Ongoing Struggle — Up from the Pedestal to Equality
By admin | 14th August 2008
by Dolores M. Klein, for Peoria National Organization for Women
In July of 1980 at a Rally labeled Pro-Family by the sponsoring California arm of the Moral Majority, Conservative Caucus leader Howard Phillips (still active today) railed against government policies he felt were anti-family. The major result, in his eyes, “has been the liberation of the wife from the leadership of the husband …..” He went on to say: “You know it used to be that in recognition of the family as the basic unit of society, we had one family, one vote.” He decried the idea of one person, one vote as women being liberated from the leadership of the husband politically! It’s well-known that at a Houston Women’s Rally, a group of Utah delegates were urged to call for nullifying the 19th Amendment giving women the vote.
Sobering history, though today the acceptance of Suffrage for women is undergirded by the number of women holding elective public office and a woman being a viable candidate for President. But MORE equal is not equal.
Perseverance, dedication, and commitment by men and women willing to work tirelessly for equality began in Revolutionary times, with Abigail Adams and her family. In July 1848, at the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y., one hundred men and women signed the Declaration of Sentiments, including anti-slavery leader, Frederick Douglas who supported the then unpopular proposal of women voting.
It is frustrating for those of us who learned to support human rights in our Christian religions; to still be told that it is God’s will that we accept inequality. I deny that Jesus came to take on maleness; he came to take on human nature. Elizabeth Cady Stanton said it well: “The great spirit of the universe is not responsible for any of these absurdities.”
At the behest of Rep. Bella Abzug in 1971, the U.S. Congress designated August 26th as Women’s Equality Day. The observance not only commemorates the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote but calls attention to the continuing efforts toward full equality.
When Alice Paul was asked why, after her final success gaining Suffrage, she entered the Equal Rights Amendment for Ratification in 1923; she said that when you put your hand to the plough, you don’t take it off until the end of the row. With Susan B. Anthony, the Napoleon of the Suffrage Movement, we say: “Never another season of silence.”