Today, Explained - The 100 year fight for equal rights

Episode Date: January 17, 2020

Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment this week. Now, Congress is the only thing standing between the 28th amendment and the Constitution of the United States. (Transcript here.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit Superstore.ca to get started. All those in favor of the resolution, that the resolution pass, vote aye. Virginia took a historic vote this week. Ayes 59, nays 41, abstention zero. For the women of Virginia and the women of America, the resolution has finally passed.

The excitement in the room was palpable because it took a long time to get to this point. A century after women secured their right to vote in the U.S., a long legal battle may be on the way over another constitutional amendment. Congress now has to decide on what could be the 28th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The Equal Rights Amendment is meant to constitutionally prohibit discrimination based on sex, but it never received the three-fourths majority needed for ratification.

Until now. But even if Congress gets on board with the Equal Rights Amendment, we are not exactly on the cutting edge of equality here. Most constitutions around the world, written in the 20th century, have a provision that explicitly guarantees equality between women and men, but ours does not. Julie Sook is a professor at the CUNY Graduate Center in Manhattan. As the country inches closer to a constitutional amendment on sex equality,

she's writing a book about how we got here. It really starts at the moment of women's suffrage. Women in Illinois are quick to register and vote, while energetic suffrage adherents realize their long campaign is over. In 1920, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. It prohibits discrimination on grounds of sex when it comes to the right of citizens to vote. The long fight was officially over. Born in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848, the suffrage movement, in the words of leader Carrie Chapman Catt, was a long story of hard work and heartaches, but it was crowned by victory. At least 1,000 legal enactments were necessary,

and every one was a struggle against ignorant opposition. Once that amendment was ratified, there were some suffragists who believed that the next step was to have a constitutional amendment that more generally guaranteed equality of rights under the law. That amendment was drafted by Alice Paul, a suffragist, in the early 1920s and was first introduced in Congress in 1923. But it really never got off the ground until 1972. So for 50 years, it was being discussed. What happened in that interim? Well, during this entire period, the real problem is that people are wondering whether or not if you have an amendment that guarantees equality, whether it's ever okay to treat women differently because they are mothers and there are unique disadvantages

or unique situations having to do with women's reproductive capacities. I think this is a question that stumps society in general and certainly people in Congress throughout the 1920s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. By the time you get to the debates in the 1970s, a consensus emerges that there are a lot of laws that exclude women because of their traditional role. And so the amendment is clearly needed to reflect this new vision of women in society. there was a shift in the 1960s with the civil rights movement there was a lawyer who was active in the civil rights movement paulie murray i did a study a re-examination of the 14th amendment with regard to sex she was very interested in using progress that was made in race equality under equal protection to guarantee sex equality. My strategy there was that up until that time,

there had been almost no possibility of the ratification of an Equal Rights Amendment, and that what we ought to do in the meantime was take advantage of the 14th Amendment. It gets out to the floor of the House of Representatives for the first time in a long time when Martha Griffiths, a congresswoman from Michigan, uses a discharge petition to get it onto the floor. And once it's on the floor, it's supported by an overwhelming majority of the House of Representatives. That's in August 1970,

right before the 50th anniversary of the Suffrage Amendment. Just a couple of weeks after that, there was a huge women's strike in New York, and in many cities, actually, across the country. Join us now! Sisterhood is powerful! Join us now! The battle cry of the women's liberation movement rings out down New York's Fifth Avenue as more than 10,000 militant feminists stage a one-day strike for equal rights. And they really focused on equal employment opportunity for women,

reproductive rights, and the right to child care so that women could actually have equality in the workplace. The militants chose the 50th anniversary of the constitutional amendment giving women the vote to protest against all kinds of discrimination which they say they suffer in a world run largely by men. It was called the Women's Strike for Equality. It was organized by Betty Friedan. It's going to achieve a new politics in America. Our solidarity in our own behalf, in behalf of these aims of complete equality, this will continue. Even though there was a lot of bipartisan support in the Senate,

there were efforts by the opponents of the ERA to try to add all kinds of crippling amendments to the ERA bill. And so they tried to put in a provision that would have said Congress can exempt women from the draft. And they also put in a seven-year deadline on ratification. They made all these changes. They never actually voted on the bill. And the ERA went to the legislative graveyard. The legislative graveyard. Yes. So then the bill died and had to be reintroduced in the next session of Congress. But this is an important part of the story because it helps us understand why when the supporters of the ERA came back to Congress in early 1971, they did actually put that seven-year deadline into the bill because they didn't want the bill to end up going to the

