E.R.A.
University Daily Kansan, July 1, 1982
THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT
Section 1: Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
Section 2: The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3: This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.
Equal rights require constitutional guarantee
By WENDY WARNER
Guest Columnist
Twenty minutes after the U.S. Senate passed the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972, an aide to the senator of Hawaii telephoned the state Legislature. Within five minutes, the ERA had passed the Hawaiian Senate and was before the House. Another five minutes and Hawaii became the first state to ratify the ERA. There were no dissenting votes.
THUS BEGAN a pattern that was common in the early days of the 72 ERA. Many state legislatures ratified it quickly, with little questioning. Floor debate was brief or nonexistent. What little opposition did occur was ineffectual. The ERA appeared to be destined to slip quietly into our time.
Then, late in 1973, some looked at this instrument of potential social change and began to feel scared and threatened. The momentum that had been carrying the ERA along like a pebble in a rushing wave stopped and began to roll in the opposite direction. The ERA had become a "bat" issue, and many legislators, not wanting to burn their political hands, tried to kill it. When the amendment did make it to the floor, it was easiest for legislators to shake their heads sympathetically, vote against the "women's" amendment and get on to "more important" issues.
Today, the 1972 ERA is dead. What will not die is the understanding of many people that it is still needed, that it makes sense and that people will clamp this if they will only listen. Pulling at some women's groups to push them against women's groups can put on push for an amendment. It will not slip from public view.
NOR SHOULD IT. The U.S. Constitution is remarkable for its declaration that all men are equal under the law. In time, that was rightly interpreted to include all men, not just white men. We women are still waiting for that equality to apply to us. Yet every day—in our homes, in our homes, in every aspect of our lives—we realize that we are not treated equally.
Discrimination touches women in many ways. Women are kept legally from certain jobs in 26 states. In some states, they receive longer sentences than m:n for the same crimes or are penalized for crimes in which men are usually not, such as prostitution. In four states, a woman cannot start a business unless she pays less money compared with men than they were five years ago. The ERA, in its very wording, would make such barriers and discrimination against women illegal.
OPONENTS OF THE ERA (ear it from many sides. We will all be the same if they pass, some say. But a look at the diversity of people in this country shows how far we must go before that would happen. Besides, being treated the same legally cannot cause us to become identical to one another. The ERA is generally upon only affect government conduct. This was ensured us in a 1968 Supreme Court ruling that recognized our constitutional right to privacy.
Others say that marriages and motherhood would be threatened. But such intimate bonds have always stayed firm out of caring, or at least custom, and not law. When such bonds do break,
under current law women rarely receive alimony, and they find it virtually impossible to collect child support if the father chooses not to pay it. And men suffer, for the child is seldom put in the father's care after a divorce. Under the ERA, individual circumstances would be noted. Rigid decisions would not be made merely on the basis of sex.
Women need extra protection in the job market, we are often told. But "protective" labor laws, which treat all women exactly the same by virtue of their femininity, are examples of blatant and callous stereotyping. The weight and over-time limits in such laws are so inconsistent from state to state, even from industry to industry within states, that it is obvious they serve no real protection—except to male workers who get the jobs women are not allowed to have.
SOME WHO OPPOSE the ERA say we have legislation that already does what the ERA promises to do, or we can easily pass more legislation and repeal bad legislation. But if we have legislation that works, why isn't it? The ERA argues that such legislation, that differential treatment is sometimes valid. The Court must thus decide whether differential treatment is valid in each case they take in their hands. With the ERA, the assumption would already be made that such treatment is not valid, except in cases that can only apply to one sex, such as women who are married to one sex, and that any breach of equal treatment constitutes discrimination, which must then be penalized.
Also, every piece of discriminatory legislation would have to be repealed separately if that were the route chosen to reach legal equality between different groups. A major amount of time, and there would be no guarantee of permanent success, because new discriminatory laws could be passed. The pendulum swings of public policy make that a frightening thought. Only a constitutional law would guard against this form of victimization.
Many fear the legislative and social upheaval that changes brought about by the ERA would cause. But that statement in itself shows how pervasive discrimination against women is. And the difficulty involved in making beneficial changes should never discourage us from doing so.
THE ERA WOULD not be a magic cure-all for sex discrimination. Society's sickness in that vein has too tight a hold to be pried away from us that easily. But passage of the amendment would mark our nation's intentions to work toward wiping out the sex discrimination that exists in our laws. Once firmly entrenched in the law of the land, the ERA could be a symbol that sex discrimination will escape neither notice nor punishment.
