It’s 2023, and you may not believe this, but American women still do not have the basic constitutional protections that every man in America enjoys. This ridiculous and offensive injustice is even worse than it sounds. More than three years ago, the Equal Rights Amendment, which would right this grievous wrong, was ratified by Virginia. The Old Dominion was the 38th state to ratify the ERA, satisfying the constitutional threshold for adoption. And yet, because of an arbitrary deadline Congress placed on its adoption, and the callous inaction of all branches of the American government, the ERA has not yet been added to the Constitution as the 28th amendment.
On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on a joint resolution which would override that unnecessary deadline. While I strongly believe no congressional action is required — President Joe Biden simply needs to direct the nation’s archivist to publish the already-ratified ERA to make it part of the Constitution — this hearing is incredibly important in the effort to achieve basic constitutional equality for more than half of the American population.
I want my daughter, Bella, to grow up knowing she has the same rights as every man in this country.
It will once again highlight the importance of the ERA for all Americans and for the potential of our nation to live up to the first three words of our Constitution: “we the people.” Not we the men. We the people. In doing so, the United States would join the 85% of nations that guarantee equality or nondiscrimination on the basis of sex and/or gender in their own constitutions.
Since the earliest days of our nation, women have fought for inclusion in our founding document. Abigail Adams admonished her husband, John Adams, to “remember the ladies.” From Seneca Falls to suffragettes and Alice Paul, from Shirley Chisholm and Gloria Steinem to the inspiring young women, queer activists and allies of the new millennium, we have pleaded for centuries for a simple and powerful thing: equality under the law. The weight of that history alone demands the adoption of the ERA.
This isn’t just a national issue. It’s personal, to every single one of us. I want my daughter, Bella, to grow up knowing she has the same rights as every man in this country. And I want my son, Milo — and every boy in America — to know that too. They deserve a government that cannot treat them differently because of their gender.
If there is one word which defines the American identity, it’s freedom. We call our president the leader of the free world. We present ourselves to other nations as advocates for freedom. But how can we be a free people when our governing document does not prohibit discrimination against more than half of our population? The answer, of course, is that we cannot.
The framers failed us when they did not include women in the Constitution.
The lack of constitutional protections for anyone who is not a man is a blemish on the very idea of Americanism. As long as the Constitution allows gender-based discrimination, this country can never achieve the greatness to which it aspires.
Every single time the ERA comes up for discussion, some man asks the bad-faith question, “What rights do American men have that American women don’t?” That query doesn’t matter, because it misses the point of the ERA. There are, of course, many current gender-driven injustices in this country, including pay and promotion disparity, military sexual abuse and harassment, equal access to health care and so on. Many of these have been dramatically exposed by the huge economic burden of the Covid pandemic —which fell squarely on women.
But the Constitution is not simply about the present. It is about what we bring far into the future. It exists to protect us from the “what-if” scenarios. What if, someday, a rogue Congress tries to curtail women’s access to the workforce? (Or any gender’s — the ERA protects everyone equally.) What if a state does it? A city? Today, the Constitution won’t stop them—and across the country, governors are starting to deploy terrifying anti-woman bills, including those calling for girls and women to provide menstrual records to police or school officials.
The framers failed us when they did not include women in the Constitution. Congress failed us when it added the deadline on the passage of the ERA. This week, Congress and the president have the opportunity and the obligation to stop failing us. Will they seize the moment? Or will they let a ridiculous and unnecessary deadline continue to keep America from being a truly free nation? Those are the only options. I’d advise every elected official to choose wisely: Women vote in much higher numbers than men, and in our fight for basic equality, we will never give up.
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