When I was 20, I asked for a promotion at work, one that I well and fully deserved. I was told I was “too emotional” for the role. Had I been a man, perhaps my “emotionality” would have been called “passion,” and I would have received the promotion. Unfortunately for me and millions of other women in the U.S., this type of behavior in the workplace is rather unremarkable. In fact, this type of behavior, and blatant gender discrimination, is common in many different settings within the U.S. During NYC primary election campaigning just last month, many said Democratic mayoral runner-up Kathryn Garcia would make a great deputy mayor, already relegating her to a support role before voting had begun.
Did you know that the American Constitution still allows this type of discrimination against women? Indeed, the American Constitution provides women only ONE guarantee of equality, the 19th Amendment, which guarantees the right to vote. Unsurprisingly, the writers of the Constitution made no mention of women within the document. In a nation where ‘all men are created equal,’ where do women fit in? Nearly 100 years after securing the right to vote, American women are still fighting for a right men granted themselves in the founding of our nation, equal legal rights.
Shortly after the 19th Amendment was passed in 1920, advocacy groups focused on writing legislation to Constitutionally protect women from discrimination. The resulting bill, known as the Equal Rights Amendment, demanded, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” While this movement gained traction, it fizzled out with the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, an amendment many claimed ensured equality for women. Nearly 60 years later, the effectiveness of the Civil Rights Act on the advancement of women’s equality can be summed up by the current 82 cents on the dollar women make compared to men; an inequality that is exacerbated when intersected with racial minority status.
A renewed push for the ERA in the 1960s led to its eventual passing through Congress in 1972. However, to amend the Constitution and fully grant women freedom from discrimination, three-quarters of states needed to ratify the document within the specified deadline. By its expiration date, 35 states had ratified, three short of the amount required. While I won’t discuss the concerning fact that 12 states STILL have not ratified the ERA (looking at you, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah), it is certainly worth noting.
(On an equally concerning note, five states have voted to rescind their ratification of the ERA: Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho, Kentucky, and South Dakota. These votes all occurred in the 1970s, and as there is no wording in the Constitution about a states’ ability to rescind ratification of an amendment, it is fortunately not likely to happen.)
After four long decades of inaction, Nevada ratified the ERA in 2017, followed by Illinois in 2018 and Virginia in 2020. Why, then, are we not all enjoying our Constitutional protection from discrimination? Under the direction of the U.S. Attorney General under both the Trump and Biden administrations, U.S. Archivist David Ferriero has refused to publish the ERA as the 28th Amendment, blocking it from becoming law. I’m not saying the leaders of our country want women to face discrimination; they just aren’t entirely interested enough in making it ILLEGAL to discriminate against women.
New bills regarding the ERA were proposed in January of 2021. One of these bills, the “Three-State Strategy,” suggests removing the original time limit for ratification while the other, a “do-over” bill, would start the process from scratch. Regardless of how we get there, women must be protected in the Constitution. After the COVID crisis in which women faced setbacks unseen in decades, we must not allow ourselves to be relegated to a second-class citizenry. We are not meant to merely serve support roles while men make decisions for us. How many times must women prove our value to this country before we are afforded the fundamental rights we deserve? Isn’t it time women were guaranteed Constitutional Equality?
Emily VanVleck
Student Member NFBPWC-NYC
