End an era. Ratify the ERA!

We are down to (up to?) the last week of June. We celebrate Independence Day a week from tomorrow. I have concerns and reservations about how much celebration there will be and what it will be about this year. June gone and I’ve not wet a line yet this fishing season. Climate weirding can account for most of that. Throw in a 10% laziness factor and a few other obligations and there you have it. The good news is we’ve reached Trico season so I will, if at all possible, get out and get casting. The yard can go to weeds if necessary.

better bouquets than a lawn provides

Photo by J. Harrington

Speaking of the yard, the Better Half pointed out today that we have a butterfly weed in bloom. It’s probable that the bloom is part of the myriad of seeds we scattered last autumn. We’re looking forward to more blossoms of various species over the duration of the warmer months. Meanwhile, I continue to cut the grass in places we haven’t seeded recently. We are looking more country and less suburban by the year. Pollinators and the like should be pleased. My overdeveloped, middle-class sense of orderliness and neatness will eventually calm down, at least about not having well manicured Kentucky bluegrass to fawn over. 

Since I am the proverbial “old, white, codger,” I approach the following with some hesitation but I’ve been known most of my life as a pot-stirrer, so here I go again.

Would it be helpful to screen candidates for the upcoming primary and general elections for their position on both pro-choice and seeing the Equal Rights Amendment finally ratified? Although I am not a lawyer, I can’t help but wonder if the recent SCOTUS decision would have been preempted had the ERA been ratified. There’s a web site that offers what appears to be resources and coherent strategies for moving ahead on that front. Now, if ever, it might be possible to build enough pressure to get it done. In case you’re wondering, I make this suggestion not as an alternative to getting Congress to enact viable and helpful responses to SCOTUS’ recent decision, but as a “both and” approach.

I also offer, for your consideration, some additional context for the current state of affairs. Donella Meadows, long one of my heroes, published several columns on RvW, contraception, and related matters. You may find it worthwhile to read them.

What are we Really Fighting About?

He Who Frames the Question Determines the Answer

Preparing for the Birth Summit

And, for a slightly different perspective, try

The Anti-Suffragists

By Charlotte Anna Perkins Gilman

Fashionable women in luxurious homes, 

With men to feed them, clothe them, pay their bills, 

Bow, doff the hat, and fetch the handkerchief; 

Hostess or guest, and always so supplied 

With graceful deference and courtesy; 

Surrounded by their servants, horses, dogs, —  

These tell us they have all the rights they want. 

Successful women who have won their way 

Alone, with strength of their unaided arm, 

Or helped by friends, or softly climbing up 

By the sweet aid of ‘woman’s influence’; 

Successful any way, and caring naught 

For any other woman’s unsuccess, —  

These tell us they have all the rights they want. 

Religious women of the feebler sort, —  

Not the religion of a righteous world, 

A free, enlightened, upward-reaching world, 

But the religion that considers life 

As something to back out of! — whose ideal 

Is to renounce, submit, and sacrifice, 

Counting on being patted on the head 

And given a high chair when they get to heaven, — 

These tell us they have all the rights they want. 

Ignorant women — college-bred sometimes, 

But ignorant of life’s realities 

And principles of righteous government, 

And how the privileges they enjoy 

Were won with blood and tears by those before —  

Those they condemn, whose ways they now oppose; 

Saying, ‘Why not let well enough alone? 

Our world is very pleasant as it is,’ —  

These tell us they have all the rights they want. 

And selfish women, — pigs in petticoats, — 

Rich, poor, wise, unwise, top or bottom round, 

But all sublimely innocent of thought, 

And guiltless of ambition, save the one 

Deep, voiceless aspiration — to be fed! 

These have no use for rights or duties more. 

Duties today are more than they can meet, 

And law insures their right to clothes and food, —  

These tell us they have all the rights they want. 

And, more’s the pity, some good women, too; 

Good conscientious women, with ideas; 

Who think — or think they think — that woman’s cause 

Is best advanced by letting it alone; 

That she somehow is not a human thing, 

And not to be helped on by human means, 

Just added to humanity — an ‘L’ — 

A wing, a branch, an extra, not mankind, —  

These tell us they have all the rights they want. 

And out of these has come a monstrous thing, 

A strange, down-sucking whirlpool of disgrace, 

Women uniting against womanhood, 

And using that great name to hide their sin! 

Vain are their words as that old king’s command 

Who set his will against the rising tide. 

But who shall measure the historic shame 

Of these poor traitors — traitors are they all — 

To great Democracy and Womanhood!

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