Transcripts For CSPAN3 Equal Rights Amendment 20170121

Our constitution. We will look at why others have not worked. And of course the equal rights amendment was one of those that. Ed the test heard 1921, thetten in equal rights amendment was until 1972, when it was passed. It failed to achieve full ratification. As part of a series of program and cements comments, the National Archive created a National Conversation about equal rights at the National Archive in new york. [applause] located at the alexander monument in new york city. A series of panels which discuss rights, advocacy and action. Is required, and is available for the National Archive foundation. Now onto tonights program. It is my pleasure to introduce the executive director of the the National Womens program. Please join me in welcoming her. Good evening. It is wonderful to be here tonight. Lose realized there was 11,000 that had not passed. Was at the belmont hall. D to that. Getting use when president obama stopped by on april 12, he designated it a national monument. [applause] we became the 400th National Park site. We still have a lot of work to do. Forward, the National Park service will have a very robust partnership. That will be in place in the next couple of months, they will continue to do a lot of interpretation. Thee was also going to be National Womens party staff, we own and control the womens National Womens collection. We will continue to work with researchers in the library. We hope to welcome you all at any time. Year, 2016, is not only a tale of the National Park service, it is also the National Womens party. Way, it islay that the way it worked out. Almost 100 years ago, women met in chicago, and began to talk about organizing the National Womens party. Founded with the single issue of platform, they organized franchise women in disenfranchised states. We all know suffrage was one in 1920, but today we are here to talk about what happened after suffrage. By the summer 1920 three, alice paul had written the original equal rights amendment, and it had already introduced the first time i took congress. And wp lobby to see the equal rights amendment introduced, and continued to fight for the passage and ratification for more than 70 years. Our speakers tonight will share their thoughts on the long and often disputed campaign for the equal rights amendment. Before i introduce our speakers, i want to thank Susan Clifton and the rest of the staff of the National Archives. They have been a longstanding partner of ours, and we are excited to be here as part of their exhibit, amending america. Let me introduce our esteemed panelists. The president and ceo of the National Congress of black women incorporated. A professor of history at the university of maryland. The chair of history at Illinois State university. And the director of programs at the Alice Paul Institute. Please help me welcome them to the stage. [applause] thank you all for being here tonight. This is going to be a fantastic conversation. Over the last few weeks as we have been planning this event, phone conversations. I know that each of the esteemed panelists brings something very impressive to this particular program. I think we will start off with a couple of general remarks from each of you, and then i have some questions, and im hoping the conversation will evolve from there, and we can go back and forth. You are all experts in your field. I know youd all be very gregarious. I am hoping it is a good conversation. I am delighted to be here tonight. The equal rights amendment is alice pauls dream. She wanted women to have the right to vote, and she saw that happen in 1920. But one thing she did not get to see happen was her e. R. A. , which she had worked for as soon as the women got to write the right to vote. She said theres nothing complicated about ordinary equality. With men do with their rights and what women do is up to them as long as they have them. That is why we are gathered here today. We do carry on that vision where i work at the Alice Paul Institute at alice pauls home in mount laurel, new jersey, not too far out of philadelphia. We carry on with the history program, and the ultimate emphasis is on the concept of ordinary equality. I think its alice paul were here today, she would stop the panel where it is, and say, everyone go out and work for the e. R. A. Im glad we are here talking about it, and continuing the discussion of the equal rights amendment, and her ultimate vision of the concept of ordinary equality. Thank you. Page amazing. Dr. Kyle. Dr. Kyle i dont think everyone would agree with alice paul. One of the things i find interesting about the equal rights amendment is that it is so contested. That it has been so debated. It has been since inception in 1923. It ultimately did not get ratified. 38 states were needed for the ratification. 35 were needed. Five of those i dont think you use the word reneged. Rescinded. They decided it wasnt for their state. The 14th amendment they believed provided the necessary rights for all of the individuals. As we go on in the program tonight, i have some quotes from one of the most adamant of the antifeminists of the 1970s, who is still very active today. [laughter] he is so fun to talk about. Maybe i will just kind of throw some out, some pearls of wisdom throughout the evening. I want us to think about this other organization. I just want to read a quote, to spark a little bit of thought, that is perhaps a way to think about the equal rights amendment a little bit differently than alice paul did. There is an organization. In the womens studies quarterly in 2015, they argued the e. R. A. , endorses equal treatment as same treatment, and was conceived at a time when families, and the people inhabiting them, were rendered in particular terms. Terms that have since drastically changed and shifted. Not only the institutions like marriage or the work base, our very bodies. Im still quoting from them. What does it mean to support women, when the very category of women is contested . I want us to think about what it means for the e. R. A. To have been crafted in a time when the heterosexual family was the only family that was considered inappropriate appropriate. And when woman had a very distinct definition. We are far more fluid. Not everybody accepts that fluidity. I think that is one of the reasons why it is contested. I will throw out some stuff later. Page thank you. Im delighted to be here and glad to talk about the e. R. A. What i am most interested in as a historian and activist now, is the Progressive Opposition to the e. R. A. My students are always shocked to learn when alice paul penned the e. R. A. , the overwhelming majority of feminist, progressive feminists, opposed the e. R. A. Because it would undermine protective legislation for women. That is what i would like to talk about later. Page excellent. Dr. Williams. Dr. Williams when alice publishing about this, we were thinking about being recognized as human beings. One of the things in our community we always say is that we support the equal rights amendment. Our organization is one of the lead organizations, but we hope our systems will recognize it is not the only issue in our community that we have to be concerned about. We have criminal justice issues, poverty issues, Voter Suppression issues. We have so many. Our time is so divided. We would hope that our sisters are there for us also as we are on the issues like the equal rights amendment. Page excellent. Let me start with you, kris. Can you tell us a little more about the original equal rights amendment, and alices intention when she put it out . What do you think she got the reaction of it was going to be . Kris i think when we got the right to vote, alice is already thinking about the next step. She had started doing legal research. She was working with great legal minds of the time. There were several drafts, at