Surely, ERA proponents are at least a little angry, discouraged and confused. Some of us are bitter. Some are speeches with fury; there are no words, anyway, to properly describe our feelings of abandonment and loss. Why must we fight so hard for something that should be ours without question? But fight we must, and so we will. The fight is too important for us to rest. As we grieve for the death of one dream, we are preparing for the birth of another.
Actually, it's the same dream—we're just planning for a better ending the next time.
ERA's proponents deceive the public
By ERIC BRENDE Guest Columnist
THE ERA REPRESENTS perhaps the gossest deception ever to be almost pulled over on the American people. Its proponents, with the majority of Americans docilely concur, have hailed it as some kind of "giant step in women's rights." They have consistently failed to add, "It's not a conspiracy," but BACKWARD. Not surprisingly, Americans have been deprived of the corresponding insight.
The only significant effects the ERA would have for women would be to include them in the draft and to deprive them of the choice of taking part in various all-female institutions, such as Girl Secuts, sororities and women's colleges, which would have to be integrated under the ERA. Such "rights" haven't been enjoyed by women since the era of Cro-Magnon man.
The reason the ERA would do nothing to extend women's rights is simple. Contrary to popular misconception, the "e" in ERA only stands for "Equal," not "Extended," and women already enjoy equal rights with men. Can anyone deny this? Can anyone contest that women have the right to search, to learn about, to safe from illegal search and sequestration by their laxious bosses?
Even in employment, equal rights prevail. It is already illegal for employers to discriminate on the basis of sex.Equal pay for equal work is mandated by law in all 50 states.
AT THIS POINT, and as another part of the deception, ERA backers will point to the highly misleading statistic that, on the average, women earn only 59 cents for every dollar than men earn. They fail to mention, however, that this statistic says nothing about gender differences in the practices on the part of male employers, but only something about the work practices of female employees.
Women are eleven times more likely than men to leave their jobs, thus depriving themselves of seniority and its accompanying benefits. Women are much more inclined to choose low-paying non-physical labor than men are. There is then the simple fact that, on the whole, women are more likely to market as ladies as men have, also depriving them (temperancy) of the benefits of seniority.
ERA WILL DO NOW to change 59 cents on the dollar. Only time will; and, for those women who want to operate jackhammers, sex-change operations.
realm of the ridiculous or the unreasonable. This is precisely where the ERA comes in. The ERA would impose equality in those areas where, until now, legislators' prudence and common sense have kept them from doing it—often areas where the idea of "equal under the law" was so ludicrous, it never even occurred to them. Of course, I refer to Boy Scouts, fraternities and sororites and the armed services, and, because the full ramifications of the ERA are not yet known, possibly even public restrooms and locker rooms.
Are there any other areas where women's rights could still be made equal to men's? The answer is yes.
IRONICALLY, any anyone can plainly see, such an imposition of equality would actually render women a net loss of rights. By giving women the right access to Roy Scouts and fraternities, the need to claim them of the more important rights to take part in their activities and situations. By making rights uniformly equal in all areas, the ERA must necessarily take away from women the one special privilege they have enjoyed for over 200 years and indeed throughout history: exemption from military conscription.
All in all, either the ERA would roll back both men's and women's rights to a point of utopian unisex rigidity. Or it will roll back women's rights to the point where men's are.
ERA PROPONENTS may say, however, that if the ERA doesn't exactly extend women's rights, it will at least provide a "constitutional basis" for them. This is a half-fault. A constitutional basis must already exist; otherwise, the many laws that have explicitly outlined women's rights would have been declared unconstitutional.
The Constitution is a totally sex-neutral document. Nowhere in it does the word "man" appear except in a no-longer-operative section of the constitution, and in "person," "inhabitant," "citizen" and so forth.
Besides, if anti-discrimination laws were ever revoked, it would not be on the grounds that equal rights, which the constitution will always be construed to give women, don't exist, but rather, on the grounds that equal rights for women don't take precedence over an employee's right to decide who he wants to work for him. No rights are limitless.
How could the majority of the American people be taken in by such a blatant deception? Have we become a nation of imbeciles? Even if we had never known the true consequences of the amendment and would gladdy martyr themselves for it if given the slightest opportunity.
Yet the ERA is universally hailed as "necessary" and "liberating" for women's rights.
