It is impossible to understand why the Equal Rights Amendment has not been passed . This has been going on since 1972. The first version of it was drafted in 1923! Think about this. Needing 38 states to ratify it, we understand that in the last year we reached this marker. And yet nothing.
Do you remember the push back from Phyllis Schlafly? She was convinced that the Equal Rights Amendment would take away the special rights and privileges of women. How is it possible that in 2021, we have not seen a push to get this amendment to our Constitution voted in?
Reading a thoughtful article by the daughter of Erica Jong, I realized that many of my peers have assumed that this amendment was somehow taken care of. But guess what, it is not a done deal. After all this time, Gloria Steinem must be having bad dreams about this. Perhaps we have succeeded so much in moving forward as women in every arena that we do not need a constitutional amendment. No I do not think so.
Read this story: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/business/bernadette-bartels-murphy-dead.html?referringSource=articleShare
This woman , Bernadette Bartels, was so far ahead of her time with no intention of being so. Remarkable story as she started as a secretary which was what we did then. Maybe it is not important but we need to tell others what it was like then to get a sense of this woman’s accomplishment.
We grew up in a world so different than today. Think about this: we had telephones where we had to dial a 1 before a number to call long distance. And long distance could be across America or only sixty miles away. To try to get privacy from our parents, the only phone in the house had a really long cord so we could talk with our friends privately in the hall closet. In our teenage years, we got phones in our rooms, imagine that, and ours were pink Princess phones.
My mother did not say, “Why don’t you become a financial analyst?” NO, she said, “Find a man who will take care of you”. Really. That was the message. We did not have CDs, we had 45 records. We did not have FAX machines or Copiers, but instead thin copy paper to use with typewriters and a small bottle of white out. There were no VCRs or DVDs and we were lucky to have one black and white television in the house.
We did not have birth control and we certainly did not talk about it. There was a tattered copy of Dr. Spock’s “The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care” tucked in the linen closet. That was how we learned about sex. We were on the cusp of change which is why we Baby Boomers would end up having so much impact. The 1960s would be our coming of age when we precipitated an extraordinary change in American culture and society.
Yes, we became the Me Generation, breaking rules, pushing boundaries, occupying college administration buildings, protesting the Vietnam War, experimenting with drugs, living in communes, and ascribing to Free Love.
Think what we did to our parents who had witnessed the horrors of World War II and come home to provide a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence, a Ford station wagon with fake wooden sides, and a kitchen full of new appliances to make life easier for mom.
Admittedly, not everyone of our generation participated in this new found freedom of the Me Generation. But it feels important to explain what it was like back in the day to the younger generations so that we can make certain that the Equal Rights Amendment does become law. That would mean we did make a difference.
Perhaps the pendulum has swung back a bit. Fine, but let’s not lose ground. There were some wonderful things that maybe can come back and this is something that Lucy ponders. I know that I do not want to go back to a time when I was asked at a job interview for a financial institution, ” And how would you as a woman get new accounts?” I can still remember being mortified and nearly speechless other than to meekly answer “Like anyone else”. That was a horrible moment in my life, and the shame I felt at being a woman who dared to move into a “man’s world” still stings.
Enough with that. Please check out this wonderful video of a stylish 82-year old woman who proudly shows off her church going hats in selfies:
Stay safe and well
Lucy and Claudia