least 35 drafts of an amendment that she will make much simpler in its form, and called the Lucretia Mott amendment. That is the first version she introduces officially in 1923. She did not tell her party, though, that she had already made the decision to work on this. It was decided behind the scenes. In 1923, there is this great gathering at seneca falls, new york. She said to her party members, what is the next step for women . At that point, she has already decided what she was going to do. She had already come up with basic dress for the equal rights amendment. But i think she thought women would be very receptive to it, and i think she thought that the United States would be receptive to it, in some way. Particularly, i think originally she might have felt that women that work in the labor forces would be receptive to it. Many of them were suffragists. I think it probably suppressor initially that women in the labor forces and women in work and unions immediately opposed the equal rights amendment, because it would eliminate those protective pieces of legislation. I think her intent was good, and she thought it would be received very well, but right away, right in 1921, she realizes that she has a key opponent in florence kelly, who is working for labor unions specifically for women. And once protective legislation for women to help them in the workplace, to make sure they are not being overworked or underpaid. That is going to be one of the initial fights within the early part of the movement. Page ok. You talked about the difference between protective legislation versus blanket legislation. Maybe you could give us a little more of an explanation of both of those. Kris sure. It is hard to explain. The protective legislation, the idea behind it was that women would have special restrictions in the workplace that would help them. For example, they would a lot of protective legislation would fight for an eight hour work day, which was the key goal. Four restrictions on how much you would have to list lift, or the right to have bathroom breaks. Not to work at night. There was protective legislation to protect women from working at night. These are very helpful to women workers. However, alice paul is advocating for a blanket amendment, which would be at the federal level. The women that wanted those special protections were afraid if you pass a federal amendment, it would wipe out protective legislation. That is what would happen. There was that fight, women need special protections in the workforce versus a blanket set of legislations that says womens are that women are entitled to the same rights in the constitution. Alices argument to that right away is, at first she tried to be accommodated accommodating. That lasted around a year. Then, she said no such protections. Because she said if you give women such protections, you give an employee or way to discriminate against them. Theres a lot to accommodate women, you become a burden to the boss, and you are the first to get the boot. There are more arguments she has, but that is the gist of the argument. Dr. Williams i think today it would be hard to see how labor unions would be against the equal rights amendment. Things have changed in many ways, but the circumstances of women have changed. So many women are the breadwinners in their family. That is true in the black community. We not only have to bring home the bacon, but we have to bring it home, fry it, keep the electricity and gas on, and then washed the dishes afterwards, and still have work to do. I would think today that would not be an excuse. I work for labor unions, and i believe most of them today, while they have had negative images in the past, today they are truly working so we have a quality. I would dare say we wouldnt find unions that would be opposed to the e. R. A. Today. Page page they change their opinions in the 1970s. The amendment, the overwhelming majority of women, as well as progressive allies in the middle class, opposed the e. R. A. Precisely because protective legislation like minimum wage, safety laws, that were passed only for women, would be undermined. Dr. Muncy you probably know this, but the early 20th century, the Supreme Court made it unconstitutional to pass that protective labor legislation for men, but it did let through some legislation for women. The way that much of the labor and you movement and progressive allies thought in the early going with that the protective labor laws for women were an opening wage, and once women had those protections, they could eventually be extended to men. Which in some ways it is exactly what happened during the new deal. In the early going, the vast majority of people that we would consider feminist thoughts the e. R. A. Would hurt more than it would help. Historians are pretty clear it would have. But the 1930s changed that with the fair labor standards act, in 1938. We have labor the minimum wage passed. It turns out that we still operate under the law of the act at the federal level. That is not a maximum law that for bids mandatory overtime. That law allows employers to require overtime, they just have to pay time and a half for it. For women who have children to care for, and who are primarily responsible for children, that law does not do then nearly as much good as it did men in the 1930s and 1940s and 1950s. If your child would be per put on the curb by the daycare provider or school at 6 00, it doesnt matter how much you are employer is paying you, you cant stay. You have to get out in time to get your child. That kind of hours law didnt operate in the way that a lot of women needed it to, and so there were state laws that helped them out. One of the classics is the michigan law in the 1940s. If you heard this, you would cry. It was a 54 hours law. After 54 hours a week, nine hours a day, six days a week, employees could not require mandatory overtime of women workers after that 54 hours. That was the kind of protective legislation that remained in place in the 50s and 60s. A lot of women workers depended on that in order to be able to do their jobs and get home in time to take care of their children and fry the bacon. Those kinds of protective laws were cherished by a lot of women workers, and their allies and families, through the early 1960s. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964, title vii of the Civil Rights Act banned employers from discriminating against women as well as anyone on the basis of race in the workplace. In 1969, the elc determined that title vii actually disallowed protective labor legislation. After that, the labor unions pretty much dropped their opposition to the e. R. A. , if they didnt outright support it. Dr. Williams im glad you mentioned the Civil Rights Movement. It was the Civil Rights Movement that helped to gain a lot of the laws we have today, when we look at women. They didnt just a pipe to black women, or with men not just black men. There is also writes for the lgbt community, the handicapped, people with disabilities. The Civil Rights Movement had a lot of impact on what we have today, and continues to have. That is why i would like to see white women and white men work more with civil rights groups, because we got the ball rolling. Now we are moving on. We have other problems with Voter Suppression and other things. We would like to have more people working with us to pick up that load we have to work on every day, which is not just womens rights. Im really proud to be one of the lead organizations and chief spokespersons for the equal rights amendment, but i need some help. [laughter] page absolutely. Dr. Ciani but according to phyllis. [laughter] heres a quote. Out of all the people who lived, the american moment thats women is the most privileged. We have the most rights and rewards, and the fewest duties. [laughter] she Still Believes that. She is still on the radio, have you heard