response -POD-02

yes. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is necessary. After this week’s reading, I learned a great deal about the ERA and what effects it would have. The ERA has three sections to it. Section 1: Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Section 2: The congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. And section 3: This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratifications. This amendment was proposed in 1923 by suffragist leader Alice Paul and was passed by Congress for ratifications. However, only 35 states ratified it and 38 were needed. In 2017, Nevada ratified it so only needs two more states to make it a Constitutional amendment. This process should be allowed to continue under the current status and the process should not have to begin all over again. If a time limit is put on it, many remaining states can just not vote either way and allow the time limit to expire so they don't have to have a record of them voting for or against it.

This amendment is important in order to ensure equality for women under the Constitution. The Constitution mentions “men/man” and male pronouns but does not include women. The simple fact that in order for women to be able to vote had to be an amendment is discerning. Many argue that the 14thAmendment takes care of these needs because women have not historically been subjected to discrimination to the same extent as male persons of color. However, even the Supreme Court has determined that gender is not a suspect class like race and ethnicity when it comes to laws and governmental actions (Rand, 2017). And critics say that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 can be used “in theory” to secure woman’s civil rights. But that is not always guaranteed, and according to Title VII, it puts the onus on the woman to show in court that she was fired because of her gender, which could be hard to prove in court. This could make it very intimidating for woman to come forward with cases of discrimination. This Amendment would take some of the pressure off and make it easier for woman to bring forward.

A few of the arguments against letting this amendment pass are; women would have to register for the draft, child support would go away, social security benefits will not be available for wives and widows, and it increases the government’s power. (Schlafly, 2007) To me, this just seems to be another example of other people deciding what is best for all women and trying to protect them. A majority of Americans agree that all men and women should have equal rights under the constitution but a majority of them mistakenly think they are already covered by the constitution.

"Home." ERA: Home. Accessed March 15, 2018. http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/.

Rand, Jennifer. "Why Women Need The ERA (Now More Than Ever)." The Huffington Post. August 31, 2017. Accessed March 15, 2018. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/equal-means-equal-why-women-need-the-era-now-more_us_5992149ee4b0caa1687a62c2.

Schlafly, Phyllis. "'Equal Rights' for Women: Wrong Then, Wrong Now." Los Angeles Times. April 08, 2007. Accessed March 15, 2018. http://www.latimes.com/la-op-schafly8apr08-story.html.

Although the ERA, Equal Rights Amendment, was first proposed in the 1920s in a movement led by Alice Paul (Francis 2017), the amendment has yet to pass, failing several states shy of the three-fourths needed for ratification (Turley 2007). The Equal Rights Amendment is not necessary in forbidding policies that allow for gender differences. As of now, Constitutional protections of women can be interpreted from the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause (United States Constitution, am. 14). Some argue that this is not enough to make gender fall into a higher classification of scrutiny involving laws that discriminate. Currently, laws involving race are usually “inherently suspect” by the Court, but laws involving gender are usually deemed “intermediate” or “reasonably suspect” (Lapidus, Martin and Luthra 2009, 4). This confusion regarding application of the Equal Protection Clause for gender cases would possibly be eliminated if the ERA were passed (Lapidus, Martin and Luthra 2009, 8). However, as opposed to racial differences, equality cannot mean sameness. Laws rewritten for sex-neutrality (Francis 2017, 10) are not always in the best interest of women. In other words, women cannot be treated the exact same as men because women are inherently different biologically. Instead, a focus should be placed on fair treatment of women.

While there are many biological differences between men and women, none affects equality considerations more than pregnancy and nursing (Strauss 2018). Obviously, a woman must carry the entire burden of child development while in the womb alone. Days missed for doctor appoints or related illness, and the subsequent necessary time to convalesce after childbirth can only be assumed by the mother. Afterward, if the mother chooses to nurse her child as most doctors recommend, she will need to have additional special considerations in order to accommodate this, such as extended or modified child visitation rights and/or breaks during work hours.  Another area of concern pertains to military service. Certain biological processes make for challenges in long combat duty situations, and drafting women into military service along with men would be counterproductive to the survival of our nation. An Equal Rights Amendment, granting complete and total equal application of the law, would mean that these types of logical and necessary considerations would be challenged, and rightly so in that case, because they would be in keeping in line with the Constitution.

For now, the primary means of protecting women are federal laws, such as the Civil Rights Act, federal agencies, such as the EEOC, and federal court cases, such as Reed v. Reed. These gains have come about because of the increased awareness brought to women’s issues through grassroots movements, interest group and government studies, amicus curiae briefs filed by lobbying efforts, and the increase in women voting and women in public office. In fact, in the past few federal elections, women have voted at a higher rate than men (Edwards, Howell and Wattenberg 2018, 268). While changes have been slow, these media have been successful in fostering incredible advances for women in workplaces, educational opportunities and society in general. While these developments have been productive, there is still considerable change that needs to take place for women to be treated more fairly.

