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Why is the Equal Rights Amendment still not ratified? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Charles to be Chuck Brian over there, and
0:16
Speaker 1: Jerry's over there. The three amigos equal in every single way,
0:20
Speaker 1: shape and form. Uh. And that makes this, of course
0:23
Speaker 1: stuff you should know, which is basically its own sovereign
0:27
Speaker 1: nation of equality. M yeah, oh yeah, man, come on
0:33
Speaker 1: me thought Jerry had more power than we did. Nope,
0:36
Speaker 1: not a drop more nor drop less. Nary you drop less? Charles, Yeah,
0:43
Speaker 1: I do too. It's a nice place to be, It's
0:44
Speaker 1: a nice state to live in, you know, mentally and
0:48
Speaker 1: physically agreed. I think here at the beginning, we're gonna
0:52
Speaker 1: do a rare We're not gonna read a listener mail,
0:55
Speaker 1: but a rare front loaded listener mail alert. We got
1:01
Speaker 1: um first of all. A couple of years ago, a
1:03
Speaker 1: woman named Graine Bailey suggested the topic of the Equal
1:08
Speaker 1: Rights Amendment uh, and at the time pointed out the
1:11
Speaker 1: difference between the words suffragette and suffragist. I clearly did
1:16
Speaker 1: not read that email close enough, because it took an
1:18
Speaker 1: email last week after one of us said suffragette in
1:23
Speaker 1: a in a recent episode. Uh, and a woman named
1:27
Speaker 1: Mary malan Oscars emailed and said, hey, by the way,
1:32
Speaker 1: look it up. I mean she wasn't mean, she was
1:34
Speaker 1: very nice. That sounded like I was being not too nice.
1:38
Speaker 1: She's very nice about it. She said, you know, look
1:40
Speaker 1: it up. There's a suffragette is sort of a disparaging
1:44
Speaker 1: term rather than suffragist, and it was tagged by you know,
1:49
Speaker 1: reporters in the early nineteen hundreds a thing and I
1:53
Speaker 1: think in Britain to mock people fighting for the women's
1:57
Speaker 1: right to vote. And I didn't know that until then.
2:00
Speaker 1: I'm glad to know, so thank you Mary. Once you
2:03
Speaker 1: hear that, it's it makes total sense, you know. Well,
2:06
Speaker 1: of course, I just I don't know. I never knew that.
2:07
Speaker 1: I never thought about it. I didn't either. This is
2:10
Speaker 1: how people learn stuff. I just assumed you were making
2:12
Speaker 1: a Bowie reference in the episode. I thought it was
2:15
Speaker 1: you that said I'm pretty sure with you, all right,
2:18
Speaker 1: Well either way, let's go with you. Okay, okay, we
2:23
Speaker 1: probably both did, or more more to the point, probably
2:26
Speaker 1: was me. But either way, that was a I think,
2:28
Speaker 1: hats off to you, buddy, for for coming up with
2:30
Speaker 1: that one. Well, I'll not say it again. You know what, Oh,
2:35
Speaker 1: you won't say it anymore? No, of course not. Okay,
2:37
Speaker 1: I thought you said, well, and i'll say it again.
2:39
Speaker 1: I think that's the opposite of what you were just saying, No,
2:43
Speaker 1: I won't. So we're talking today about the Equal Rights Amendment, which,
2:49
Speaker 1: um is it represents a really like discouragingly long swath
2:56
Speaker 1: of American history. Um. But if you set if you
3:01
Speaker 1: look at the whole thing just from a historian's eye
3:03
Speaker 1: or even an anthropologist side, it's really really interesting the
3:07
Speaker 1: history of this, the Equal Rights Amendment. If you kind
3:10
Speaker 1: of look at it much more subjectively and empathetic, empathically, empathetically,
3:16
Speaker 1: it's a lot harder to swallow, but it's still interesting. Nonetheless,
3:21
Speaker 1: And the yeah, so the Equal Rights Amendment is a
3:26
Speaker 1: constitutional amendment, a proposed constitutional amendment that would give women,
3:31
Speaker 1: um equal protection under the law to men that you
3:35
Speaker 1: could not discriminate you, No, you couldn't make a law
3:39
Speaker 1: that discriminated on the basis of sex. And I'll bet
3:42
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people out there chuck that say, well,
3:45
Speaker 1: that's already in the constitution, isn't it. Because there was
3:48
Speaker 1: a poll that the AP conducted into they found that
3:52
Speaker 1: about the people they they contacted thought that there was
3:57
Speaker 1: already equal protection for for women in the constitution. That's
4:01
Speaker 1: just not the case. But the same poll found of
4:06
Speaker 1: those respondents were in favor of enshrining that protection in
4:10
Speaker 1: the Constitution. So it's kind of weird that it's not
4:13
Speaker 1: in there. If people think it's already in there, and
4:16
Speaker 1: then when they find out it's not, they're in favor
4:18
Speaker 1: of it overwhelmingly. Yeah, and been we you know, we
4:21
Speaker 1: just happen to live in a country where pent of
4:25
Speaker 1: the American public could be in favor of certain legislation
4:28
Speaker 1: and it would you know, could very possibly fall on
4:31
Speaker 1: deaf ears when it comes to our politicians. Yeah, yes,
4:35
Speaker 1: because bipartisan support has been defined in recent times as
4:39
Speaker 1: you know, what the Houses of Congress agree to, not
4:43
Speaker 1: necessarily what the public agrees to, which is a different
4:47
Speaker 1: form of bipartisanship. And to me, if you ask me,
4:50
Speaker 1: the more important one, like if the if the public
4:53
Speaker 1: generally agrees on something, go with that. It seems like
4:57
Speaker 1: since they're elected representatives in on Christ they should kind
5:01
Speaker 1: of go with that. So h yes, I can't wait.