THE ANSWER IS, the only thing more obvious and compelling than the argument AGAINST the ERA is the spurious argument FOR it. It goes like this: "All the AERA says is Equation of sex. What's wrong with that?" For an answer, I refer to you all of the preceding paragraphs
The real blame, however, has to fail on the perpetrators of the deception, the leaders of the women's movement. From the beginning, they have known only too well the real consequences of their actions. In fact, almost all the facts I have used were taken STRAIGHT OUT OF THEIR WEIRD STUDY. This was the "Bsex Bias in the U.S. Code": A Report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights," published in 1977 and written by Ruth Ginsburg and Brenton Duggan, of the most widely quoted pro-ERA lawyers.
WITNESS THE FOLLOWING quotations taken from the study: "Until the combat exclusion for women is eliminated, women who choose to pursue a career in the military will continue to be held back by restrictions unrelated to their individual abilities" (p. 26). "Supporters of the equal rights principle firmly reject draft or court exemption for women . . . military assignments must be made on the basis of individual capacity rather than sex" (p. 37). "Equal rights principle looks at a world in which and therefore an equal role as full and equal partners." Preparation for such a world requires elimination of sex separation in all public institutions where education and training occur" (p. 101). "Replace college fraternity and sorority chanters with 'social societies'" (p. 169).
As you can see, for the hard-core leadership, the real purpose of the ERA is not to help women, extend their rights or do anything of the kind. It is to fit them into the unexist mold of their own topionism of society; where we don't have Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, just "Person Scouts"; where we don't have fraternities and sororities that are so nationalistic; or the Army is not the national defense, but to provide a means for women to demonstrate their "personhood."
1 SECRETLY I had hoped that the ERA would pass. Like the 10th amendment before it prohibitig alcohol, the ERA would have gone against human nature in a way so immediately apparent to everybody that its quick repeal would have been universally demanded, vindicating the adherents to common sense and discrediting the extremist promoters of a rose-colored illusion. As things stand, however, the deluders have emerged as stallwart martyrs to a lost cause. Too bad not more Americans know the loss cause was also a phony one.
Extremists impede society's progress
By JOE BARTOS Editorial Editor
TODAY, a century-long evolution of social progress has been disrupted. Three states short of the necessary three-fourths national majority, the drive to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment has ended agoniously close to its goal of providing nationwide protection against sexual discrimination.
Like the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence and the Emancipation Proclamation before it, a constitutionally mandated ERA would strike another blow in the human struggle against oppression by providing an authoritative statement of rights for both sexes. As it is the case with the Constitution, our reactionary times that leaves our system open to sexual discrimination throughout the land.
Although a hedgepodge of federal regulations exist that can be used to discourage discrimination, their implementation is at the discretion of federal bureaucrats, not in the hands of the judicial system, and unsympathetic administrations could easily block their implementation.
CLAIMS THAT THE ERA is unnecessary because of amendments already in the Constitution pale when placed in light of the death of successful sexual discrimination suits based on
these supposed constitutional guarantees, and when it is remembered that an added amendment was required to give women the right to despite this same alleged constitutional protections.
What this lack of effective measures against sexual discrimination means is that in the United States, men or women still can be denied jobs, education and the necessities of life simply because of their sex.
This legitimizing of sexual discrimination is unacceptable in a nation founded on the principles of freedom and equality. It is a crime against the millions of men and women who wish to protect their lives as equals, free of imposed social encounters that deny them integrity as individuals.
A CLEAR majority of Americans support the ERA and have supported it since the ratification effort began. The latest Harris survey shows 63 per cent of our citizens in favor of the amendment. This majority holds even in many of the states that have failed to ratify the ERA.
The obstruction of the will and the rights of the American people is a tragedy directed and produced by extremist elements within our society. Playing the leading role are the blatant sexists who use the ERA through a slew of misinformation, deception and shrewd political maneuvers. Their supporting cast is the conservative element in our country that sees the liberating effects of the ERA as a threat to their way of life—one that apparently requires discriminatory laws to ex-
BUT THE SHOW these two groups put on would have been comic without the impressive melodramas of a third group, surprisingly found within the women's movement itself. The public interest extremism has turned off the American public and lent credibility to many of the charges
and accusations of "pro-family" and other reac-tionary groups.
By smearing blood on the floors and walls of a state capital building during an ERA debate or by advocating lesbianism as the only alternative to a male-dominated society, members of the women's movement provided the missing crossroads to the anti-ERA effort from a farce to the tragedy.
