fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2380 ]

[ SECRET POST #2380 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2380 ⌋

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Guys, I think it's being implied elsewhere that I'm some sort of ignorant rube for thinking Ainsley Hayes on The West Wing makes a good argument about the ERA when she says it's redundant, and she has:

The 14th Amendment which says that a citizen of the United States is anyone that's born here... that's me... and that no citizen can be denied due process. I'm covered. Make a law for somebody else.

and later:

A new amendment we vote on declaring that I am equal under the law to a man? I am mortified to discover there's reason to believe I wasn't before. I am a citizen of this country, I am not a special subset in need of your protection. I do not have to have my rights handed down to me by a bunch of old, white, men. The same Article 14 that protects you, protects me, and I went to law school just to make sure. ...

Thoughts? I mean, I'm not militantly against the existence of the Equal Rights Act, but I do think those are very good points, especially when she also acknowledges that there are still problems that need worked on.

There's video of the relevant exchanges, in order here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXPLirJRGDQ

I think the notion is, in theory, that's quite true, and the existing text of the Constitution should make women the legal equals of men in all ways. And yet... here we are. In practice, it clearly falls short, so rather than just toss up our hands and surrender to the imperfection of the system, we try to do more, to make it more explicit, to make it harder to avoid or work around, to address specific issues that are being neglected or ignored, in the hope that it will accomplish what should have already been the case but isn't.

This.

Justice may be blind, but human nature is not. Sometimes we have to put laws in place in order to make up for discrimination, because people won't stop shitting on people they think are "lesser" unless they're explicitly told they can't.

IMO, people who claim that these sorts of explicit non-discrimination laws are some sort of "special treatment" really don't understand what's going on - the laws are trying to level a playing field that's been made crooked by society.

Idk the idea that you don't need a law just because what should be isn't all that good. Like, yeah, people shouldn't have had unfair voting restrictions against people of color, but they were and so the voting rights act came to be. Yeah, people shouldn't have had to have a law saying that women could vote.

There are a lot of laws that shouldn't have to be, and that when you think about it are kind of insulting, but they are there because society is not treated equal and sometimes groups of people need a law to actually get the same rights or protections.

First of all, it's important to note that the 14th Amendment did not provide the kind of protection against discriminatory gender laws that we're talking about here at the historical moment when the ERA came into existence or when it was a vibrant political issue. So that's the historical context.

Second, saying that we're "equal under the law", and we have equal protection before the law, regardless of gender, seems to me to be a deeply facile argument. I mean, it's basically an argument along the same lines as the "Gay people have all the same rights as straight people - they're allowed to marry people of the opposite sex just like straight people can" argument. Like, yes, there's equal protection under the law in a formal sense, but that doesn't necessarily mean that no discrimination is possible when you have laws that affect people in deeply different ways depending on their gender.

And making laws to secure the formal equality under the law doesn't diminish that formal equality. The existence of the Voting Rights Act isn't somehow offensive to African-Americans because "they were already citizens and they can't be denied equal protections under the law" because, well, the fact of the matter is that citizens were denied equal protection under the law, and women have been subject to discriminatory laws. The amendment isn't declaring that women are equal under the law, it's attempting to make sure that equality becomes and remains real equality, rather than a formal equality masking real discrimination. And it's just really silly and absurd to me to pretend otherwise.

That said, I agree that, these days, most of the functions an Equal Rights Amendment would have are performed by the 14th Amendment. But it couldn't hurt to make it clearly, and explicitly, and unambiguously the constitutional law of the land in a way that no future Supreme Court could work around. And I think all the arguments advanced by Ainsley there are pretty bad, and in conclusion fuckin' Sorkin

While I'm not keeping up with the news, I think I can get the gist of events, and I have to agree. We shouldn't need the law, but it turns out, we do.

I mean, lawyers, lawmakers, and judges are all constantly searching for or trying to close loopholes and reinterpretaions. I want everything spelled out in the most certain and concrete terms. If we need a law saying that you can't discriminate based on the number of freckles on your face, it's because there's someone out there who really hates those 50-freckle people, and he will say "Hey, there ain't no law."

I once heard a guy back in high school say "All men are created equal. Men, not women." That's the kind of language that, argued by certain people in front of certain judges, could be catastrophic. Of course, no one would think of interpreting it that way, right? Except, no, there's just a lucky agreement that this particular phrase won't be interpreted that way. I don't like unspoken agreements when it comes to law, especially civil rights.

Another poster covered most of my points but...Also, just to put out there...

The first time this came up was in the early 70's, right around the time when women's rights were being debated pretty strongly because, despite the 14th amendment being around, women were facing a lot of discrimination issues [as were a lot of other groups.] So, while it may be redundant, there have been times that the 14th amendment hasn't protected minority groups - and this would add another layer of protection against that, which isn't a bad thing.

Those are very good points and it's a perfectly valid argument, but IMO (and in a lot of other people's opinion), it just doesn't work that way IRL. Without the Equal Rights Act spelling things out clearly, there are too many loopholes through which people can argue that sure, we're t o t a l l y being treated equally to men when we actually aren't, because doing xyz totally unfair gender discriminatory thing that screws over women can be argued to not fall under the protections given outside of the Equal Rights Act.

Tl;dr, yes, I understand and agree with Ainsley's sentiment when she says "I am not a special subset in need of your protection" and "The same Article 14 that protects you, protects me." Because that is how it is in theory, and that's how it should be.

But actually, in practice, we are, and it doesn't.

Ideally, the argument makes sense. But I still think an ERA was important at the time it was initially presented.

Now we have grander problems. Women have made huge strides in the US. We still have a huge gender issue, but it's more complex than Men vs Women. I wouldn't want something like the ERA unless--ideally--it tackled gender identity in general. Because I'm damn sure trans people, people who present as particularly femmy or butch, et cetera are having more problems than me.

Change "sex" to "sex or gender identity" in the text of the amendment and I'll be happy with it.

Edited 2013-07-10 03:17 (UTC)

"Sex, sexual preference, or gender identity".

That said, though - I mean, it would be a great constitutional amendment and I would vote for it a million times over if I could. But it is about as politically plausible as a constitutional amendment declaring the abolition of private property and the liquidation of the capitalist class. An Equal Rights Amendment could be possible (although deeply unlikely at this point - I think it seemed somewhat more likely when Sorkin was writing that, although even then I think it was something of the past) but a real Equal Rights Amendment... I don't think so.

I'm not sure what it says about the country that it's so, or what we can do to change that. It's a bit grim.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2380 ]

The Equal Rights Amendment

Re: The Equal Rights Amendment

Re: The Equal Rights Amendment

Re: The Equal Rights Amendment

Re: The Equal Rights Amendment

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The classic ERA just isn't enough anymore.

Re: The classic ERA just isn't enough anymore.