her lately . Page but when we spoke earlier today, we were talking about the fact that that comes from a distinct place of privilege. It is only because of her privileged place. One of the things we have intimated that have not been clear about dr. Ciani one of the things we have intimated, but have not been cleared out, is that the equal rights amendment in 1923, 1964, and 1972, and when it died in 1982, was primarily a movement of white and middleclass women, both on the pro and against sides. It was a movement that was really generated by women who had Resources Available to them, and resources of time, resources of money, resources also of being connected to other politicians, whether that be local, state, or federal. One of the arguments about losing the e. R. A. In the 1970s is that the proforces stayed centralized in washington dc, which now and e. R. A. America, are one of the most important of the time. But the antie. R. A. Forces went out into the local and state levels, and really gathered forces. Their ministers, their pastors, their state legislators, mayors, most of whom were men. They really made the argument to these individuals that their state and their locale would not benefit from an equal rights amendment, and that there had been a lot of scholars and historians who have made the argument about that local state level. As well as most of the states that did not go forward with the amendment were Southern States, and they were also democratically connected states. The state of illinois was one of the most infamous states. I live there, so i can still testify, we are still in fitness, we still dont have a state budget. We are the only state in the union that doesnt have a budget yet. Mayor daley at the time got his chicago machine going. He was very angry at women who were involved, who were playing his politics against him. He argued that this guy in the box, he was mad at the Democratic Convention leadership. He wanted it. Women in illinois back the other. He said, if you are going to do that, i will do this. So illinois did not go forward with it. There is a lot of different angles. It is not just the race component. There are a lot of different elements to it. I do think that, in what we were talking about earlier, you have to think about it. Im a historian, so this is how i think. Historical context is very important. What was written in the 1920s remains the same in the 1970s, and it didnt work. Some people would argue that that language still doesnt work. Page i think one of the things that it makes so clear, that the same word means something entirely different at different times, and context confers meeting. Dr. Muncy historians believe you can tell it anything means, because it is context that gives anything real meaning. One way to see then this case is that in the 1930s and 40s, and the 1920s, and through the 1950s, the e. R. A. Was seen as a probusiness measure. The people who supported it the first party to support the e. R. A. Was the Republican Party in 1940. They saw it as a probusiness measure, because it would undermine protective labor legislation, and lifted restrictions off of them players, allowing them to exploit their workers to their hearts content. It was seen as an antilabor, probusiness measure in the 1930s and 1940s and after. Of course, it would come to mean Something Different in the context of the 1960s and 1970s. One of the things that changed part of the context was absolutely the Civil Rights Movement and apostle passage of the Civil Rights Act. Another thing that changed is that women workers had been used to and largely accepted such that regarded segregated labor markets. In the industries in which women dominated like in the Garment Industry, the labor unions and Garment Industry where the last ones to drop their opposition to e. R. A. Protective labor legislation really helped women who were not in competition with men for jobs. If you are in a position, but you are only going to compete with other women, any protective labor legislation that goes only to women will not hurt you. It will only help you. If you are in a position where you want to compete with a man for a job, then you dont want any restrictions on you, because you want to be able to say, i can do anything he can do. In that case, protective legislation is more likely to seem like a harm. One of the things that is changing, one of the places it is most obvious in the late 1940s, is in the Auto Industry. Michigan again. In michigan, there were not too many women in the Auto Industry, but maybe 10 of the uaw. They were in segregated jobs. They made less money, but they made a decent living compared to other women, thanks to unionization. But they began to think they would never get in their female dominated jobs in the industry, they would never get wages equal to the guys in the Auto Industry if they didnt just get out of those female dominated jobs and compete with guys. That began to percolate through the uaw, in the late 1940s and 1950s. The women in the uaw were among the first in the Labor Movement to come to support e. R. A. , and decide to protective labor legislation was not for them. Women in the Garment Industry held out. The amount emitted clothing workers did not drop their position to e. R. A. Until 1974. That is really late. The context is what let all the difference. As those diminish, especially in the 1950s and 1960s and after, the e. R. A. Looks better. Dr. Williams i think the average person would say, how things have teams change. A time when republicans were supporting the equal rights amendment. [laughter] compared to what we have to work with today. One of the advantages today is that there are so many enlightened men. I bet there is no man and his audience, are maybe one, who would say im opposed to the equal rights amendment. Im not talking about i would just like the men and audience did turn to somebody and say, shes not talking about me. [laughter] i think it is an advantage now, particularly with men who are married. It seems to me that men who are married would want their wives to work, and would want them to have equal pay. Think of how much that increases the family wealth, and the whole burden is not on youtube by the new card for the daughter who is graduating from high school the burden is not on you to buy the new car for the daughter who is graduating from high school, or the son who is going to military, or whatever. I think it is something really special to have an opportunity to increase the family fund, and that is what the equal rights amendment would do. It would just allow us to get away from that, what is it, 78 to the dollar . Even less for black women, and latino women, it may only be in the 40s. I think it is great for increasing the wealth and the family. I grew up in the south. To me, all white people were rich. [laughter] that is an idea i still have today sometimes. I am finding out it is not really true. There are families who are not black, not latino, who also need the extra help, need to have women and their families able to make as much as the men make. Men, if you are opposed to the equal rights amendment, raise your hand. You might want to leave at this point. [laughter] we have one. I wish you well. The young woman sitting beside him. We know whats going to happen tonight. [laughter] page dr. Ciani, what are you go ahead and jump into the opposition and how that was framed at a specific time, and that it really did take hold, and here we are today. Dr. Ciani i think that the opposition was really adamant about the positive nature of what they saw as a patriarchal umbrella, and that women and children were protected by this patriarchy. This is coming in a time in the 1960s and 1970s, when we dont have a lot of recognition and acknowledgment about Domestic Violence. We dont have a lot of acknowledgment and acceptance of criminal behaviors that are happening in