The feminist movement in the United States urged the country’s Congress to protect gender equality in the Constitution before the elected president, Republican Donald Trump, takes office on January 20, 2025.
The Feminist Front leads the #ERANOW campaign with which they seek to have the Equal Rights Amendment incorporated into the Constitution and thus guarantee protection against gender-based discrimination.
The amendment, which dates back to 1923, was an initiative by a group of women who sought to ensure equal legal rights between men and women. The constitutional amendment proposal was updated in 1943 but maintained the same spirit.
“Equal rights before the law will not be denied or restricted by the United States or by any state on the basis of sex,” dictates the first article of the text.
In 1972, the new version of the ERA was approved by a majority of the Senate and the House of Representatives and was sent to the states to decide whether to ratify it or not.
This decision had until June 30, 1982, and by then only 35 states had ratified it, leaving them three short of overcoming the barrier of three-quarters of the country’s states (38), as established by the Constitution.
But in 2020, the state of Virginia approved the initiative in its chamber and became the 38th state to do so, after Nevada, which did so in 2017, and a year later, Illinois.
But, as this amendment had a deadline for ratification, it remained in a kind of legal limbo in which it was not clear whether it was approved or not.
On the one hand, the Justice Department stated in a non-binding opinion that the approval had come too late and that the process should start over.
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However, some congressional legislators believe that this deadline is not binding on the states and could be revoked by a simple majority in Congress.
Last year, on the centennial of the initiative, President Joe Biden urged Congress to “act quickly to recognize the ratification” of the amendment, but the majority of Republican senators voted against a resolution to remove the deadline.
For this reason, feminist organizations are asking some Republican congressmen to join the initiative enacted last year by Democratic congresswoman Ayanna Pressley to eliminate the deadline and ensure that it is published during the term of President Joe Biden.
“We demand equality. We come into this world as equals, it is time for our nation’s founding document to reflect that. Congress has a duty to promote equal rights, and you can act meaningfully on behalf of your constituents today,” they ask.
With information from EFE
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