Equal Rights Amendment needed

By JENNIFER ARMIGER, For the Courier-Post, August 21, 2005

The rights won for women in the past three decades have resulted in a dangerous and misguided belief that we have somehow achieved equality of the sexes.  Social conditions reveal otherwise.

The wage gap between women and men persists.  Women represent less than 20 percent of congressional representatives, while we represent a slight majority of the population.  Women still are the ones who do the majority of housework and stay home with children, sacrificing earnings, careers and Social Security credits.

Meanwhile, cultural and political conservatives, who argue that we have actually achieved a state of reverse discrimination in which white males are disadvantaged by women and racial minorities, seek the continued dismantling of affirmative action programs and civil rights laws.

American women have minimal protection through legislation and no constitutional guarantee of equality.

Critics and opponents of the Equal Rights Amendment argue that equating the sexes would remove the various forms of protective legislation that have benefited women, most particularly labor laws.  Cultural and religious conservatives argue the ERA would be deleterious to women by devaluing the roles of wife and mother.

But the ERA would expand the rights of everyone, women as well as men.

Pass amendment

Whether women lean to the left or right, the recent calls by mothers of all stripes for greater social and workplace support of parenting options reveal that the enshrinement of wives and mothers has not been enough.  Women need legal and social equality.

The ERA would do much in the way of equalizing women's wages and benefits and thus taking the burden off of men and creating more equal partnerships in the home.

Likewise, an ERA would more effectively equalize divorce, alimony and custody disputes between men and women by removing the burden of long-held cultural stereotypes about family roles that have set legal standards in divorce law.

Young women want more choices.  We want to know that all occupations are open to us.  When we earn our degrees and enter the careers of our choice, we want to be paid the same as men of equal rank.  Yet, if we are not college bound, we also want occupations that have long been filled predominantly by women to be recognized and paid for their true worth.

When a man working as a general laborer on a union construction job can support a family, yet a woman working as a waitress or a cashier cannot, we see a problem, especially since "welfare" for women and children has been largely dismantled.

Give us options

Young women want to have options when it comes to raising our children -- options that are not limited to "career oriented" and "stay-at-home mom."

We want our government and our employers to support us socially and economically in these family options, and not just pay lip service to the wonderful role of motherhood.

And whether we choose to be conservative, religious or liberal, we want equality in the eyes of the law.  Whether we call ourselves feminist or not, we want and need the Equal Rights Amendment.

The writer is co-president of the South Jersey National Organization for Women--Alice Paul chapter, which serves Camden, Burlington and Gloucester counties. Contact her at jja3975@peoplepc.com.