the homes. We dont have an understanding of sexual assaults. Theres a lot of secrets, still, that are held within family homes. So, the opposition to the e. R. A. Is painting the house sold as a Perfect Place the household as a Perfect Place, as a place that is a positive haven. The opposition uses the word haven a lot to describe the homes. They saw, and painted the proe. R. A. People as antipeople, so they said that people who were in favor of the eagle rights amendment were antifamily best equal rights amendment were antifamily, antichildren, antihome, antimarriage. They really used the rhetoric of this negativity that was perceived in the larger general public, and that general rhetoric that was negative was attached to a particular group of people. The stereotypes of the feminist in the 1960s was someone, and im smiling because we continue to hear this on the daily news cycle, someone who is shrill, someone who is bold, someone who doesnt take no for an answer. Someone who doesnt like men, someone who is this, someone who is that. People like Phyllis Schlafly really pushed that negative message. If i can go to her words again, this is another good quote from her. She says it like nobody else can. [laughter] she says, early on in 1972 she says early on in 1972, it is time to set it straight, the claim that american women are unfairly treated and downtrodden are is not true. The truth is that american women never had it so good. Why should we lower ourselves to equal rights, one we already have the status of special privilege . She argues that based on the judeochristian heritage, based on that heterosexuality that i talked about at the beginning of the hour, and she uses christian tradition a lot. What is her phrase . It is such a good one. [laughter] is a christian age of chivalry. She is really masterful at rhetoric. She argues that this is a little bit interesting for me to wrap my head around but she says, our judeochristian civilization has developed a line custom, that since women must they are the physical consequences of the sex act, men must be required to bear the other consequences, and pay in other ways. But shes arguing because women are the bearer of children and go through children and childbirth and the labor of that, is that men have to work for their wives. But it is based on the judeochristian understanding of marriage, it is based on a world where Birth Control is still a very uncomfortable subject for people. She also was very adamant about feminism, Antiabortion Movement and the abortion movement, so she used the Antiabortion Movement to her advantage, and talked about women involved with the e. R. A. As baby killers. She is very, very i would call bold and strident in her words, in her use of language, but she does it in a very calm tone. And the way she writes is also very calm. People didnt see her as angry. They saw her as illustrating the perfect wife. And that won her the e. R. A. In 1977. Page let me switch to you. Alice paul wrote the original amendment, worked on it for the rest of her life, passed away in 1977. Can you give us any thoughts on alice and what she was thinking as far as the opposition to the equal Rights Movement to the equal rights amendment, by the time the 1960s and even early 1970s came around . What were her thoughts . Kris we spent a moment ago about context, and that this amendment she had helped to write and authored in the early 1920s was very different from what she intended to happen, and different from what would indeed have been in the 1960s and 1970s. One of the things that is very interesting, i just got done reading a pamphlet produced by the National Womens party in the 1970s, you can tell alice paul is a heavy influence. She talks about all the social fears. She says the opposition will play on social fears. She said things that would never have come up in the 1920s, that we are now talking about. That is a very powerful way to campaign, and play on social fears. Her opinion in the 1920s was that, and i think at the end of her life as well, if you got the federal amended for the equality, the social things would work themselves out. By the height of the e. R. A. And antie. R. A. Movement, we had all of these social fears become predominant above the e. R. A. She is afraid of that. She is also this is interesting because here he is proe. R. A. , but she is not sure how to deal with what she called the womens libbers. To the public and newspapers she says, yay, you young women are going to take the mantle. Behind closed doors she wants to separate her hardy from the womens liberation her party from the womens liberation movement, because she felt maybe they are too radical, and they have so many initiatives that they want to pursue, and i would get tied into the equal rights amendment. The opposition is already doing that, so she wants to separate it. This is a woman who is in her 80s and early 90s, and we consider her radical, but maybe she is not so radical, coming up to a head with these new women who were radical, according to her, and really talking about these social issues. I think she wanted to disassociate her and her amendment from in a way. She was happy that they took up the amendment, but im not sure if she knew how quite a feel as all these issues were coming up. She has arguments for each of the issues, but i dont know what is going through her had personally at some point. Page it is fascinating, because alice paul formed the National Womens party with other people, and at that point they were the young generation. Is where the rabblerousers, people who were radical themselves. It was more the older suffrage parties that were really thinking of these people as picketing the white house, this is atrocious, they should not do this. It was alice and her contemporaries who were radical. Ive built i really like to take about alices time and everything she had done politically, and how that eventually flipped, and alice and the rest of the National Womens party were now the older generation, looking at the Younger Generation saying, wow, those tactics are a little too radical. It is a fascinating look but when you only get when you have Something Like the equal rights amendment that has the long lifespan. We can trace it from generation to generation. Dr. Williams and i think we face the same thing when we talk about civil rights. Many of the young people say, you old people. Of course, they are not talking about me. [laughter] im chronologically advanced, but im not old. But i think young people forget that when dr. Martin luther king, and when others were working in the Civil Rights Movement, they were young people, too. Its just that as you go along, you change what is most urgently important to you. In people in my age group, it is a matter of preserving what several someone else struggled to gain. Many young people are trying to get new rights we never thought would be possible. Page it is fascinating. You are both history professors. Maybe we could talk a little bit about what students today think about the Civil Rights Movement the equal. One of the biggest misconceptions is that people are generally shocked, because they think the equal rights amendment is law, and we are living safely under the equal rights amendment, and that is indeed not the case. Sometimes it is shocking for them to hear about it, but we always tell of that. That the second thing, they are shocked about the fact it was written in the 1920s, not the 1960s. The 1960s to them is ancient times. [laughter] kyle, you were saying earlier about the age of the students. Dr. Ciani the new undergrad class is born in 1998. [laughter] it is 1998 this year. Dr. Muncy i started teaching in the 1980s. When i first went into the classroom, students knew that the e. R. A. Did not die until 1982ish. So you could talk about the e. R. A. Very shortly after that, by the early 1990s, you walked in the