(upbeat music) - Welcome to "At Issue."

I'm H Wayne Wilson.

Thank you, as always, for joining us.

This time, the conversation will be looking Yes, the Equal Rights Amendment did not pass, but there are still efforts 50 years after Congress passed Equal Rights Amendment to get Equal Rights Amendment ratified in 38 states and thus adding it to the Constitution of the United States.

To have the conversation, let me introduce to you first Heather McMeekan.

She is a community activist.

Thank you for joining us.

- Mm-hm.

- [H Wayne] Also with us, Dr. Martha Willi.

Dr. Willi is a member of the National Organization for Women here, the local chapter.

- Correct.

- [H Wayne] And also with us from Worthington, Ohio, is Beth Knight Mirmelstein.

Thank you for joining us, Beth.

- Thank you.

So nice to be with you.

- And for those of you saying, where's Worthington?

It's just adjacent to Columbus, Ohio.

- [Beth] Right, right.

- I think we should start with just the verbiage of the Equal Rights Amendment as passed by Congress in 1972.

The verbiage is, "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex."

It's that simple.

It was passed in 1972, but I think we should go back and delve into history just a little bit.

Heather, if we can go back to 1913 in the state of Illinois, the state of Illinois was seven years in advance of the US for women getting the right to vote.

- Well, for white women, right?

I mean, white women were at the advance back then, but we still are not covered in our US Constitution, even though we are now covered in Illinois, and I'd like to see that changed.

It's time.

- Martha, it was 1923 when the first effort to create an Equal Rights Amendment was proposed.

- Yes.

- And then in 1943, the verbiage, for the most part pretty much what it is today, was proposed.

So this is not a new issue.

This is more than a century in the making.

Let me go back to 1972 now.

And Beth, if you could give us a little bit of, you know, Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972.

What were the limitations that were placed on it at that time?

- Well, it was passed, which is sort of interesting as I was researching it, under Richard Nixon, which is sort of interesting.

And it required 3/4 of the states to ratify it and they gave it a seven-year time limit, which is really unusual.

There've been very few amendments to the Constitution that have been given a time limit.

In fact, one was just passed several years ago that was 203 years in the making.

At any rate, after seven years, because of a far right movement led by Phyllis Schlafly, it didn't pass.

So they extended it to 1982 and there were still only 35 states.

So it basically fell apart and just began to, well, it didn't fall apart the whole time.

People have been thinking about it and working on it for years and years.

But yeah, those were the parameters under which it was passed.

It was, you know, the 28th amendment but it did not get the full ratification of the states, the 3/4 ratification, so here we.

- Heather, let's continue that conversation in that the seven-year window then extended for three years to 10 years.

- Right.

- 35 states.

And then many years later, as a matter of fact, in 2018 and '20 and '21, Nevada, Illinois.

- Illinois, Virginia.

- And Virginia.

So now we've got 38 states.

- So we've ratified it with 38 states, but not according to the artificial timeline that was put in, even though the timeline was created by Congress, even though that's not in the Constitution at all and it is not a part of the process.

It doesn't have to be.

It can be voted on and extended.

It's all up for more discussion if we want it to be.

But the real truth of the matter is these extra hurdles that are tacked on to this basic legislation of structural equality and justice for women, and I am using the trans-inclusive version, W-O-M-X-N, and for those with intersex protections, this would protect men, women, and all of us from sex-based discrimination, and we need that at every level of government and public service.

And the lack of this basic structural fix means every hall of government has to expend extra money getting around this structural deficit, has to waste extra time and resources seeking justice for people discriminated against.

This is a simple, it should be a fairly simple fix.

Without any doubt, most Americans support it, of the ones who know it's necessary.

And of those who voted and said, yeah, they want it, a lot of them didn't even know that it hadn't passed yet.

So we do think that this issue, even though there's election fatigue and people are, you know, have a lot of compassion fatigue with all that we have been fighting, this is a fight worth winning.

And I think that's why Attorney General Kwame Raoul, along with other Democratic attorney generals who realize that they could manage their budgets and resources more effectively if they didn't have to fight this fight with every case, if the basic floor of the discussion was women are equal and our rights are enshrined in the Constitution and we should not be subjected to legislation that disparately impacts us just on the basis of sex.

