These activists women did whatever it took to gain equal rights for women with men. They fought for several issues such as a fair wage, an equal wage, decent working conditions, the right to work and health care. They won some and lost others but they did achieve something extraordinary, they won for women the right to vote.
These women are nothing less than pioneers with steely determination and an absolute resolve that equality was what women deserved. They would not be silenced. They also understood that without equality, the rights of women would suffer in every area of their lives.
In 1972 the Equal Rights Amendment was on the ballot once again. It was a statement in three sections. Its intent as written was purely that women be treated as equals to men. There were no further demands. There were no concessions to be made. The ERA passed both houses of Congress that year, it was then ratified by 35 of the 38 states needed, with 15 states rejecting the amendment.
The ERA has been placed before Congress every year since but has failed in its passage, the Congress that is supposed to speak equally for women as it does for men, has not deemed women worthy of equality, the ERA has not made it to the states to be ratified since 1972. Women’s representatives have blocked it each and every year.
Women still unite and demand equal rights. The women in 1848 were merely asking for equality. On this day, right now, in the year 2006, why don’t we have Equal Rights Amendment? We’re still just asking for equality. What is the fear that keeps the ERA from passing? What is the price for anyone in this country for the equality of half of the population?
We have had victories in the past 84 years led by strong, thoughtful and committed groups of women. However, when we sit down at the end of the day and ask ourselves how far we have really come, can we honestly say it’s two and a half centuries worth of change? As Dorothy Allison wrote, Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is change when it happens cracks everything open.
Abraham Lincoln said the following, Most governments have been based, practically , on the denial of equal rights of men ... ours began by affirming those rights. They said, some men are too ignorant and vicious to share in government. Possibly so said we; and by your system you would always keep them ignorant and vicious. We proposed to give all a chance; and we expected the weak to grow stronger, the ignorant wiser, and all better and happier together.
In the framing of the Constitution did the founding fathers merely expect that everyone would know that these leaders of our great nation meant the word *men* to be inclusive of women, or was our government still of the notion that women were not to be treated as equals? Would they not want women to be wiser and stronger? Perhaps men thought they were to live better and happier, but then, what of the women? Did they mean for all but women to be given a chance? When Lincoln speaks of the denial for equal rights for men and then states that ours began by affirming those rights, does he intend to deny the import of the rights of that of a woman?
In 1776, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John, In the new code of laws, remember the ladies and do not put such limited power into the hands of the husbands. John Adams replied, I cannot but laugh. Depend upon this, we know better than to repeal our masculine system. This hardly speaks well of those who wrote the laws of the land.
To believe it is not degrading to not be considered as equals to men in the new millennium, where the beginning of the future supposedly lies, is a travesty. To know that every year for the past 34 years legislators have been asked for women to be equals and it has been voted against, humiliates and degrades not just women but also men.
So I must ask once again, how far have we come?
The first women’s agenda in Congress centered on nutritional programs for pregnant women and children. Educational and legals rights were next. Then the right for birth control, the right to work, the right to divorce, the right to serve on juries, the right to have the contribution of the housewives held valuable through alimony, the right to have credit in a woman’s name, and the law against domestic violence were always established by women whose concerns were ridiculed by men.
Mary Robinson’s contention was, In a society where the rights and potential of women are constrained, no man can be truly free. He may have power, but he will not have freedom.
Look at the first women’s agenda set before Congress and understand this, most of those rights are still not honored in the ways they should be for women and for their children. Today, the poverty and violence that affects women has never been so prevalent, the numbers increase instead of decrease with no end or real attempt at lowering the numbers in sight. We still don’t have equal pay some 86 years later, we don’t have universal daycare, an issue that was raised in the 19th century. We still have sex discrimination, sexual harassment, we don’t have the same chances as men of being promoted into management positions. We suffer and our children suffer, again, with no end in sight.
In July of 1998, the 150th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention was celebrated using the same words as the women who had originally attended the1848 Equal Rights Convention; We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men and women are created equal. The most controversial item in the Declaration of Sentiments was a call for women’s suffrage. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in defending it said, The right is ours. Have it we must. Use it we will.
