ARLINGTON — Women’s Equality Day commemorates the passage of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution. The 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote in 1920, but it was a right that took decades to realize. This landmark Amendment institutionalized every person’s right to participate in the electoral process regardless of sex, and now it’s time to use the priceless power of the vote to advance another crucial amendment for women’s rights: the Equal Rights Amendment.
This Women’s Equality Day, the Feminist Majority Foundation is taking this important anniversary in the fight for women’s suffrage to continue building momentum around the Equal Rights Amendment with an online quiz testing voters’ knowledge of the ERA.
The Equal Rights Amendment will finally cement equal rights under the law – for all – for the first time ever in the United States Constitution. Now it’s time to make sure voters know what the ERA is all about, and how they can be agents in the fight to ratify the ERA right now!
WHAT YOU MAY NOT KNOW:
- The Illinois state senate approved the ERA by a 60 percent majority in 2014. The Illinois House could vote to bring the US one state closer to ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment in the 2014 November veto session. Illinois would become the 36th state. We need 38.
- Oregon voters could pass a state ERA when Measure 89 goes to a vote in November 2014.
- Now, in Nevada, a leading state legislator is contemplating introducing a resolution to ratify the ERA in 2015.
- Full ratification of the ERA would, for the first time, create a national legal standard for the elimination of discrimination against women in all areas of life, including equal pay.
- The ERA would change the burden of proof in sex discrimination cases to a higher level of scrutiny under the law.
- The ERA would strengthen enforcement of laws against gender-based violence and expand federal power to prosecute these crimes.
- The ERA would prohibit pregnancy discrimination.
Take the quiz and join the conversation all day long: Follow @majorityspeaks, @femmajority and #WED2014 all day for reasons to ratify the #ERANow!
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ERA BACKGROUND: http://bit.ly/1AOD0p2
ERA FACT SHEET: http://bit.ly/1pk8PiO
WHEN: Tuesday, August 26, 2014
WHERE: Online
WHAT: Pop Quiz for Equality
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