legislative graveyard again. They took the original ERA guarantee of equality of rights, and they put in the seven-year deadline, and that was successful. Tonight, after a 49-year struggle, a constitutional amendment appears on the way proclaiming once and for all that women have all the same rights as that other sex. What happened once both the House and the Senate approved the ERA? So there were 35 ratifications between 1972 and 1977. You know, New York, California, a lot of the Midwestern states did ratify, although not Illinois. And Illinois was the home state of Phyllis Schlafly,

who led a very effective stop ERA movement in the mid-1970s. And that really slowed down the ratification. What was Phyllis Schlafly saying? Phyllis Schlafly said that the ERA would destroy American motherhood. It's a very great pleasure to be invited to visit with you for a while this afternoon, and I would like also to thank my husband, Fred, for letting me come. I love to say that because it irritates the women's livers more than anything I say.

And I think the argument that the ERA would destroy the American family came from the mistaken notion that the ERA would require men and women to be treated the same under all circumstances. It was believed it would force women into the military. Mississippi's John Stennis said women would have to put on combat boots and march off to fight wars just like men. North Carolina's Sam Irvin said women would be slaughtered

and maimed by bombs and bullets just like men. It was believed then that the husband would never have a duty to support his wife. Since the women are the ones who bear the babies and there's nothing we can do about that, our laws and customs then make it the financial obligation of the husband to provide the support. It is his obligation and his sole obligation. And this is exactly and precisely what we will lose if the Equal Rights Amendment is passed. And that was actually not true. The proponents understood that there would be a possibility of treating men and women differently

for the purposes of childbearing leave, for example. But there was mass confusion about what the ERA would actually lead to. Hearing Schlafly talk about the Libbers reminds me a little bit of like hearing contemporary conservatives talk about owning the Libs, different Libs, different Libbers, obviously. But did Schlafly help turn this

into a more partisan thing? So Phyllis Schlafly was also a real critic of the Republican Party. She wrote a whole critic of the Republican Party. She wrote a whole book criticizing the Republican Party for not being true to its conservative heart and roots. And that really inflamed a movement which culminated with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. And so the Stop ERA movement was a very important part of the transformation of the Republican Party. She really made the stark divide between women's liberation, which she associated with liberals and Democrats, and a vision of the Republican Party that was much farther to the right and

stood for family values. This division really made it so that you couldn't have the kind of bipartisan collaboration. All of that got lost with the Stop ERA movement and Phyllis Schlafly's mobilization of American conservatism around the Republican Party. And on the other side, what were the proponents of the ERA saying? So we had women in Congress who were strong proponents. I've already mentioned Martha Griffiths. When the 15th Amendment had been written,

which said every citizen could vote, in the name of heavens, why couldn't women vote? Why did you have to have the 19th Amendment? Well, of course, the answer was they didn't consider women people within the meaning. There were two women who were among the first women of color ever to be elected to Congress, Patsy Mink from Hawaii. I came to Congress and we began to realize that although we had statutes on the books

about equality and opportunity for everyone, that girls and women were being left out systematically. And Shirley Chisholm from Brooklyn. There is a great need for more women in the political arena. I happen to believe that there are certain aspects of legislation that probably would be given much more attention if we had more women's voices in the halls of the legislatures on the city, state, and national level. They did not believe it was really going to be the Supreme Court that was going to deliver rights to women. Proponents in Congress believed that the ERA would really empower Congress and state legislatures to make the principle of equality real. That includes Title IX. Those hearings were going on at the same time that ERA hearings were going on. It included the Comprehensive Child

Development Act, which would have created public child care for everyone. At the time, they really saw the ERA as the constitutional foundation for a whole range of laws and public policies that would make equalityRA could change in 2020. Support for Today Explained comes from Ramp. Thank you. finance teams' unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month. And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. You can go to ramp.com slash explained, ramp.com slash explained,

R-A-M-P.com slash explained. Cards issued by Sutton Bank, member FDIC, terms and conditions apply. Download the app today and discover why And no matter your team, your favorite player, or your style, there's something every NBA fan will love about BetMGM. Download the app today and discover why BetMGM is your basketball home for the season. Raise your game to the next level this year with BetMGM, a sportsbook worth a slam dunk, an authorized gaming partner of the NBA. BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of

charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Julie, how's this going to work? Now that Virginia has become the 38th state to ratify the ERA, does it even matter? I mean, the deadline for ratification passed like decades ago, yeah? So it's long been understood that it's a deadline that could be changed by Congress. And in fact, that understanding led Congress to change it once. Because in 1977, Congress started getting worried that maybe they deadline and extended it by three years. And so the idea is that if Congress is allowed to put in a deadline, Congress is allowed to change the deadline. And it could also change the deadline by removing it altogether. Do you think that'll happen? I think the House will pass the bill removing the deadline. And of course, you need

both houses in order for the deadline to be removed. But I think there will be a lot of pressure on the Senate to also remove the deadline, because this is really an unprecedented situation in U.S. history, where you have 100 years of women struggling to get this amendment. For the Senate to say, no, we really want to enforce the deadline now, I think would be a very politically bold thing to do. But you needed Democrats to take over both houses of the Virginia legislature to even get here. This is still pretty partisan and Republicans control the U.S. Senate. Are there any Republicans in the Senate that are into the idea of removing the deadline?

