Nancy E. McGlen , Karen O'Conor, Laura van Assendelft, Wendy Gunther-Canada
Reading about the motion behind the ERA is really inspiring. As an idea i sounds wonderful, complete equality among the sexes. However, unfortunately, there are biological differences among the sexes which makes this amendment somewhat questionable. For one thing, although there is an argument for paternity leave, fathers aren't pregnant for 9 months or recovering for a time after that. This is the biggest problem, I think child care can be shared between the two parents, but only the mother can be actually pregnant. Making a special maternity leave law would technically be against the ERA if it based, or so I understand.
It's a hard decision, much less clear then whether women can have the right to vote or not, and it's actually threatening to women. If women didn't want to vote, it didn't want to them whether they had suffrage or not. However, the ERA would directly effect many women. Reading through the various mistakes they made, not having a specific organization or one place, going at the national level for state by state ratification and such, it makes me wonder what would happen if the ERA were introduced under better planning. Would we actually pass it this time?
I was also happy to read about Daniel Anthony, Susan B. Anthony's nephew, fighting for women's rights. It's nice to think that her family didn't think she was crazy and embarrassing, or at least her nephew didn't.
Some of the things Phyllis Schlafly said in STOP ERA also rung a chord in me, the fact that three out of ten of her reasons against it were to do with homosexuals. Again, this is another element that might be changed now, what with such a stronger gay population now then in the early 1980's.
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