Senator Hillary Clinton was right to chastise the 54 million women who didn’t vote in the 1996 presidential election. We as women have to honor the women who came before us and provided us with the right to vote. It is quite simply an outrage when a hard-fought battle is not invoked and used as fully as possible. We must, we have to use it as a legacy left to us and one that we must pass down to our daughters and granddaughters as their duty and freedom in this democracy we call the United States of America. Women owe it to ourselves, to our country, and to the memory of Stanton’s hard work to vote, the next time and the time after that.
That is also true for the 2000 and 2004 elections. Alice Paul said in 1848, when she brought the first ERA before Congress, We shall not be safe until the principle of equal rights is written into the framework of our government.
Unless we put into the Constitution the principle that equality of rights cannot be denied or abridged on account of gender, the political and judicial victories women have achieved with their blood, sweat and tears for the past two and a half centuries are vulnerable to reversal or erosion any time, now or in the future.
Marian Wright Edelman has spoken on this subject as follows, I would say to the men of this country, Remember your roots, your history, and the forebears’ shoulders on which you stand as you decide how you will vote for the Equal Rights Amendment.
As Hillary Clinton said when she spoke at the Beijing U.N. World Conference for Women, Human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights. Perhaps then all can understand the length, depth, breadth, and the height of a woman’s degradation that we still cannot stand up and say, we are equals. Dorothy Allison pointedly remarked, Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that to go on living we have to tell stories, that stories are the one sure way to touch the heart and change the world. It is imperative for all of us as a nation to change our story when it pertains to women and equality so that one day we need never again ask the question, how far have we come?
Women should no longer be made to choose whether they can educate, house and feed their children. Women deserve to get the same treatment, the same care as a man when we go to the hospital or emergency room. Women must know the care we get today is the result of studies done on women yesterday so we are secure there will be a tomorrow. Women must have health insurance for ourselves and our children.
Women must demand the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and to live with those ideals daily. Women must know that our children will be taken care of when we go to work. Women deserve to stand next to a man and get the same pay as that man. Women must insist that we are trained for a job that pays more than minimum wage so we can look forward to a prosperous future instead of struggling through today without a dream of advancing.
Women have the right to break the glass ceiling of today increasing our chances for management and CEO for tomorrow. Women must be secure knowing our children are in after school programs, safe universal daycare, and athletics that inspire and lift our youth up and out of the streets into a world of hope for the future, their future. Women must demand our children have clean water, clean air and a forest they can walk through.
Women must be secure our daughters will not be discriminated against, sexually harassed, or be the victims of domestic violence. Women must look to a time when our children are educated about HIV/AIDS so they make good decisions and have a full life. Women must push for embryonic stem cell research so that cures will be available for our children tomorrow that we don’t have today. Women muse be confident that every single child will have the chance of a quality education and the opportunity to go to the college of their choice. Women must show, by example, a world their sons and daughters can conquer tomorrow without distinctions made about their gender, race or religious backgrounds.
Women must be able to say to their children, to the generations that have come before us and to the generations that will come after us, that we are all equal, man, woman and child, in this great nation of ours. We must be able to tell our children there is the promise for change because we live in a democracy where your vote, every vote counts. The women of this country must leave our children with the legacy of the women who fought for equal rights for new generations to come, the women who gave those generations the right to vote, have not done so in vain but with the commitment to carry on so that our next generations can grab the torch and move forward with pride, dignity and the integrity to follow and pass on the chance for a better tomorrow. That is why the Equal Rights Amendment must become part of the Constitution of the United States of America.
Yesterday and today I am not an equal, but there’s always the possibility that one of my tomorrows I can stand up and loudly proclaim that I am, in every way, an equal. Dorothy Allison also wrote these words, Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that I would rather go naked than wear the coat the world has made for me. I was told the coat I wear is full of holes so I patched them up. I was told my coat would never protect me from the elements, so I moved to a warmer climate. I was told I’m not an equal so I exchanged my coat for a story, a story in which I live a long life filled with equality, a life where I stand naked before the world, and never think to ask, how far have we come.
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