In fact, women are still discriminated against in the United States in many ways. Some examples are institutional discriminations regarding wages in jobs traditionally held by women. For example, women earn 83% of what men earn, equating to women having to work an additional month and a half to catch up to men’s earnings (Brown and Patten 2017). (Interestingly, younger women are earning 90% of younger men’s earnings, which demonstrates a positive trend in shrinking the wage gap) (Brown and Patten 2017). Additionally, the U.S. joins only one other country—Papua New Guinea—in being the only nations in the world that do not offer paid pregnancy leave (Strauss 2018). In fact, when out on maternity leave, I had to pay my employer in order to keep my health insurance and retirement up to date. Another example is that women continue to deal with sexual harassment and sexual violence at alarming rates (Senthilingam 2017).  Progress in these and other areas are most definitely within the realm of the U.S. government. Heavier punishments and penalties for violations against women, better educational programming and assistance, increased EEOC regulations, and a broad range of federal laws could help create a nation in which women were treated more fairly--with their biological and physical differences taken into consideration (and without passage of a Constitutional amendment).

As to the subject of ERA ratification, there is legal precedence for the process to be able to pick up as it left off, but this would require an extension granted by Congress since the ERA time extensions they have already granted have run out (Francis 2017). Those in favor of “picking up” with ratification argue that the Twenty-Seventh Amendment took more than 200 years to be ratified (Turley 2007). If states were allowed more than two centuries to ratify, why not the ERA? However, the subject of that amendment was congressional pay raises, and did not have the large scope of jurisprudence and social implications that the ERA would have. This leads to the most compelling argument for accepting the expiration of the two Congressional time limits, which would call for “starting over” with ratification. There has been a great deal of progress made within the past hundred years since the ERA was first proposed, and certainly the current society should have the ability to review, debate and discuss such an important change to the Constitution. Either way, it seems that the topic will most likely fall into the hands of Congress to decide, as the Courts recognized the power of Congress to determine time limitations in Dillon v. Gloss (1921) (Kalfus 1999, 439) and Coleman v. Miller (1939) (Mansbridge 2003, 371). In these cases, the Court deemed giving an amendment a time limit a “nonjusticiable political question” (Kalfus 1999, 442)—meaning the Court defers to policymakers to interpret its legality. On the other hand, according to legal scholar Mason Kalfus, one should not rule out the possibility that the High Court would review the matter based on more “contemporary jurisprudence” (1999, 456). If a state would bring suit regarding Congressional authority of limits, the Supreme Court might end up deciding the fate of the Equal Rights Amendment.

While the text of the Equal Rights Amendment is simple enough at face value, the issues that would rise from the term “equal” may in some ways be damaging to women. This is because the Courts will be locked into treating both genders the same, instead of the more desired effect of “fair” treatment of women. After all, men and women are not biologically equal; in that light, therefore, a more appropriate amendment might be a “Fair Treatment of Women Amendment.” This amendment would perhaps be much less controversial, and more helpful to the challenges women face.

Bibliography

Brown, Anna, and Eileen Patten. "The narrowing, but persistent, gender gap in pay." Pew Research Center. April 3, 2017. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/03/gender-pay-gap-facts/.

Edwards, George C., Martin G. Howell, and Martin P. Wattenberg. Government in America: People, Politics and Policy. New York: Pearson, 2018.

Francis, Roberta W. THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS. May 2017. http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/misc/faq.pdf.

Kalfus, Mason. "Why Time Limits on the Ratification of Constitutional Amendments Violate Article V." The University of Chicago Law Review Vol. 66. 1999. https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5001&context=uclrev.

Lapidus, Lenora M., Emily J. Martin, and Namita Luthra. The Rights of Women: The Authoritative ACLU Guide to Women's Rights. New York: NYU Press, 2009. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qfp67

Mansbridge, Jane. "What Ever Happened to the ERA?" <copyitem>In Women and the US Constitution: History, Interpretation and Practice, by Sibyl Schwarzenbach, & Patricia Smith, 365-378. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy2.apus.edu/lib/apus/reader.action?ppg=384&docID=909235&tm=1521229212520

Senthilingam, Meera. "Sexual harassment: How it stands around the globe." CNN. November 29, 2017. https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/25/health/sexual-harassment-violence-abuse-global-levels/index.html.

Strauss, Elissa. "Fired for being pregnant: Another kind of discrimination women face at work." CNN. February 1, 2018. https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/01/health/fired-pregnant-parenting-strauss/index.html.

