I totally understand how you feel, how all the catch-22's of women's lives wear us down. But that's what sexists want. To make us give up.
I totally agree on the Equal Rights Amendment. It is NOW FULLY RATIFIED, AND Congress has a resolution to rescind the original deadline for its ratification, which, being passed, moves the ERA into the Constitution.
The ERA should be part of the US Constitution by now.
When it is, all previous laws restricting the rights, or even enumerating the rights, of women will be struck down. Even better, all state attempts to restrict women will be unconstitutional.
Half the population's fundamental rights fought for, and finally, officially recognized throughout the nation's legal system.
From the Brennan Center for Justice
Does Virginia’s vote to ratify the ERA mean it will be adopted as the 28th Amendment to the Constitution? The answer hinges on two procedural questions with no settled answer.
First, can Congress act now, nearly 48 years after first proposing the ERA, to waive the lapsed deadline? ERA supporters have long argued that just as Congress had the power to set a deadline, they have the power to lift one. Senate Joint Resolution 6, a bipartisan measure sponsored by Sens. Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) which is currently pending in Congress, seeks to do just that. But while the ERA’s deadline was extended prior to the deadline, there is no precedent for waiving the deadline after its expiration.
Second, can states act to rescind their support of a constitutional amendment before it is finally ratified? Congress confronted this question twice, during the ratification of 14th and 15th Amendments in the years immediately following the Civil War. In each instance, Congress adopted resolutions declaring the amendments ratified, ignoring the purported state rescissions. But in 1980, a federal district court in Idaho ruled that the state’s rescission of the ERA was valid.
Who will decide these questions? Under a 1984 law, the Archivist of the United States is charged with issuing a formal certification after three-quarters of the states have ratified an amendment. When there has been doubt over the validity of an amendment, Congress has acted to declare it valid.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/equal-rights-amendment-explained
Biden, one of the originators of the Violence Against Women Act, is our ally. I believe he and Harris will press for this. If they do before 2022, its establishment in the US Constitution might turn out more voters.
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