Lois. You can be sure it wasn’t most women who voted against the amendment. It was right wing zealots of both sexes.
“. . . the ERA seemed destined for ratification until Phyllis Schlafly mobilized conservative women in opposition. These women argued that the ERA would disadvantage housewives, cause women to be drafted into the military and to lose protections such as alimony, and eliminate the tendency for mothers to obtain custody over their children in divorce cases.Many labor feminists also opposed the ERA on the basis that it would eliminate protections for women in labor law, though over time more and more unions and labor feminist leaders turned toward supporting it.”
“Five state legislatures (Idaho, Kentucky, Nebraska, Tennessee, and South Dakota) voted to revoke their ERA ratifications. Four claim to have rescinded their ratifications before the original March 22, 1979 ratification deadline, while the South Dakota legislature did so by voting to sunset its ratification as of that original deadline. However, it remains a legal question as to whether a state can revoke its ratification of a federal constitutional amendment.“
Some states would not ratify it, which was decided by the majority male State Assemblies.
I don’t blame our continued lack of an ERA exclusively on women. Just as I don’t blame all men for it. But what is perplexing to me is that if almost all women were for having equal rights, and half of all men were for equal rights for women, one would think that we would have long since had an ERA.
But I see the point of how women have been outmaneuvered for all of these years by the opposition’s use of political power and chicanery. We see this regularly in how the repubs outmaneuver the dems, regularly in maintaining power despite not having majorities of constituents.
It is long past time for a change, imo. We were and still, potentially, are on the verge of having a woman as POTUS. But if this happens we will have a POTUS who does not constitutionally have equal rights. That is just ridiculous. So c’mon America, get real. Pass the ERA for women.