SIGNS OF THE TIMES
(Women Are Mad)
The fate of the Equal Right Amendment is symptomatic of the American women’s struggle to get an equal political footing with men in the U.S.
The campaign to get an amendment to the Constitution, the ERA, to recognize women’s rights as equal to men’s started in 1921. American men no doubt loved their grandmothers, mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters. What would be wrong to acknowledge that their rights were the same as theirs? Something must have been wrong because it took 51 years for Congress, which was made up of mostly men, to pass a resolution to approve it. Everyone, at least everyone who favored equal rights for men and women, breathed a sigh of relief: men finally came to their sense. But not for long.
Congress set the deadline for at least three fourths or 38 of the States, to ratify the amendment by 1979. Even though it was supported by the House, the Senate, and three presidents of both parties, the Amendment was ratified by only 35 States by 1977.
Something strange was happening: conservative women did not want it; they did not want to be equal to men. Led by Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative activist who proudly and publicly thanked her husband for PERMITTING her to come to a political gathering, they launched a strong campaign opposing the ERA. Their opposition led to five States revoking their ratification even though many legal experts questioned the States’ power to revoke a constitutional amendment. It has been believed that Schlafly’s strongest argument against the IRA was the draft issue. She successfully convinced women to oppose the ERA for fear of getting drafted into the military, which was of great concern to a lot of women.
As of now, the ERA has not become what would have been the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Men are still in charge and Republican women have dutifully supported, obeyed their men, and enthusiastically sung Tammy Wynette’s chorus “stand by your man”.
But here is the contemporary American political paradox. Since 2016, the Republican men have been on top with sweeping power. And with sweeping power, they have dug a hole, a deep political hole: the imminent loss of women’s support.
The Republican men have not just supported a man uninhibited by moral constraints but behaved as if he is their ideal model of manhood: sleeping with other women while being married to another; lying with a straight face to serve his own interest without regard for the truth but demanding women to be faithful, loyal and truthful; making demands without anything meritorious to show for them except “I want it”; publicly using vulgar and abusive language to talk about women. Women have seen the cowardice of their men who don’t know what is right or wrong anymore but only what is beneficial for them.
Then came the Supreme Court’s decision of Dobbs v. Jackson overturning Roe v. Wade.
It turned out two judges, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh lied without qualm to a U.S. senator from Maine, Susan Collins, so that they could get to be U.S. Supreme Court justices. They told her that they would respect Roe v. Wade precedent, no doubt a precedent highly valued by Senator Collins (or she would not have asked them about it) as it recognized the right of a woman to control her body.
Watching the drama, Republican women would no doubt ask themselves, they have no respect for such accomplished and powerful woman as Susan Collins, how do we expect them to have any respect for us? Are we naïve to the point of trusting that Republican men would not lie to us, our mother, sisters, friends?
They are mad.
Men value their rights, the right to have guns or to play golf on Sunday etc. above all else, and no one can take it from them. But here is the right attached to the women’s own body, their happiness, and their freedom, and the men take upon themselves to debate and decide whether women should have it or not.
Men have sex, unprotected sex, with women all over town without a slightest thought about anything else but their orgasm. But if a woman gets pregnant, men reserve for themselves the right to judge if the woman has or has not the right to carry or not carry their seed.
Republican women got frustrated and felt impotent.
The January 6 saga heightens women’s awareness of the character of Republican men, which has been going downhill. They lie outright or dodge the truth, simple and obvious truth, no longer being ramrod straight standing up against any falsehood or bad behavior, no longer a reliable, good example for their children. So arrogant and macho in public, at the same time stealthily seeking a presidential pardon? What is going on?
Republican women’s concern grows.
Watching Fox News and the women in the Trump administration and around Trump, they worry about another aspect of the current political and social climate. They not only feel shame when their sisters were forced, or worse willing, to lie in public to comply with their men’s demand, but their sisters may have suffered the Stockholm syndrome, blindly obeying their controllers.
They decide to speak up and the House’s January 6 Hearings present an excellent opportunity. They look honest, trustworthy at the witness table. Their testimonies are totally believable. They only state the truth.
But they are savagely attacked by THEIR Republican men, at one time or another their bosses and colleagues, men they loved and obeyed.
They remember another fight, a fight between a Republican woman who ran one of the best and biggest companies on earth and a man who has run everything to the ground including the presidency. The man broke the taboo and ridiculed the woman’s face. And Republican men laughed, applauded, pumped fists and were outright drunk with exhilaration.
A trial balloon has been floating out there in Washington that women should not have been allowed to vote. (The balloon definitely comes out of a sharp Republican brain, not from the lower part of their body that might probably demand secession, that sees the danger of a woman vote when, just like now, women are mad at them).
Is there a choreographed undertaking to abolish the 19th Amendment? Do Republican men see the women’s vote a potential threat to their dominance in the future and plot to pre-empt the threat while they have a majority of six votes on SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States)? Should women trust Justice Amy Barrett to be their ally, or would she just be a Phyllis Schlafly reincarnate, a possible trojan horse sabotaging the women’s causes once again?
There is no doubt that the January 6 Hearings are not the only occasions for the Republican women to speak out. They will speak out again in a more organized fashion. They will be joined by other women to become an effective, and probably decisive voice.
The sign of the times: the era of women’s power and leadership has begun.
JOHN P. LE PHONG, ESQ.