By Patricia Nugent
Published in the Daily Gazette August 25, 2023
In 1972, President Nixon designated August 26 as Women’s Equality Day in commemoration of the 1920 adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment granting American women the right to vote. (Well, to be clear, some women in some states. Others had to wait decades longer.)
The token gesture of “celebrating” this day has continued each year with no political will to bring women’s rights into alignment with the rights of men.
It’s getting harder and harder to celebrate as we witness women’s rights being stripped away state-by-state throughout our nation.
State legislators can do that because women are afforded no legal protection and no rights under the U.S. Constitution.
In fact, they have no rights that cannot be reversed legislatively.
This has been true since the inception of our nation, when Abigail Adams begged her husband, John Adams, to “Remember the ladies.” He ignored her, as do many legislators today, to their own political peril.
In 1923, recognizing that voting itself was not enough to guarantee women equal footing in our nation, Alice Paul proposed a 24-word amendment to the Constitution that simply reads: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”
Parse that out: Equality of rights shall not be denied on account of sex!
Despite repeated attempts at passage for more than a century, it has yet to become law, which means that it is legal in the United States to discriminate against women.
Late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia can be viewed on YouTube proudly declaring this to be true.
The current court clearly holds the same position, as evidenced by rulings that further restrict women’s rights.
Lack of pay equity and bodily autonomy are just two of the social injustices that continue to hold women hostage.
The League of Women Voters’ mission to ensure a participatory democracy has continued for more than 100 years.
Although founded by the suffragists, we can no longer celebrate women getting the right to vote, especially since head-of-household-only voting legislation was proposed at a 2020 presidential convention.
Women deserve and demand equal rights as citizens of the United States.
The League urges Congress to pass Alice Paul’s ERA Amendment now and urges voters in New York state to pass the state equivalent in November 2024.
Until then, there is nothing to celebrate today.
Patricia Nugent is chair of the Women’s Rights Awareness Campaign for the League of Women Voters of Saratoga County. The column was submitted on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga and Schenectady counties.