We need to fix this.

It's the right thing to do.

And we are the only nation with a constitution since 1950 that does not have some version of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Even Afghanistan has their women's rights enshrined in their constitution.

Ours are still not, and it's time that gets fixed.

- Let me throw another wrench, I didn't throw the wrench but a wrench was thrown into this, because Martha, five states that ratified the Equal Rights Amendment subsequently rescinded that ratification.

I know there's legalities involved in that, but what's your perspective on what kind of a wrench does that toss into the process of trying to get ratification?

- Well, I am no student of Congress and congressional actions and I know nothing about other rescissions or attempts to rescind amendments.

It's not in the Constitution.

And so that's all I can say.

This is something that you would have to bring up to someone highly skilled and very well educated.

I just can't make an opinion.

- I assume you share the same, I mean, we're talking about Congress- - That's above my pay grade.

I'm not a lawyer.

You know, that is one of those things that it's yet more issues that they bring up in hopes of slowing down the progress of it.

But those types of political machinations, there are legitimate things that need to be done through the process, right?

To make sure that it does not disparately harm somebody or unintended consequences are held off.

But why is it only with our rights that that tends to hold up the rights legislation for women?

We don't have that discussion, say, with guns.

We don't worry, "Oh, well, somebody might use their Second Amendment rights to hurt somebody.

I guess we can't give anyone Second Amendment rights."

We don't do that, right?

And that's because everybody has autonomy.

And this absolutely is about body autonomy, which is, really, the first human right.

What choice do we have if we can't even control our bodies?

What plans matter?

How can we educate our daughters and tell them they could be anything in the United States when they are not even covered by our US Constitution?

That's gaslighting in education.

We should be honest about that and say, yeah, women still do not have these rights.

And so I'm very grateful for this discussion because we should talk about this.

We should talk about what does it mean to belong to a nation that sees you as less than just because of your sex?

That refuses, despite the efforts of millions of people over generations now, has said, "No, that's not it.

You gotta do this now."

The goal posts keep moving.

They keep putting more hoops to jump through.

But the reality on the ground is we need this.

It's costing women and their children suffering and lives.

It costs us resources.

The immediate effect of its passage wouldn't be felt right away, but the ERA practically, on the ground, is a tool.

It is a series of guidelines.

It is a lens by which, when our legislators and our public servants are making decisions, they can say, "Wait a minute, let's look at that.

Does that have disparate impact for either men or women or intersex or non-binary?

If so, it's unconstitutional.

Let's get back and fix that language and make sure that it's equitable."

- Beth, I want to give you an opportunity to jump into the conversation.

- Well, I was just gonna say, even in the court system, if women are not looked at in the same way that men are, you know, we're looked at in intermediate scrutiny when we bring a case before the courts.

If we were equal with men, it would rise our status up to strict scrutiny, which is just so mind-boggling that it's as if you're doomed before you even take your case to the court.

And I mean, I just look at what's happening here in Ohio and it's really, really sobering to think of the kind of draconian measures that are being taken against women, against trans, against the entire LGBT community, because they're not considered equal under the law.

That's the bottom line.

And as I read, you know, did some research for today, it's a little bit mind-boggling to think that my mother was born in 1922, so a year before all this began, and her last name was Cady, we're related to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and I'm just thinking, those women must just be rolling over in their graves to think that here we are in 2022 and we don't have the most basic of rights, I mean, in every measure, in workplace, in sexual discrimination, in education, just across the board.

And it's so pervasive now and it's so insidious because so many people, you know, as Heather said before, think it's a done deal and think it's all been taken care of until it's their turn to fight something legislatively or judicially and they're not given equal credence in front of the courts.

So it's time, well beyond time.

- You mentioned Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and for the audience members, a suffragette back in the late 1800s.

- [Beth] Right.

- And let me, if you were to look at a map of the United States, the states that did not pass the Equal Rights Amendment are the southeastern swath of states, plus Oklahoma, Missouri, Arizona, and Utah.

Does that say anything to you?

- Yeah, it says to me that if you disenfranchise voters, you gut education, you do away with funding for libraries, you gut the media and the free press, after a while, people aren't gonna understand what they're voting for or they're voting against and they might vote for things that actually harm them.

