Unbelievably, women still don’t have equal rights in the Constitution

by Jessica Neuwirth for The Los Angeles Times

The current wave of female rage started with the Women’s March on Washington: millions of women coming together and rising up around the country, even around the world.

Now it’s #MeToo — an explosion of pent-up rage after decades, even generations, of women putting up with sexual harassment from the men they work with or for.

But arguably the rage dates back to the beginning of the republic, when women were intentionally left out of the Constitution.

Abigail Adams is usually quoted as suggesting mildly to her hus­band, John Adams, “remember the ladies.” Actually, she wrote him a threatening letter: “Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could . . . we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”

Women finally got the vote in 1920, when the 19th Amendment was ratified — more than a century after the Constitution was written.

A few years later, in 1923, the Equal Rights Amendment was introduced in Congress to give women all the other rights in the Constitution. The amendment makes discrimination against women unconstitutional and prohibits legal distinction between the sexes when it comes to property, employment and a whole host of other things.

But almost a century later, the ERA is still unfinished business. That’s right: Women still don’t have constitutional equality…. [Read the entire article]

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