Women Do Not Have Equal Rights

Women do not have the same legal rights as men in the United States of America!

We – the home of the brave, democracy’s virtual heart and soul, self-proclaimed moral leaders of the free world – have refused to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution. We have failed to provide a woman’s rights and legal equality.

Incredibly, most Americans mistakenly believe that men and women are equal under the law, that women already have equal rights under the Constitution. We tried before to ratify the E.R.A., but it never became a Constitutional reality. As recently as 2010, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia stated that the Constitution does not prohibit against sex discrimination.*

While that may be news to you, it is not news to Congress. The amendment has been proposed by progressives and defeated by conservatives for decades.

Do they think the E.R.A. is un-Constitutional? Do they think that giving women the right to vote in 1920 was all that’s necessary, or the Constitution implies their equal rights? Perhaps they think women are asking too much when they demand the same rights as men? Do they think that not ratifying the E.R.A. is somehow justifiable? Do they think?

Maybe they doubt that giving American women equal rights will make a difference to women around the world.

We have some interesting company in our non-signatory status regarding women’s human rights. Internationally, Women’s Rights is the main objective of CEDAW (the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women) adopted by the UN General Assembly, and described as an “international bill of rights for women.” The only developed countries in the United Nations that have not ratified CEDAW are Iran, Palau, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Tonga – and the United States of America!

It is outrageous. Women – not just in third world countries like the other non-signatories of CEDAW, but here at home – suffer and die at the hands of violent men, from poverty and hunger, from economic injustice, from lack of healthcare, sub-standard education, and discrimination. Watch the news. Women are affected every day: unequal pay for work; the sex scandal going on in the military – where rape is considered an occupational hazard for women!

It’s time we make equal rights for women a part of our Constitution – and ratify the E.R.A.

* http://eraeducationproject.com