classroom and Say Something about e. R. A. , it was like you were talking about laundry detergent. [laughter] it was now a not in memory. It was something you had to teach as history, not current events, and not as a part of collective memory. I think they dont know much about it now. But i would like to say that in the last few years, students have much more readily coming into my classroom at least come into my classroom as feminists. They are shocked to learn anyone who would call themselves a feminist with someone they could relate to at all or was a halfway decent human being. Now, young women are coming into the classroom identifying as feminist before they get there. It is a huge change. Theres a lot of Energy Around feminism and womens issues. Not in the e. R. A. Particularly, but i would say it is the primary issue for women right now, there are plenty of other issues that are probably more important to more women immediately, then passing the e. R. A. Things like raising the minimum wage, parental paid leave, and voter rights, those are more important than the e. R. A. Right now is. I would not disagree with their priorities in that way, but it was a remarkable moment. I remember in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when it meant absolutely nothing, that kids had not heard of it. Dr. Williams i think what happens today is many of the womens organizations pay more attention to young women, and we try to teach them about the thing that impacted their lives, and how they got to be where they are. I know that now, my organization, the National Congress of black women, all of us have young women who are interns who do real things, not just filing. [laughter] they do research, write articles, they read. They have a better opportunity to know these things. Dr. Ciani and being in the National Archives, filing is important. [laughter] we want to keep filing. But i would agree with dr. Muncy, and that i think there is a change. You mentioned young women, and i will add to that, young men as well. I think people in College Classes now it is expensive to go to college. It is more expensive now than it was in the 1980s. If you are going, you are really investing in your education, and you want to be part of the solution, for the most part. We see that a lot. Im at Illinois State. We see that on the college campus. We have a very diverse campus. We have a lot of students who are very engaged, and a wide range of activism. They tend not to just be in flame, which is our feminist organization, but they are also in pride, young republicans. That is an interesting domination. People who are in pride and an interesting combination. People who are in pride and young republicans. They are not pigeonholing themselves like we used to do to students, and they are really standing up. Im very proud to be doing what i do, and working with students. But having said that, they are incredibly naive to how the world works. And you should be, i suppose, at that age. But one of the things that makes me very uncomfortable about that statement is that i dont think it is their fault. I think we are not teaching them at the middle school and High School Level history the way that we used to. I can also say that with some sort of authority, because we have a History Education program. We are the best in the nation, we train the most teachers in the country. It is very difficult for us to repair some of the damage of the endurance ignorance they are bringing to us. We have been talking about Historical Context here it i ask my students, how far did you get in your u. S. History class . Maybe they know about world war ii. And you know what they know about world war ii . They kind of know what the holocaust is. They have never heard of japanese interment. And they know who rosie the riveter is, a cartoon character. What we are teaching in our high school and middle schools is not appropriate. It is not training them to really deal with the world. And they can vote. For me, it is critical. I want them to understand how to vote, how to make those decisions. Dr. Williams im glad you mentioned high school and young men. Young men play an important part in how women are treated in this country and around the world. We welcome the help of young men. Im pleased as we go around campuses and high schools and colleges, we see young men are taking the lead in being supportive of the equal rights amendment, so i am proud of them and i think we need to encourage them. After all, many of them have sisters, they have a mother, someday they are going to have daughters. I would hope they would want equality of opportunity for their daughters and sisters. Kris i teach a gender studies course at my college, and every year i have more men joining the course. It is great. I wanted to point out that social media i think is, you may love it or hate it, but i think for students, is one of the things that connects them and makes them feel it hard of a Community Like part of a community. It makes them learn about the issues. They may not be studying the issues, but they are connected to them. I think that helps in a way. It can hinder, but like my students say, i know about this issue from some kind of social media. Im impressed by that, because they did not learned in school, and they do not let watch the news, but they can pick up information quickly. We are trying to score ways we can use that to spread the message of equal rights amendment and other legislation that would affect specifically women. Page we have a couple of minutes left before we would turn it over to audience questions. Let me ask one closing question of the panelists. Why do you think some or even many of the feminist activists today might not make the e. R. A. Their top priority . We talked about that a little bit. May be give to our three sentences about why you think they really dont. Dr. Williams i will start. I think what of the reasons is that there are so many issues that there that they have to be concerned about. In our community, for example, we place a lot of challenging situations just over this past year, when we had seen young black women being stopped for routine traffic stops, and wind up dead when she is in custody. Shes not the only one. We have had several others to think about. We have not always heard the outcry from the Larger Community about that issue. Whose friend was being slammed across the room a young girl whose friend was being slammed across the room, and she was charged just for speaking up. And in texas, when the Police Officer took the young woman in a baiting suit and did a body slam with her. Those are all things in our community we have to think about, and we dont always hear the outcry from the Larger Community. We have to think about that, and fair wages, what have you. You will see us on picket lines all over the place. My friend left on me, because i used to keep picket signs in the back of my car. [laughter] if i see because i believe in, i will ask, what are you picketing for . Let me go to my car. [laughter] we have to be activists. We have to see other peoples issues as the same issues we had. Maybe not the same subject, but the point is we can get more people to support our issue when we support their issue. We are all human, they are all human issues. If we want to be for human rights, we have to speak up for all human beings. That is why i never hesitate. I have slept out in the park, in the snow with the latinos, with native americans, i have gone to london and every place, for people who had a problem with British Petroleum not paying poor people. I see every one of those issues as connected to me, and i want to make a difference. Dont always have the money to give money, but i stand for it. I would encourage people to know that there is only something you can do to make a difference in the life of somebody else. It may be small, but it makes a difference. Page