"ERA - JUST ONE MORE STATE"

“ERA – JUST ONE MORE STATE!!!!”

            For baseball fans like me, ERA stands for “earned run average,” which used to be a pretty good measure of a pitcher’s ability.  It has been replaced (sort of) by more modern measurements, but it still remains a good one.  I’m thinking of that because Major League Baseball season starts this week, and though I’m not a fan of a particular team (I would be more of a Braves’ fan, if they would drop their racist name and “tomahawk chop”), I do enjoy the game.  Baseball at least has minor league teams in which the players get some of the money.  Many of us are now watching college basketball’s March Madness – none of those players get any of the billions made on the tournament.

            But, the spring has made me digress – the more important definition of “ERA” is Equal Rights Amendment, first introduced in Congress in 1921 by Alice Paul and others of the National Women’s Political Party.  The National Women’s Party still exists, and their headquarters is in the amazing Belmont-Paul National Women’s House in DC – go see it, if you have not already done so!

            The current version of the ERA reads like this: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex.”  This past week (March 22) was the 47^th anniversary of Congress and the Senate adopting the ERA as the proposed 27^th Amendment to the Constitution and sending it on to the states.  The first state to approve it was Hawaii, and in the early 1970’s it looked like it would pass the necessary 38 state legislatures.  The right-wing got fired up, however, because they correctly perceived that the ERA would permanently codify the fact that women should control their bodies.  The FGFBM (Forced Gestation and Forced Birth Movement) started a campaign of fear and repression and appealed to the male supremacy that is deeply embedded in our culture.  The movement to pass the ERA in the 1970’s stalled at 35 states, but many people continued to work on its passage.  Especially after the election of the misogynist Donald Trump as president, the movement has regained some momentum.  Two more states (Nevada 2017) and Illinois (2018) have approved the ERA as a constitutional amendment, so only one more state is needed to ratify it – yes, that’s right – JUST ONE MORE STATE.

            Some of the states that have ratified it have since rescinded their ratification, but that act will not likely stand up in court.  If you’re wondering if we still need the ERA, just remember “Brett Kavanaugh” and just remember that three white, male supremacist states from the pro-slavery South (my state of Georgia being one of them) have just adopted the “heartbeat” bill, which would effectively institute the FBFGM in these states.  There are 13 states left who have not ratified the ERA:  nine states in the former Confederacy, and these four outside the Confederacy:  Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Utah.   Tennessee and Texas legislatures have ratified the ERA, and these 9 pro-slavery states are still holding out:  Arkansas (my home state), Alabama, Florida, Georgia (my current state – it was introduced this year but got nowhere in the white male supremacist culture of the state legislature), Louisiana, Mississippi (my forebears’ home), North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. 

            Why all this detail?  So that all of us in these 13 states can work for one (or more) of these states to adopt the ERA.  It would be a fitting tribute for the 100^th anniversary of the passage of 19^th amendment, giving women the right to vote, in 2020.   The work towards the passage of the 19^th Amendment officially began in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, at the first national women’s convention to obtain the right to vote for women.  Seventy-two years later it became law, and only one person (Charlotte Woodward Pierce) who had attended the 1848 convention was still living at that time.  In last week’s blog, I talked about “intersectionality,” and I noted how women’s rights were always at the center of the discussion of intersectionality.  Nowhere is that seen more clearly than in the struggle for the ERA – its passage would not end the struggle, as we have seen with the 14^th Amendment, but at least fundamental, constitutional rights for women would finally be codified.  If you’re living in one of the 13 states named above, join me in getting to work on our state’s passing of the ERA – JUST ONE MORE STATE!