That's what that says to me.

Now, I was part of helping the Arizona effort.

I served to help a team do some graphic design work on there and those women worked very hard and were heartbroken, but they didn't lose, you know, that fight strictly because they didn't have enough people showing up.

There were so many fights going on.

It was trying to get enough people into it.

And that's really what we're facing now.

The fact that so many of our rights have, we've had bills filed against LGBTQ, there's things in legislation right now, if we do not get this unfinished work done, then every one of those fights begins by trying to prove that person is a person deserving of protections of the US Constitution.

That adds a wraparound cost to every one of those fights, a wraparound amount of hoops to jump through and resources you have to gather, and it's too much to ask.

And in red rural areas, we have women that can't even get an order of protection.

Why?

If the one person who is your state's attorney says, "You know, I don't think you're real credible.

I know that guy.

He's a good guy, so I'm not gonna prosecute," guess what?

You don't get an order of protection.

You don't get an investigation.

You don't get anything.

This has on-the-ground impact in every one of our lives, including those for men.

Men pay an extra cost that your wives, your daughters, your nieces, your sisters, your mothers suffer, and it impacts all of you too.

- I wanna go back to the vote that took place in 1971 and '72.

The House passed this in 1971.

The vote was 354 to 24, overwhelming.

In 1972, the Senate passed it 84 to eight.

With these overwhelming congressional votes, why is it, I mean, looking back, why is it that we haven't been able to get over the hump and get 38 states regardless of a time limit?

The Congress was very clear, this is a good idea, or at least the Congress in 1971 and 72.

- I think there's, I think there's a lot of reasons.

And people blame or credit Phyllis Schlafly.

She was just the, she was just the tassel on top of the iceberg.

There were many, many entities which profited from discrimination against women.

People paying wages, businesses, industries, paying wages.

There was unequal job benefits, unequal pay.

My aunt worked at a local industry for 45 years, and when she retired, she had about 50% of the pension of the average male worker because the women were paid less.

Your pension depended on your salary scale.

There was a huge lawsuit down here at that time in the '70s.

And, you know, there were companies which, insurance companies, when I first applied for insurance as a young woman, my disability premiums would've been twice that of a man because that's the way it was.

And, you know, the disparate coverage for health insurance, one health insurance I tried was that, well, nothing concerning pregnancy or the problems of pregnancy would be covered.

There were no such restrictions on men's health.

The medical system was not in any way required to treat women equally in terms of informed consent, in terms of treatment.

Various drug companies, which is what I'm have a little more familiar with, spent a lot of money investigating drugs to help in entities that affected men more, it was thought, more than women.

And the diseases of women were considered as psychosomatic and therefore, or just not worthy of investigation and treatment development.

That's about all I can come up with at this time.

But the educational system, for instance, also had many disparities, and it was to their advantage.

- With regard to the medical disparities, I wanna point out to the audience that when I introduced her as Dr. Martha Willi, she is a physician, retired physician.

- Correct.

- [H Wayne] So she speaks with some degree of knowledge.

- Thank you.

- Let me turn to Beth because I think, and Heather already has suggested some topics, but could you give us some practical examples of how the Equal Rights Amendment might make a difference, whether that be in employment or in terms of salaries?

Any examples that you might cite that the Equal Rights Amendment, and let me point out that there was a law in 1994 passed by Congress, it was the Violence Against Women Act.

And the court, I think, six years later said, "No, that's unconstitutional," and that wiped out the Violence Against Women Act.

So are there other examples similar to that, Beth?

- Well, that's a pretty big one, right?

I mean, the fact that a woman can be unprotected in a violent situation, and I think we see that play out in the news time and again.

I mean, I think salaries.

I think I read that, you know, a Hispanic woman today makes 50 cents to the dollar that her white male counterpart makes.

I think an African American woman, 60 cents, and another white woman, 80 cents.

I mean, that's just unheard of.

That makes absolutely no sense.

And I think medically, going back to what the doctor just said, you know, you just look at heart issues.

And for so long, women didn't realize that they have different symptoms for a heart attack than a man has.

I think that, you know, when women go to doctors very often, they're told, "Well, you know, you're getting older and this is what happens to you."