absolutely. I want to hear from the rest of the panelists, but i want to let everyone know there are microphones on either side, so you can start lining up. We can go down the line. Dr. Muncy i think that there are a lot of issues, and i said this earlier, that are more important to more women immediately than the equal rights in and it would be. Raising the minimum wage would be really crucial. I think paid parental leave is crucial. I think restoring Voting Rights is crucial. It is crucial to women, families, and all of us. And the immediate payoff of those is more obvious than the equal rights amendment, which doesnt seem in any immediate sense, to be urgent. Dr. Ciani i would agree with my colleagues here. I would also add to that, it is the militaryindustrial complex in which we live, and the immigration issues, that we are either dealing with or ignoring, and issues that touch us on a global basis. It is something that in the 1970s was sort of ignored. One of the things that the antie. R. A. People really emphasized with that if women had an e. R. A. , women would have to go into the military. We have since passed that. Women do participate in armed conflict, in almost not exactly equal ways, but somewhat of an equal manner. But i think we are dealing with things like ptsd in ways we have to deal with those issues, in ways that people ignored them earlier. We have to deal with health care. We have to deal with medical attention. Our infrastructure is failing. I sound so negative. [laughter] but there is so much going on. We have so many needs right now. Im not sure that the equal rights amendment is forefront in peoples minds. Kris i work with 48 teenaged girls through the alice paul and two world advisory council. Every one of those girls has no idea what the e. R. A. Is, and that it never passed. For them, it is a brandnew concept, but as soon as they learn it they are excited and charged. If you want new activists for the e. R. A. , you have to tell them about it. [laughter] if they dont know, it is ignorance, but not chosen ignorance. They get very Little International relations as well. But when they learn about it, they are charged, they are passionate. I think that is perhaps the next message. Havent experienced a lot of discrimination yet, and that is the other half of the coin. But i dont want them to. I want them to not have to experience it. But for them, it is just a matter of an educational experience. Page thank you all very much. We have people who are queued up for questions. We can make it easy and we will start here and then go back and forth. When we discuss womens suffrage, we discussed the u. S. Visavis other country countries. We have to discuss how other countries deal with the e. R. A. Im not sure if that is part of your purview, but how does the rest of the world think of equal rights. Page a great question. Dr. Williams one of the things we can do is look at where did we invade next . Michael moores next movie. There are some countries ahead of us on womens rights. And then on the other side with they are not, some of us have helped legally to write laws for other nations. We dont always assume we are ahead of everyone else in the world. Kris there are a lot of countries ahead of us. My students say every year, we are going to move to sweden. They passed legislation, half of their government has to be women. They did that and the 1970s, i believe. Now, they are seeing the effects of that, and the fruits of that labor. And they have child care, and health care, and all of these great things. I think all the things people like alice paul were originally fighting for. We are one of six nations that has not passed sida cedaw. The United States stands out in a strange way. We have not passed the convention on the elimination of discrimination against women. 126 other nations have, and we are one of six. Dr. Williams and several other nations have had women president s already, and we have not. Not yet. Dr. Ciani one of the things at the museum, we work closely with the state department and other organizations that Bring International groups through the museum. We bring them through, we tell them the story, give them a tour, and we said after for a few minutes, and let them ask. You have american women sitting here, ask us whatever you would like. We may not be the experts, but we can tell you from a personal level what we think. Some of the questions we get are absolutely astounding. We have had women from 17 or 18 Different Countries come through in the last 18 months, and the women who come from muslim countries are often the most unyielding. They say, you dont have an equal rights amendment, why are you running a museum . You should be picketing. [laughter] and we will say, thank you. We are lucky in america that we have the opportunity to preserve this story to make sure that our students, and our children get the Background Information and understand this, and we are lucky to have lots of other women who are activists, and who are actively working on that. It is not necessarily the answer they wanted to hear, but it is lets go right over here. You can see by my cane, i am little older. Some of these people, im glad to see young faces in the audience. When i first became the n. O. W. President in Northern Virginia, my phone number, my home phone number was put in the phone directory talk about an ancient idea as Northern Virginia n. O. W. In that first year i ended up with over 500 calls to my number by battered women and raped women. I had guys with shotguns on my front porch, quite willing to shoot me so they could perpetrate further violence on their women. And while phyllis was portraying the home as a haven, i was dealing with the bleeding bodies and the other women. When this happened, the only place we would shelter women was crisis house in alexandria, and they would not take children. What really violated women would leave her children behind . We also started Court Watching because we found that judges in the Southern States i can remember one woman coming in who was deaf as a result of the violence and being beaten around the head. And a sitting judge said there, well, honey, do you deserve it . And the violence continued. The home still is not a haven. I think that we have to think about the core rights of survival. Do women have the right to thrive . How do we come to a place where we face no violence and no discrimination . I as a quaker tend to belief that alice paul and not off in terms of her ultimate goal. The thing generation after generation we have different tactics and different motivations. I think that desire to be equal, to have the Glass Ceiling vanish, i think women all along the way have seen that as something they wanted. At least as i read my quaker sources, i think that was true. Of course, alice paul grew up among friends. I think that also makes a difference. Page it is. And i think that goes to what dr. Williams was saying, that we all must be diligent, with family and friends, and find ways to make our communities better. Dr. Williams we also have Vice President joe biden to thank for the violence against women act, that is a good start. But all of us need to be more vigilant. If you look at five women on the stage, at least somebody in this group has been has had Domestic Violence, whether against a son, or daughter, or a spouse. We need to have more attention to this issue. I meet women all the time that you would never think just from looking at them that they were abused women. Dr. Ciani i think one of the paradoxes of the equal rights Amendment Movement was that at a time when the e. R. A. Was being rescinded and failing, was the time when women activists like yourself were recognizing that the personal is political, and we are really starting to take on the issue in your own homes. You were not waiting for governmental intervention, but you were doing it yourself. I