Open letter to the President of the United States
Dear Mr. President,
Delayed gratification is an important skill to master in a democracy, since the wheels of government, by design, turn slowly. Decisions made in haste can have disastrous consequences. Thus our system of governing was intentionally created to have checks and balances that keep any one person or impulsive action from getting us permanently off course. I appreciate this. And I’d prefer that all holders of high office act thoughtfully and deliberately.
I understand that the campaign promises you made—especially declaring what you would do within the first 100 days in office—have put an impossible pile on your plate. The pandemic, alone, could monopolize your time if you let it. So I can be patient, knowing you are doing the best that you can to solve problems and “build back better.”
But there is one promise you made for which my training in delayed gratification was apparently insufficient—that of ensuring the Equal Rights Amendment finally becomes law.
I was in high school when the ERA was finally approved by congress. I was already retired from my professional career when Virginia voted to ratify the ERA—thereby fulfilling the requirement that three-fourths of our states approve the amendment before it could be added to the constitution. That was in January of 2020. And I’m still waiting.
My mother is nearly 90, and she has been waiting all her life—the ERA having initially been drafted in 1923. Other countries have managed to establish legal equality of the sexes—France, Denmark, Sweden, Canada to name a few. But the United States, with a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” cannot seem to establish a law to protect all the people.
We are a mighty nation that seeks to be a leader and set an example. But how can we be a model for the world when we can’t definitively recognize half of our own citizens as being worthy enough? Our inability to officially acknowledge women and men as equals puts us on shaky ground when we declare the Taliban’s curtailing of women’s civil liberties to be tyrannical. We decry other nations’ lack of literacy for women. We are aghast by cultures that keep women in their place through “honor killings” or acid attacks. And we are right to be enraged! But we can’t present a proper model if we can’t get our own house in order. To practice what one preaches is the best method of teaching.
I understand that after the required number of states ratified the ERA, the National Archivist would not write the amendment into the law because the timing of ratification exceeded a deadline imposed by congress decades ago. There is apparent argument about whether or not the language of the deadline is binding, given that it was not written in the actual body of the amendment.
The will of the people seems apparent—but there is a legal snafu that keeps the amendment from becoming law. If ever there was a time for a president to champion equal rights for all, it’s now. I certainly don’t want you to bend the rules or stretch the truth. But if, in fact, the will of the people has been thwarted by somebody else’s bending of the truth or misreading of the rules, I beseech you to make it right, before you run out of time. We’re still waiting.