5:04
Speaker 1: It's gonna be there's gonna be a lot of big
5:06
Speaker 1: changes around here, everybody. Yes, it should we kind of
5:10
Speaker 1: go back to the beginnings. Yes we should, because it's
5:13
Speaker 1: you know, I associate the e r A with the
5:15
Speaker 1: seventies and the Ways Live movement, as we'll see. But
5:18
Speaker 1: it goes back a lot further than that. Yeah, it does.
5:21
Speaker 1: And it's it's crazy to think that since the early
5:23
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties they've been trying to get this enshrined in
5:25
Speaker 1: the constitution and it still isn't in the year one.
5:29
Speaker 1: But that is the case. Um. The first versions of
5:32
Speaker 1: the Equal Rights Amendment were written up in the early
5:35
Speaker 1: twenties by a suffragist UH named Alice Paul. Um. Some
5:39
Speaker 1: other women, notably one Crystal Eastman, also helped out a lot,
5:44
Speaker 1: and they also helped get the Nineteenth Amendment pass, which
5:47
Speaker 1: gave women the right to vote UH in nineteen twenty
5:50
Speaker 1: and they got together and said, UM, you know, I
5:53
Speaker 1: think the next step, obviously should be just to go
5:56
Speaker 1: ahead and put this in the constitution, that women have
5:58
Speaker 1: equal rights like men in all facets of life. It's
6:02
Speaker 1: worth pointing out here, UM that Um paul was a
6:06
Speaker 1: Quaker and a leader of the National Women's Party for
6:09
Speaker 1: like fifty years or something. Uh. And the reason I
6:12
Speaker 1: mentioned she was a Quaker because she actually named the
6:16
Speaker 1: amendment the Lucretia Mott Amendment, after another Quaker woman from
6:21
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century who was also a suffragists as well
6:24
Speaker 1: as an abolitionist. Yeah, if you peel back, you know,
6:27
Speaker 1: the layer of early twentieth century or nineteenth century progressive
6:31
Speaker 1: there's a about a percent chance they were a Quaker.
6:34
Speaker 1: All sorts of good stuff during It's pretty interesting. Yeah,
6:37
Speaker 1: it really is. We should do one on the Quakers
6:39
Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah. I have a friend who's a Quaker,
6:42
Speaker 1: and uh, she talks about Quaker meetings and Quaker weddings
6:46
Speaker 1: and stuff, and it all just seems so chill and peaceful.
6:49
Speaker 1: It's very appealing, right, Um. But so Lucretia Mott apparently
6:54
Speaker 1: was among what's considered the the beginning of the first
6:58
Speaker 1: wave of feminism. Where was you know, Um, not only
7:02
Speaker 1: do women need the right to vote? And this is
7:04
Speaker 1: like the eighteen thirties, eighteen forties, I think, because when
7:07
Speaker 1: she was really beginning to be active, Um, not only
7:10
Speaker 1: should women have the right to vote, but um, these
7:13
Speaker 1: people were also very frequently also abolitionists. Right, So when
7:18
Speaker 1: UM Congress started passing laws that protected the rights, that
7:22
Speaker 1: enshrined the rights of African Americans into the Constitution, into
7:26
Speaker 1: the law of the land, saying you cannot discriminate against
7:32
Speaker 1: people who based on their because their African Americans are
7:36
Speaker 1: based on their race. UM, women said, well, hey, just
7:39
Speaker 1: add sex in there, add sex, like, let's let's put
7:43
Speaker 1: that into the fourteenth Amendment. And UM, that didn't make it.