think history has shown us that across the states, Domestic Violence shelters were being established in many different ways in the 1970s and in the 1980s. They didnt start at that time, but they really expanded during that time. The sources show us that back in the colonial era, there were women who were taking in other women. I think the feminist movement of the 1960s and the 1970s really did a service to women who were not being heard in a public setting. I think that is important. Thank you for raising that. It is a really important issue. Page it absolutely is. Lets go right over here. The equal rights amendment, i came in a couple of minutes late, so i dont know if anybody said it, but there are not all the issues you raise as prominent and important that could be dealt with under the equal rights amendment. But as a lawyer, i would say if we had an equal rights amendment, it would be a powerful legal tool to deal with at least some of the issues raised. For example, fair pay. Why do we push minimum wage . Well, we push it for men and women, but in fact, many more women than men are at that level. Many more issues in the workplace talking about protective legislation said, we need to have bathroom breaks. That is still an issue today. Pregnant women do not get bathroom breaks in many jobs, and crazy hours, and so forth. If there were an equal rights amendment, i think it would be a powerful tool for many of the issues we deal with. You mentioned the military. At least my recollection from the late 1970s and 1980s is in addition to the home is a haven and that major theme that phyllis talks about, two of the issues i recall mentioned again and again is that women would have to be drafted and women would have to be in combat. The third thing was we would all have to use the same bathroom. Which of course in my house, that is true. [laughter] at any rate, these issues dont go away. I think in fact, more comments on that, but it seems to me if there really were a push for the e. R. A. , and what it were to correct, it really could be seen as an important tool for women and for men, really. Page absolutely. Kris i think alice paul wrote so many drafts of the e. R. A. The final one she actually changes in 1943 is the one we know today. She intentionally kept it vague. I think with that idea that it could be used from a lot of different angles in court. Is the correct term strict scrutiny . In the court system. That was her goal. Keeping it vague intentionally was her goal. Page definitely. Right over here. First of all, i have to tell you a story about alice paul and Phyllis Schlafly. Phyllis made a speech four years ago in berkeley, invited to talk about feminism versus conservatism. She finished her speech, walked around the podium, and fell off the stage and broke her hip. I always say alice paul was there and pushed her, because she was tired of it. [laughter] and the second thing is that we are working on the e. R. A. , if you dont know it, in virginia. We have passed it five times in the senate. We cant get it through the house. It is being worked on in illinois, nevada, florida, North Carolina, and we are pushing very hard. Five states said they rescinded, but the Supreme Court said there is no apparatus in the constitution to let you do that, you have to start all over again. I noticed in your picture, you have pictures of people who worked on this, and the lady that just spoke was one of the original in washington, d. C. To richmond. Why arent we having a story about all these people . Two years ago, we had people talking about the e. R. A. , and one professor said, it is actually dead. It is amazing to me. We need to have a program to tell the stories in order to get these people to write their books and talk about them. Dr. Williams just recently, there is a book, equal means equal. Lopez from california have a movie by the same name. In fact, they will be in town at the u. S. Capitol. You can go online to the e. R. A. Coalition and find out more details about it. Some of us go around the country i have been to Wake Forest University and others, and we do tell the stories. Not enough yet, but we are working on it. We will have a meeting tuesday with the coalition. I would bring it up. Stories are very powerful when you can hear from someone. You are all at universities. Virginia n. O. W. Has a history project. We have been making a list of women who are important to the e. R. A. , and interviewing them, and we get the tapes to the smithsonian. You need to be doing that too with your graduate students. Getting them out there. These women are dying before we can even get to them. Dr. Ciani we are doing that at Illinois State. Nothing is happening in state legislation in illinois. It is at a standstill. If you are hoping for the e. R. A. To go forward, i dont know, alice, work the magic. Nothing is happening in the state of illinois. We need more women in the legislature. Dr. Ciani i think that a lot of universities have excellent oral programs. Those of us who do work with graduate students and do have masters programs, we really push oral history, and we push i will talk about my institution but we do a lot with local histories. Our former director of women and gender studies was very active in the e. R. A. , and went toe to toe with phyllis in springfield. We had her stories, we had her collection. I think one of the things that is really important about public history and oral history especially is that you get these smaller stories, and you weave the smaller stories together, and you get the national picture. I absolutely agree with you that we need the stories, and i think they are happening. They really are. Page right over here. Hello. As you mentioned briefly before just recently about the draft, this is something i have become very interested in, especially since it is relevant right now. It was on discussion on the hill. Maybe if you could talk more about that and where it fits in, especially today. It is something i have not really encountered in my research on the feminist movements today as well. Kris i know alice paul and the National Womens party in the 1970s, womens organizations had gotten together to talk about it. I think the consensus at that point was that women should be eligible for the draft, and that legally, both men and women could be called for a draft at any point. Alice paul personally felt that with a volunteer army, which would start in the 1970s, that there would not be a need for the draft anymore. She is kind of right, right now. Knock on wood. She said, by the way, women have always been in the army. They have always been there. But not necessarily recognized for it. Im not sure how she would feel about what is going on today, but at the core of it, she would say women should be drafted, not that she would want them to be drafted, but that legally she would see it, if you want true equality, then this is one of the products of equality. Do you guys want to add to that . Dr. Muncy maybe somebody here knows whats going on with this. I saw a little blurb that suggested that the authorization bill would require that 18yearold women would register. Help us. Dr. Muncy so it is to prevent it. Right. Page dr. Williams, do you encounter this when you are out speaking and when your organization is out speaking . Dr. Williams i think the audiences to which i speak are often already ready for the equal rights amendment. I dont find any opposition at all. They are just hungry for more information, so they know how to explain the equal rights amendment to their friends and families. I had one woman in North Carolina recently who raised the question about her husbandband objecting to her coming out to the meeting that we were having, and she wanted to know what was the solution to that. He was obviously an older man well, a chronologically advanced man. [laughter] dr. Williams he was in his 80s. He strongly