By Patricia Nugent
Published in the Daily Gazette August 25, 2023
In 1972, President Nixon designated August 26 as Women’s Equality Day in commemoration of the 1920 adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment granting American women the right to vote. (Well, to be clear, some women in some states. Others had to wait decades longer.)
The token gesture of “celebrating” this day has continued each year with no political will to bring women’s rights into alignment with the rights of men.
It’s getting harder and harder to celebrate as we witness women’s rights being stripped away state-by-state throughout our nation.
State legislators can do that because women are afforded no legal protection and no rights under the U.S. Constitution.
In fact, they have no rights that cannot be reversed legislatively.
This has been true since the inception of our nation, when Abigail Adams begged her husband, John Adams, to “Remember the ladies.” He ignored her, as do many legislators today, to their own political peril.
In 1923, recognizing that voting itself was not enough to guarantee women equal footing in our nation, Alice Paul proposed a 24-word amendment to the Constitution that simply reads: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”
Parse that out: Equality of rights shall not be denied on account of sex!
Despite repeated attempts at passage for more than a century, it has yet to become law, which means that it is legal in the United States to discriminate against women.
Late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia can be viewed on YouTube proudly declaring this to be true.
The current court clearly holds the same position, as evidenced by rulings that further restrict women’s rights.
Lack of pay equity and bodily autonomy are just two of the social injustices that continue to hold women hostage.
The League of Women Voters’ mission to ensure a participatory democracy has continued for more than 100 years.
Although founded by the suffragists, we can no longer celebrate women getting the right to vote, especially since head-of-household-only voting legislation was proposed at a 2020 presidential convention.
Women deserve and demand equal rights as citizens of the United States.
The League urges Congress to pass Alice Paul’s ERA Amendment now and urges voters in New York state to pass the state equivalent in November 2024.
Until then, there is nothing to celebrate today.
Patricia Nugent is chair of the Women’s Rights Awareness Campaign for the League of Women Voters of Saratoga County. The column was submitted on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga and Schenectady counties.
March 9, 2023
Reprinted from Vox Populi
[T]here was only one thing I wanted to say about women not having rights and protections equal to white men in the United States of America: It feels bad.
When asked to write a blog post for our local League of Women Voters about the recent U.S. Senate hearing on the Equal Rights Amendment, I reported to my desk armed with the latest data on women’s status in this country and rolled up my sleeves. There are many arguments to be made as to why our nation must move forward to ensure women full protection under the U.S. Constitution. And I was ready to pound them out.
But when I sat down to write, I first had to acknowledge and honor the despair I often feel as an American woman. As that washed over me, there was only one thing I wanted to say about women not having rights and protections equal to white men in the United States of America: It feels bad.
It feels bad that we are the only industrialized nation that doesn’t have women’s equality built into its constitution.
It feels bad that the ERA was proposed more than 100 years ago and hasn’t yet been adopted.
It feels bad that women have no rights in this country that cannot be reversed legislatively.
It feels bad to hear late Justice Scalia on YouTube declaring that the Constitution “doesn’t say you have to discriminate against women but doesn’t say you can’t.”
It feels bad to read current arguments, the same tropes from the 1970s, as to why women need protection instead of liberty – especially when put forth by other women.
It feels bad to see women standing on the dais behind politicians blocking the ERA.
It feels bad to hear women’s voices answering the phones of politicians who voted against the ERA.
It feels bad that American Catholic bishops are issuing directives to parishioners to reject equal rights legislation.
It feels bad that it’s periodically necessary for Congress to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, which one political party consistently votes against.
It feels bad to see merch for sale on the internet advocating “Repeal the 19th.”
It feels bad that The Handmaid’s Tale now reads more like nonfiction than fiction.
It feels bad that the tokenism of an all-female flyover at the Super Bowl is considered progress.
If feels bad that many of my feminist friends are suffering from resistance fatigue.
It feels bad to be considered less than by my government.
It feels bad to wonder if I might be reciting Susan B. Anthony’s final words on my own deathbed: “To think, I have had more than 60 years of hard struggle for a little liberty, and then to die without it seems so cruel.”
What feels good is that this enumeration of what feels bad pisses me off enough that I must continue working to make it feel better. For all of us.
Oh…and welcome to Women’s History Month, which also feels bad.
Copyright 2023 Patricia Nugent
