Alliance co-founder and former president, Roberta Madden, wrote an excellent article for the new Carolina Public Press opinion blog, NC Talks, about her lifetime of advocacy for the Equal Rights Amendment.
“I often experienced sex discrimination in my experience of living in several different states over the past 86 years. In Louisiana, I couldn’t get a credit card in my own name, nor even a library card; and I was excluded from jury service. In Tennessee, I was paid 57% of the wages earned by men for the same job. Despite some improvements in women’s status — we may now serve on juries, even get credit in our own names, and take home 83.7 cents for every dollar a man does — sex discrimination remains. The recent reversal of women’s reproductive rights after decades of constitutional protection is a glaring example. Until the Equal Rights Amendment goes into the U.S. Constitution, women were not guaranteed equality under the law.”
Read the whole article here: 86-year perspective: Lingering sex discrimination and the need for equal rights amendment