Turley, Jonathan. "Equal Rights Redux: The Three-State Solution." Los Angeles Times Article Collections. April 8, 2007. http://articles.latimes.com/print/2007/apr/08/opinion/op-turley8 .

United States Constitution. Amendment 14; Section II. Ratified July 9, 1868.

Response three-pod-02

America has a constitutional history of excluding Women from politics, and a history of denigrating minorities in her founding.  Are we a Republic, or are we not?  The definition I read is a political order whose head of state is not a monarch, or a political order in which the supreme power is held by the citizens, who are entitled to vote for elected officers, and the representatives responsible for them. 

For many years, half of the people of this nation voted to elect their representatives while the disadvantaged half had their representatives elected for them. The Constitution is not a perfect document.  It was written by Men, and for Men alike.  It does not mention Women because they were considered the property of Men.  Caucasian American Men were the only people considered citizens, and the only humans that could legally own property in the new land.  Caucasian American Women did not have the right to own property, nor to vote, or to use birth control, they were considered property just like African Americans.  It wasn’t until 1920 that Caucasian American Women were granted the right to vote with the passage of the nineteenth amendment.  It took much longer for Minority Women to win that right.  Our Republic could be called an aristocracy, maybe an aristocracy of wealth, or of select ethnicities, where only a few have the privilege of citizenship. Whenever a Republic denotes a qualification that applies equally (or should) to all citizens, so that when the Republic says, time to vote, the citizen must be a certain age, or gender, or they must reside in that district to vote, and they should vote by a certain time of year, then there should not be barriers to cast a ballot.  If the Republic says a citizen should either be born or naturalized, then there should be no discrimination in its definitions of citizenship.  The authors of the constitution were educated in an Anglo-Saxon male-defined system of justice based on eighteenth century concepts of liberty, justice, and equality.  A major reason we have our bill of rights in the first place, a redress for historical injustices against Women, against minorities, and a true escape from a monarchal system of government, to a Republican system of government.  Workplace rights for Women were very differently than they are today. World Wars I (1914-1918), and II (1939-1945) provided Caucasian American Women the opportunity to prove that they were more than child bearers, when they replaced Men in factory jobs vacated because of the wars. Even then, they were still paid less in wages, all the while performing the identical duties of the ones they replaced. In the struggle for equal rights, some States went so far as to enact laws regulating the hours Women were permitted to work.  When the Wars were over, Women lost their jobs. 

Caucasian American Women were not given the same rights as their Men because they were considered intellectually inferior during that period of constitutional history, not to mention African & Native American Women.  Women have suffered institutionalized discrimination like other minority groups in America in both the private and public sectors of society.  Freedom and power to one half of society, and submission and slavery to the other.  The federal government recognized the need to integrate Women, and minorities into the workforce, especially after dedicated services during World Wars I & II.  The government also feared African American communities for their lack of economic opportunities during and after the Wars.  Employment discrimination against Women in the work place did not become a focus of federal legislation and policy until the 1960’s and 1970’s.  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 reflect the evolving changes to our constitution as it pertains to Equal Rights.  Some scholars believe that the two acts mention above should suffice for the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, and it survival.  Some argue that the Equal Rights Amendment should be ratified regardless of contemporaneous consensus.  I would argue that a contemporaneous consensus time limit defines cooperative federalism between congressional houses, and state legislatures.

Article V of the United States Constitution states: “The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments to the Constitution.”  Jonathan Turley, professor of law at George Washington University wrote an article about the “The Three-State Solution,” stating, “the most obvious problem with the three-state strategy is that it is presumptively unconstitutional.  The Supreme Court held in 1921 that there must be “contemporaneous consensus” and the votes of state legislatures must be part of “succeeding steps in a single endeavor,” and not spread out over decades with only 35 of the 38 required state legislatures approving the amendment.”  Some States that did not ratify the federal amendment passed an Equal Rights Amendment into their States Constitutions.  The original Equal Rights Amendment of 1923 stated: “Men and Women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.  It was not approved until 1972, and with a seven-year limitation on the ratification process (Turley, J., 2007).  Yes, I am for Equal Rights but a Republic in the truest sense should not have to amend it constitution, but as we all are cognitively aware, to error is human, and the struggle for equality of justice continues.  We should follow Article V of the constitution to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in a contemporaneous time frame so that all may have a voice in the amending of the constitution.   

