March is Women’s History Month and is a time when stories of women’s history, old and new, are brought out. This year Stories in Time at Home has scheduled three programs to discuss women’s feelings about equality for women under the law and hoping women will finally enter into the Constitution.
This episode of Stories in Time at Home welcomes guests Susan Horst, President of Business and Professional Women of Maryland & Jeanette Feldner, President of Montgomery County Chapter of the National Organization for Women. They have worked with women’s concerns through their organizations since the 1970’s. Host Ellouise Schoettler discusses her interest and the guests involvement with the Equal Rights Amendment locally and nationally. Learn about how lives of women were in the 1970’s and how women were finding their power and helping each other and supporting each other with their journey to find their strength.
There has been extraordinary progress in the movement toward full equality. While Alice Paul began it all in 1923, and Congress passed the ERA in 1972, by 1982 only 35 states had ratified, but in 2017 Nevada ratified the ERA; Illinois ratified in 2018; Virginia ratified it on January 27th, 2020, then on January 22nd Republican Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski introduced a joint resolution with Democratic Maryland Senator Ben Cardin to remove the ERA’s ratification deadline, and on February 13th the House of Representatives dissolved the time limit written in the amendment’s introduction. Now it is on to the Senate. Except on March 5th a judge ruled it couldn’t be ratified, but the case could head to the Supreme Court. Sue Waltisky, national communications director for Cardin, wrote that Article V of the Constitution, a section which covers the amendment ratification process, contains no time limits for the process of ratification.
Please help to achieve this goal to amend the Constitution to ensure that one cannot be discriminated against because of one’s sex by getting involved and contacting your local officials and voicing your opinion. For more information visit BPWMaryland.org, MCMDNOW.org, or ERACoalition.org.