Transcripts For CSPAN3 Equal Rights Amendment 20170121 : com

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. The

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