Or, you know, "Maybe you need to just relax."

I do think that that discrimination, added to ageism, is a very, you know, big piece of it.

I just think across the board.

I think the way we look at women culturally, the way little girls are objectified very often in the toys that they play with, the movies that they see, I think it's just extremely pervasive.

And I think I worry because we're in such a, such a traditional, we've taken steps backward, to my mind, in our country.

You know, there are people that say, "Well, we should just start all over again with the amendment.

You know, we should just start from scratch."

And I think even Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a proponent of that.

But I worry that if we started over from scratch that we would be in worse shape possibly than we are now.

And that's a concern.

I mean, you just look at what the courts are doing.

In Ohio, the courts have absolutely no regard for women.

You all know the story of a 10-year-old child who was raped here and was forced to leave the state to get an abortion.

Right now, today, as we speak, the Senate in Ohio is considering taking away all medical care for trans youth.

In fact, Amy Schneider from "Jeopardy!"

is coming in and sitting in the audience today representing for the trans community.

So it's real, at least in Ohio.

And I know not every state is like Ohio.

We've taken a huge step backwards.

And I know there are a lot of other states like mine and I worry what would happen if we had to start all over again.

And I hope that we won't.

I hope that we'll be able to get, now that we have 38 states, I hope in some way we'll be able to work with Congress to get them to get rid of the time limit and go ahead and put this in the archives as the 28th Amendment.

- I do wanna mention that Martha had talked about Phyllis Schlafly and Phyllis was with Eagle Forum I believe was the name of the organization.

And so that's who Phyllis Schlafly is.

Let's mention another name.

Heather, David Ferriero, a little known position called the US archivist.

The keeper of history, I think, would be an archivist, but under the Trump administration, he was the archivist.

And he said that the ratification by Nevada, Illinois, and Virginia that made it to 38, those three, were outside the timeline, therefore they didn't count and the amendment fails.

Can you reflect on your view of why one person, I mean, it's like a funnel and it comes down to the- - Well, I think, and I don't know the archivist, presumably he's a good faith public servant.

And remember, he was given advisement by Bill Barr that that was what their interpretation was.

And even when they did try to undo that, they were told that it was without legal standing because it's really not on that person.

Even if they did do that job, that wouldn't be sufficient to enshrine it.

There's still a few things.

So they said that it's not just him.

But this is a very good example of how, as it turns out, our government really was built as a system of patronage for class-privileged white men, property-owning white men.

And although we've taken many strides to try to open it up and make it more inclusive and equitable and diverse, we still know Black women sit at the very bottom of all of our resources and protections.

And with what he was able to do and the fact that we had a president and an attorney general and an archivist decide to subvert the will of literally millions of voters over this over time, that revealed what you would call a structural deficit, right?

And a structural deficit is a place where marginalized people's rights fall through, and this is a perfect example of that.

We need to fix it so that that type of gaming can never happen again.

- And Beth, I wanna close with just a positive thought, if you would.

In about 30 seconds, that's all the time we have left, well, tell us how you feel about the future of the Equal Rights Amendment.

- Well, I'm hopeful.

I think that it will ultimately come to be.

I think women, as we're seeing more and more, especially with the Hobbs case, are finding their voices.

And I think there will come a time when they will just stand their ground and there will, not that they haven't stood their ground, but they will become more powerful.

The more women that we can get into our legislatures, both on the state and on the national level, the better.

I agree we need to educate people about where we are with equal rights- - And with that, and with that, Beth, education is one of the keys here, I assume, and we are out of time.

And I do wanna mention the Hobbs case was the case that took Roe V Wade and overturned that.

Let me say thank you to my guests.

Heather McMeekan, thank you for being on "At Issue."

- Thank you so much.

- And to Dr. Martha Willi, thank you so much for being with us.

- You're welcome.

- And from Worthington, Ohio, let me say thank you to Beth Knight Mirmelstein.

Thank you to all three of you- - Thank you, my pleasure.

- For the conversation on the Equal Rights Amendment on this, the 50th anniversary of the passage by Congress.

Next time on "At Issue," volunteerism.

It's a time of Thanksgiving.

We'll talk about giving of your time on the next "At Issue."

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