References:

Eastland, Terry, Supreme Confusion, Weekly Standard, vol. 8, no. 42 (July 2003)

Fletcher, George F., Unsound Constitution, The New Republic 26, 215 (1997): 14-19

Hurley, Jennifer A., Women’s Rights, Great Speeches In History, 2002, Greenhaven Press, Inc., ISBN 0-7377-0772-0

Turley, Jonathan, Equal Rights Redux:  The Three-State Solution, The Los Angles Times, April I, 2007, http://articles.latimes.com/print/2007/apr/08/opinion

America has a constitutional history of excluding Women from politics, and a history of denigrating minorities in her founding.  Are we a Republic, or are we not?  The definition I read is a political order whose head of state is not a monarch, or a political order in which the supreme power is held by the citizens, who are entitled to vote for elected officers, and the representatives responsible for them. 

For many years, half of the people of this nation voted to elect their representatives while the disadvantaged half had their representatives elected for them. The Constitution is not a perfect document.  It was written by Men, and for Men alike.  It does not mention Women because they were considered the property of Men.  Caucasian American Men were the only people considered citizens, and the only humans that could legally own property in the new land.  Caucasian American Women did not have the right to own property, nor to vote, or to use birth control, they were considered property just like African Americans.  It wasn’t until 1920 that Caucasian American Women were granted the right to vote with the passage of the nineteenth amendment.  It took much longer for Minority Women to win that right.  Our Republic could be called an aristocracy, maybe an aristocracy of wealth, or of select ethnicities, where only a few have the privilege of citizenship. Whenever a Republic denotes a qualification that applies equally (or should) to all citizens, so that when the Republic says, time to vote, the citizen must be a certain age, or gender, or they must reside in that district to vote, and they should vote by a certain time of year, then there should not be barriers to cast a ballot.  If the Republic says a citizen should either be born or naturalized, then there should be no discrimination in its definitions of citizenship.  The authors of the constitution were educated in an Anglo-Saxon male-defined system of justice based on eighteenth century concepts of liberty, justice, and equality.  A major reason we have our bill of rights in the first place, a redress for historical injustices against Women, against minorities, and a true escape from a monarchal system of government, to a Republican system of government.  Workplace rights for Women were very differently than they are today. World Wars I (1914-1918), and II (1939-1945) provided Caucasian American Women the opportunity to prove that they were more than child bearers, when they replaced Men in factory jobs vacated because of the wars. Even then, they were still paid less in wages, all the while performing the identical duties of the ones they replaced. In the struggle for equal rights, some States went so far as to enact laws regulating the hours Women were permitted to work.  When the Wars were over, Women lost their jobs. 

Caucasian American Women were not given the same rights as their Men because they were considered intellectually inferior during that period of constitutional history, not to mention African & Native American Women.  Women have suffered institutionalized discrimination like other minority groups in America in both the private and public sectors of society.  Freedom and power to one half of society, and submission and slavery to the other.  The federal government recognized the need to integrate Women, and minorities into the workforce, especially after dedicated services during World Wars I & II.  The government also feared African American communities for their lack of economic opportunities during and after the Wars.  Employment discrimination against Women in the work place did not become a focus of federal legislation and policy until the 1960’s and 1970’s.  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 reflect the evolving changes to our constitution as it pertains to Equal Rights.  Some scholars believe that the two acts mention above should suffice for the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, and it survival.  Some argue that the Equal Rights Amendment should be ratified regardless of contemporaneous consensus.  I would argue that a contemporaneous consensus time limit defines cooperative federalism between congressional houses, and state legislatures.

Article V of the United States Constitution states: “The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments to the Constitution.”  Jonathan Turley, professor of law at George Washington University wrote an article about the “The Three-State Solution,” stating, “the most obvious problem with the three-state strategy is that it is presumptively unconstitutional.  The Supreme Court held in 1921 that there must be “contemporaneous consensus” and the votes of state legislatures must be part of “succeeding steps in a single endeavor,” and not spread out over decades with only 35 of the 38 required state legislatures approving the amendment.”  Some States that did not ratify the federal amendment passed an Equal Rights Amendment into their States Constitutions.  The original Equal Rights Amendment of 1923 stated: “Men and Women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.  It was not approved until 1972, and with a seven-year limitation on the ratification process (Turley, J., 2007).  Yes, I am for Equal Rights but a Republic in the truest sense should not have to amend it constitution, but as we all are cognitively aware, to error is human, and the struggle for equality of justice continues.  We should follow Article V of the constitution to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in a contemporaneous time frame so that all may have a voice in the amending of the constitution.   

References:

Eastland, Terry, Supreme Confusion, Weekly Standard, vol. 8, no. 42 (July 2003)

Fletcher, George F., Unsound Constitution, The New Republic 26, 215 (1997): 14-19

Hurley, Jennifer A., Women’s Rights, Great Speeches In History, 2002, Greenhaven Press, Inc., ISBN 0-7377-0772-0

Turley, Jonathan, Equal Rights Redux:  The Three-State Solution, The Los Angles Times, April I, 2007, http://articles.latimes.com/print/2007/apr/08/opinion