Not only have the extremists lent support to the sexist powerplay, but they have taken away support for the ERA by groups who could have made a real difference in the ratification effort. Militant factions have infected the women's movement with an intolerance to traditional sexual roles, roles that they apparently feel should not be an option in coming up with a "fried" marriage law because has excluded from the push for ERA many traditional groups such as churches and the League of Women Volkers who could have and would helped to put the amendment over the top.
Real issues overlooked in emotional ERA debate
Understandably, living in this less-than-ideal world has caused members of the women's movement sincere anguish, and this is in turn the cause of many of their extreme actions. But if they really care about ending sexual discrimination, they should be meeting sessions and get on to the business of passing the next draft of a much-needed document, the Equal Rights Amendment.
AND FINALLY, the extreme elements of the women's movement have strayed from the tradition of social progress that spawned and nurtured it. For in their dogmatic assertions of a "sexually liberated" social code, they seek to impose a new set of standards and enforced oppressive constraints, which are the enemy of women's rights. They also pursue relationships with one another according to natural preferences rather than the dictates of imposed standards.
By PATRIC QUINN Columnist
The Equal Rights Amendment has been terminally ill for some time, and now that its demise is imminent it is fair to ask what effect that demise will have on American society. Such a question is difficult to answer in light of the propaganda produced by both sides of the debate. It is unlikely that June 30 will mark the institution of public beautification of recalcitrant housewives, just as it is unlikely that adoption of the ERA would have resulted in the final victory of the American family. Sadly enough, great issues did indeed hang in the balance during the battle over the ERA, neither side of the battle seemed to understand what those issues were.
FROM THE BEGINNING, theEqual Rights Amendment had less to do with the legalities of constitutional phrasing than with the political intensity of America's feminists. Most people feel that the framers of the Constitution very nearly the same thing. This has resulted in a widespread perception of the ratification ver-
as a sort of national referendum on the social value of feminism. It is difficult to conceive of a more trivial context for constitutional modification.
SIMPLY PUT, the Constitution is not in need of an Equal Rights Amendment. Since 1968, Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment has provided a non-gender-specific guarantee of equal protection under the law to all Americans. Can one only speculate as to why our nation finds it so difficult to accept the fact that sexist discrimination has been unconstitutional for 14 years.
POPULAR SUPPORT for the ERA is a product of the modern American tendency to view the federal judiciary as an activist instrument of social engineering. Ratification of the ERA would immediately bind the sex-discussion debate to the move that effectively excludes both Congress and the executive branch from the law-making process. This deplorable practice has already virtually de-
In fact, the only legitimate justification for ratification of the ERA would be a demonstrated constitutional impediment to equal protection under the law. The tremendous progress of the women's movement over the past two decades clearly indicates that no such impediment exist.
stroved any effective "balance of power" within our national government.
Under what circumstances a constitutional amendment might be appropriate is the real question at issue in the ERA controversy. Defent of the proposed amendment forces the women's movement out of the courts and into the halls of the nation's state legislatures, and the proper arena for law-making. Although it has been a long time that will accomplish the objectives of America's feminists without jeopardizing the integrity of the constitutional process.
The battle over the Equal Rights Amendment is a product of a great schism in our society. As in any such battle, critical long-term considerations have been obscured by the public's attention to this issue on both sides of the fight have monopolized the media, trading lucid arguments over the role of women in our society with fanatic real. These wing-muts have managed to ignore the legitimate constitutional aspects of the question by focusing on the content of the proposed amendment.
IN ACTUALITY it is almost impossible to argue with what the ERA says. The content of
the amendment is little more than legalistic papst, a meaningless bit of Fourth-of-July flummery impossible to take issue with. Legitimate opposition to the ERA is based not on its content, but on the possibility of unnecessarily incorporating that content into the body of the Constitution.
Public understanding of this point is essential, as numerous special interest groups initiate national lobbying efforts for other proposed amendments to the Constitution. The Senate ERA will probably have to be fought again over amendments dealing with deficit spending and abortion. Regardless of how appealing a constitutional amendment might seem, the critical role of the Senate or not the Constitution requires modification.
RUMOR HAS IT that Phyllis Schaffer is tossing an "Over the Rainbow" party to celebrate the death of the ERA, an act at least as tasteless as the recent pro-Era hunger strikes. Public understanding cannot benefit from these idiotic posturings, just as the Constitution cannot benefit from being passed in empty heat, without intelligent public discussion of its potential effects. If we must amend the Constitution, let us at least do so in a rational manner and for good reason.
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