7:47
Speaker 1: It didn't make it into any of the amendments. And
7:50
Speaker 1: that was a I don't think it caused a rift
7:52
Speaker 1: or anything like that, but I think it was extremely
7:54
Speaker 1: disappointing to the suffragists who had also worked for abolition
7:58
Speaker 1: as well, that the two things couldn't go hand in hand. So, UM,
8:02
Speaker 1: African Americans started to gain civil rights decades before women did.
8:07
Speaker 1: Women gained the right to vote, UM, and women just
8:10
Speaker 1: kind of had to carry on. The suffragist movement continued
8:13
Speaker 1: on even after the abolitionist movement was successful. Yeah, and
8:18
Speaker 1: then nineteen three Alice Paul said, well, here's what we'll do,
8:22
Speaker 1: will reward this amendment that we've written. So it sounds
8:26
Speaker 1: more constitutional, I guess, And so it sounds a little
8:30
Speaker 1: more like the fourteenth Amendment, and the new version basically
8:34
Speaker 1: said equal rights. I'm sorry, equality of rights under the
8:37
Speaker 1: law shall not be denied or a bridge by the
8:39
Speaker 1: United States or by any state on account of sex.
8:43
Speaker 1: And you know, once again, this was proposed and um,
8:48
Speaker 1: you know for about thirty years in most sessions I
8:51
Speaker 1: think every session of Congress, every single one, and didn't
8:54
Speaker 1: get a lot of support. Um. And you know, it's
8:57
Speaker 1: not to say that all men in politics were against it,
9:01
Speaker 1: but it certainly was not their legislative priority, clearly. And
9:05
Speaker 1: if you have a run from n to nineteen seventy
9:08
Speaker 1: with only ten women serving in the Senate, never more
9:12
Speaker 1: than two at a time, then the writings on the
9:14
Speaker 1: wall that the e r A is is not just
9:16
Speaker 1: it's just not going to be a top priority. I know.
9:18
Speaker 1: But that's sad writing, you know what I mean, Like
9:20
Speaker 1: the fact that there weren't women, uh in Congress. It
9:23
Speaker 1: certainly doesn't let men off the hook like they can't
9:26
Speaker 1: do they can't pass this, can't possibly take up legislation
9:30
Speaker 1: that guarantees the equal rights to women because we're moon
9:33
Speaker 1: you know, like that's that's very bothersome. But there's something
9:37
Speaker 1: else in there, chuck. So from nineteen twenty three when
9:42
Speaker 1: Alice Paul first introduced that, all the way through to
9:46
Speaker 1: nine seventy, it was taken up in every session of
9:50
Speaker 1: Congress and it failed. And one of the things that
9:53
Speaker 1: stuck out to me was that there was a guy
9:55
Speaker 1: who um oversaw the House I think the House Judiciary Committee, um,
10:00
Speaker 1: and he was a Democrat from New York and he
10:04
Speaker 1: put the kai bosh on it. Emmanuel Seller. Yeah, so
10:08
Speaker 1: he put the kai bosh on. He would not let
10:10
Speaker 1: it get to a vote. And I was like, why
10:12
Speaker 1: this guy was a Democrat in New York, what was
10:14
Speaker 1: his problem? And it turns out that the opposition to
10:18
Speaker 1: the e r A, which is now very clearly amongst
10:21
Speaker 1: like it's liberals are for it, Progressives are for it,
10:25
Speaker 1: Conservatives are typically against it. Um. It used to be
10:28
Speaker 1: flip flopped where the liberals, especially New Deal liberals like
10:32
Speaker 1: Eleanor Roosevelt, were against the Equal Rights Amendment and conservatives
10:37
Speaker 1: like Eisenhower conservatives were typically in favor of it. In
10:41
Speaker 1: that bizarre yeah it is. I mean Roosevelt, she had
10:45
Speaker 1: her reasons. She wasn't just like, oh, I don't think
10:47
Speaker 1: women should have rights. I think she said, you know,
10:51
Speaker 1: she thought it would undermine workplace protections. Um. She was
10:55
Speaker 1: a part of Kennedy's commission. She chaired the commission, the
10:59
Speaker 1: President's Commission on the Status of Women, which I think
11:02
Speaker 1: the result was released posthuous posthumously that said it wasn't
11:05
Speaker 1: the ra A wasn't necessary, and she she kind of
11:10
Speaker 1: came around a little bit. She never gave a full
11:11
Speaker 1: throated endorsement, but she kind of stopped talking out against it.