So right now there is a resolution in the Senate that has some Republican co-sponsors. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins are both co-sponsors. Lisa Murkowski actually wrote an op-ed in January of 2019 explaining why she was sponsoring that bill and why she believed there should really be no deadline on women's equality. What's crazy, in my view, is that this is 2019 and we still have not yet ratified the Equal Rights Amendment. What we're trying to do is make sure that there is no uncertainty, that when we hit 38 states, we hit 38 states, we have ratified it, and we have fully made this part of our United States Constitution. But I think you would need more than two Republicans to support that in order for it to pass in the Senate. Okay, so if both the U.S. House and Senate agree to remove the deadline, what would change? What would the ERA actually do? What the ERA would do is provide a basis for upholding the constitutionality of laws that remedy violence against women, for example.

So in 2000, the Supreme Court struck down a very important piece of the Violence Against Women Act, which allowed women to sue perpetrators of gender-motivated violence in federal courts. It was understood that such a law was not within Congress's power to enforce the 14th Amendment. And I think it would be much clearer that a law like that would come within Congress's power. Another thing that would change in the law is that the government can discriminate against pregnant people under the constitutional law we currently have. And I think policies that disadvantage mothers in the workplace become deeply problematic under the Equal Rights Amendment in a way they have not been under the Equal Protection Clause. Do you really think this could create a real shift, though? I mean,

it's obviously not like the Civil Rights Act solved racism or anything. Do you think this could create a real shift, though? I mean, it's obviously not like the Civil Rights Act solved racism or anything. Do you think it would be felt by people in their day-to-day, the ERA? It could be. I wouldn't call the ERA a bullet. It's not going to strike down bad laws that keep women down right now. We should think of the ERA more like a vehicle, so it depends on who's driving it and where you drive it to. The proponents of the ERA thought that the ERA would just give a nudge to state legislatures and to Congress to pass laws that made equality real for women. And I do think that you see that borne out in the momentum around things like the Pregnant Worker Fairness Act, which has been introduced in the House. And in Nevada, very interestingly, in the same legislative session where they ratified the ERA, they also passed the Pregnant Worker Fairness Act. They also passed a new law guaranteeing accommodations for

breastfeeding mothers, and also a new law that guaranteed certain protections for victims of domestic violence. So you see this coupling of the ERA with other legislative projects that they're engaged in at the same time to make equality real for women. Sticking with your vehicle metaphor for a second here, though, is this like a Ford Model T? I mean, this thing was written in the 20s, redone in the 70s. Should we just be building a brand new all-electric vehicle here, a new car? There are some folks who think that we should be starting all over again. But the reason it's important to ratify the one that we had in the 1970s is that there's a real continuity of women persisting, resisting, and fighting for their rights. And I think the Equal Rights Amendment, if we ratify the one that was introduced in the 70s, would really recognize that transgenerational struggle in a way that starting over would not. And I don't think that it's an old model, because in some ways, the women who advocated for the ERA in the 1970s were actually thinking about issues which we unfortunately haven't solved today.

Childbearing and childrearing burden women's opportunities in the economic and educational sphere. The ERA would not magically require that the state legislature solve these problems overnight, but it would really send a signal to the legislature saying, whatever policies you have that are not working for women, you need to fix. Julie Suk is a professor at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York. She's also working on a book about the ERA. It's called We, the Women, the Forgotten Mothers of the Equal Rights Amendment. This is Today Explained.

I'm Sean Ramos from I Make the Show with Afim Shapiro, Bridget McCarthy, Jillian Weinberger, Halima Shah, Amina Alsadi, and Noam Hassenfeld. Noam and the Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder make music, and Olivia Ekstrom checks the facts. Today Explained is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. If you want to get in touch, you can send an email to todayexplained at vox.com or a tweet. We're at today underscore explained.

Or maybe just avoid Twitter altogether. Some people say they're happier that way. The show's off Monday for MLK Day. It's a day of service. Do someone a solid on Monday. You'll hear from us again on Tuesday. Ciao for now.