Happy Women's-everything!

By ERA Coalition

March 06, 2020

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The ERA Coalition works with more than 300 state, federal, and grassroots partners to advance the cause of women’s equality in the United States, primarily through adding the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution and supporting states’ ongoing efforts to ratify the ERA.

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Happy Women's History Month, Happy International Women's Day, Happy great progress in amending the Constitution. In 2020 already: the 38th state, a House vote to dissolve the time limit in the amendment's introduction. Cheers and carry on. We certainly will.

If you, like me, spent yesterday lamenting the exit of women in the 2020 Presidential race, consider that it is yet another reason for our work. The Equal Rights Amendment is fundamental to changing possibilities for girls and women in this country. We've tried everything else. It hasn't worked. Praises for the progress made, but we cannot say women experience equality, and projections say at the rate we're moving it may take another 100 years to get there.

If you are celebrating the conviction of a celebrity sex offender as a victory for the #MeToo movement and asking where that energy should go: we say, "vote like you've never voted before" for the ERA.

As I was reading and thinking about the smart, capable women who ran for President this year, I came across this report just released by the United Nations Development Programme and a headline "90% of Men and Women Globally Are Biased Against Women."

This new analysis reveals that, despite decades of progress closing the equality gap between men and women, close to 90 percent of men and women hold some sort of bias against women, providing new clues to the invisible barriers women face in achieving equality, and a potential path forward to shattering the Glass Ceiling.

Still, in 2020. In the USA, exclusion from the Constitution may have something to do with those "invisible barriers." But we know from ERA Coalition research that 94 % of Americans are ready for constitutional equality. And a recent poll found that "Most Americans Support the ERA.

You can read the full report here.

Everything happening in our society points to one option: put women in the Constitution.

UPDATES:

The Courts: The Coalition is working with the Attorneys General of Virginia, Illinois and Nevada on developing amicus briefs to support their suit in the District Court of DC to compel the Archivist to certify the ratification of the ERA and add it to the Constitution.

Federal: After the success in the House of dissolving the time limit, our focus is on the Senate, SJ Res 6, the bi-partisan bill sponsored by Senators Benjamin Cadin and Lisa Murkowski It has 48 Co-sponsors now, including 2 Republicans, Murkowski and Maine Senator Susan Collins. Co-founder, Co-President Jessica Neuwirth, DC Director, Director of Outreach Bettina Hager, and former Illinois Representative Republican Steve Andersson visited the offices of several Republican Senators this week.

Here are messages from House Judiciary Chair Nadler and Rep Jackie Speier, and 105 Representatives urging the Archivist to certify the ERA.

And check out our new campaign with our partner, the online "MeToo" website "Rotten Apples" which leads viewers to encourage the Senate to remove the time limit.

States: We continue to have calls bi-weekly with our Lead Organizations and advocates in the (now!) 12 un-ratified states. The last session's guest speaker was Senator Cardin's Chief Counsel Bill Van Horne discussing next steps for a Senate vote on SJ Res 6.

This Sunday, March 8th, lead organization VA Ratify ERA will host a huge parade and celebration through Richmond to honor the work of getting to #38 and International Women's Day. Go, if you can!

And if you are home and want to do something, please participate in in the social media campaign designed by our young lead organization, GenerationRatify...we'll be tweeting with you!