objected. She asked what did we think she could do. I suggested she get a divorce. [laughter] dr. Williams and she came up to us afterwards and said, im thinking of doing just that. [laughter] dr. Ciani just to talk about the draft a little bit, i think one of the things that is a Common Thread that weaved through from the 1920s to the present is that there are a lot of men and women, but women especially, who are involved in peace activism. Women strike for peace, women striking around world war i. There are so Many Organizations that are engaged in the activism of peace. Global peace, local peace. Right . I think that the draft is something that would be very contentious of both men and women and transgendered people. I think all people i dont know that we would be able to get a draft through in this climate, but i dont know that they thought they would get a draft through before either. You mentioned social media. I think there are so many different immediate ways to find out about activism that i dont know that a draft would fly. I really dont. Maybe im an optimist. Im a peace activist, so that is my bias. I dont believe in a draft, but im a peace activist. Kris and if i could add, alice paul believed if more women were involved in government, they would help the peace movement. Page if you stay around for a little that, there are organizations that could help you. If you can stay for a little bit, i could get you some information. I am the newly indoctrinated virginia n. O. W. President. A shameless plug. I would like to share when i saw the e. R. A. , a bracelet that im wearing another shameless plug i was brought under the wings of the current president to talk about the e. R. A. Again, i thought it was laundry detergent. I had no idea what it was. I was thinking, im smart, went to college, but what is impacting me as a woman, raising kids, having children of color . All these things, all these sectional pieces. As we approach, i will jump to the president ial campaign that im seeing now. As i was learning about the e. R. A. , as i was educating myself about the e. R. A. , to the lawyer that said it is a broad statement in that passing it can help, but it has so much deeper meaning than the few sentences. Im watching the president ial election, and some of the challenge i had without screaming at my tv, was seeing some of the young women talk about the candidate they would support, that would not vote for a woman because she is a woman. In one ideal, i get it, i understand what they are trying to say, that gender should not be an issue, but at the same time i think they are cutting off the issue of what the e. R. A. Would speak to. The discrimination. That because as women, we would not be capable of serving, or breaking the Glass Ceiling or being represented in the community are being seen as leaders. What would you say to the woman who would say im not voting for a woman, or standing with women, just because of their gender . I know it is not intended for a discrimination piece or topic, it is a tendency to lean towards not discriminating. That is where the blurry lines and the conversation gets mixed up. Kris there are two sides to the coin. Alice paul would say, you shouldnt vote for the candidate because they are a woman, you should vote because of their qualifications. However, you need more women at the table in order to address issues that do affect women, specifically. It is a doublesided coin. I think that it would be great when we get to a point where we are choosing candidates for their qualities and not for their gender, but i do hope we can elect more women into legislative positions for the sake of helping women, but also just addressing issues that are going to affect women and men as well. Page maybe the conversation could start younger, putting gender studies in high school. Kris definitely. I agree. Dr. Muncy i think we need to vote for people whose policies we support, whether they are men or women. If Phyllis Schlafly were running for president , we would not say we should all vote for her because she is a woman, because she doesnt support policies we think would be best for women. I am all with those young women who say im not going to vote for Somebody Just because she is a woman. If the choices were the same, and you had a choice between a man and a woman, i would say go for the women, because we need more progressive, feminist women in positions of power. But i agree that policy comes first, and that if you think the policies are going to help more women, those for the candidate, not for a woman. Dr. Williams i can also say that 44 times we selected a man for our president. Isnt it time that we show our daughters that they are smart, they are wonderful, they can do things, and just this one time we can have a woman . I dont see that always the argument is that the woman is not as smart. As a matter of fact right now, i see a very smart woman running for president. I would have no problem saying im voting for her because she is a woman and she is wonderful and she is smart and will do a great job, and i know she supports what i support. I would be very emphatic with our daughters and our sons about that because they need to know young women can be just as smart. We have had women around the world already who have shown how smart they were and how good they were for their countries. It is time for us to do that. If you previously didnt believe women could do anything, but if we continue for number 45, 46, and 47 to say no woman is smart enough, i think something is wrong with that picture. Page absolutely. We have two minutes left. I was going to just give a quick clarification because we started talking about the draft. Right now, we dont have a draft, but still young men have to sign up when they are 18. What passed in the senate today was that young women when they turn 18 also have to sign up. An alternative would be to not have anybody sign up. It sounds like some people might prefer that. But at any rate, i dont know what is going to happen in the house, but the idea was that if young men sign up, young women should sign up as well. We will see where that goes. I just wanted to clarify. Page thank you. We had just enough time for any very lastminute comments you would like to make. Was there anything you wanted to say but did not get to say or that we skipped over quickly . Dr. Muncy i would like to say im delighted to see so many people here. I wondered if anybody would come out to talk about the laundry detergent yesterday and today. [laughter] dr. Muncy i think it is great. Thank you so much for coming. Dr. Williams i would also say, particularly to minority women, that we need to support equal rights amendment, just as the Civil Rights Movement helped women of all races, all colors, all creeds, so can the equal rights amendment help not only women but men. Dr. Ciani in terms of education, i would ask all of us to encourage your School Systems to expand the educational offerings at the middle school and High School Level. You suggested high school. I think we need to go younger than that. I think we need to go into the middle school. I tried to do that at the last school, and they said, well, we dont have time, we have to do science and math. We have been focusing on s. T. E. M. For so long. That is wonderful, but we need to refocus on humanities. That is my pitch. Page exactly. Thank you. Kris i want to mention also, we need to have these conversations. It has been such a taboo subject that we dont even talk about anything about womens rights. We are not talking about one half of a country, because we are so afraid of bringing up abortion. But we need to have these discussions. We need to know, why do we support the e. R. A. , or why are we against it . What are the issues . Have conversations with your friends, and your students, your children and parents, and lets not shy away from the topic