11:14
Speaker 1: I think at a certain point she used to debate
11:17
Speaker 1: Alice Paul like publicly. They would, you know, have back
11:20
Speaker 1: and forth debates over you know, whether the e r
11:23
Speaker 1: A was needed and how helpful it was going to be. So,
11:26
Speaker 1: I mean, you don't like I I know that um
11:28
Speaker 1: Eleanor Roosevelt is frequently criticized as not uh out right
11:34
Speaker 1: feminist enough in a lot of ways, but she also
11:37
Speaker 1: clearly seems to have been a feminist in her own
11:40
Speaker 1: way for sure. Yeah, and we should point out to that.
11:43
Speaker 1: Emmanuel Seller in ninety two, in a very big upset,
11:47
Speaker 1: lost uh to a woman, an attorney named Elizabeth Holtzman,
11:51
Speaker 1: largely due to his opposition to the era A. So yeah. Okay.
11:55
Speaker 1: So so finally, by the early seventies, you're getting more
11:59
Speaker 1: and more women who are starting to show up in
12:01
Speaker 1: in Congress, um, like Bella as Bug and Shirley Chisholm,
12:06
Speaker 1: and they basically said, like, this is our priority. We're
12:09
Speaker 1: going to get this. This equal Rights Amendment finally passed
12:12
Speaker 1: through Congress. And I don't know if it just happened
12:15
Speaker 1: to be like an era of kind of bipartisan sentiment
12:19
Speaker 1: um or what the deal was, but everybody finally came
12:24
Speaker 1: together and that thing got passed. Like if a piece
12:28
Speaker 1: of legislation has ever gotten passed, it was this one
12:31
Speaker 1: in a bipartisan manner. Yeah. And you know what, Uh,
12:35
Speaker 1: we'll get to how that passed. But a really big
12:37
Speaker 1: reason is because it started becoming a big deal in
12:40
Speaker 1: the media with this second wave, like you mentioned of
12:44
Speaker 1: the women's lib movement, and in no small part by
12:47
Speaker 1: a woman named Betty for Dan who wrote a book
12:50
Speaker 1: called The Feminine Mystique that in nine sold a million copies.
12:56
Speaker 1: And it's if she probably gets a at least a
12:59
Speaker 1: short following her own she was really interesting. Um. The
13:03
Speaker 1: reason she wrote this book is because she did a
13:06
Speaker 1: survey for a college reunion for her former classmates, learned
13:11
Speaker 1: that many of her former female classmates were not super
13:14
Speaker 1: happy about being homemakers and not being able to work,
13:18
Speaker 1: and center down a research rabbit hole on This kind
13:21
Speaker 1: of became her passion project because she wanted to write
13:24
Speaker 1: a magazine article, like a really in depth win. No
13:26
Speaker 1: one wanted it, so she ended up publishing it as
13:29
Speaker 1: a book called The Feminine Mystique, which kind of rocked
13:32
Speaker 1: the world of America in the early early to mid sixties. Yeah,
13:36
Speaker 1: because like in this book, she's basically saying, like this
13:38
Speaker 1: whole this whole thing, we're all we're all going along
13:41
Speaker 1: with this idea that the most the highest ideal a
13:46
Speaker 1: woman can aspire to is to be the best wife
13:49
Speaker 1: and mother she possibly can be, and that that's her identity.
13:52
Speaker 1: It is as someone's wife, as someone's mother, that she
13:54
Speaker 1: doesn't have her own identity that's independent of all of that.
13:58
Speaker 1: That is a crushing a way to live for a
14:02
Speaker 1: lot of women, not all women, as we'll see, but
14:04
Speaker 1: a lot of women. And she spoke up for a
14:07
Speaker 1: lot of them. Um, And I believe that this was
14:10
Speaker 1: kind of it was already kind of out there in
14:13
Speaker 1: pieces like people were talking about this, but Betty fre
14:15
Speaker 1: Dan like put it all together and put it on
14:17
Speaker 1: the map and got everyone talking. From what I've ever seen,
14:20
Speaker 1: like almost single handedly started the second wave of feminism. Yeah,
14:25
Speaker 1: and she put a pin in this little mini series.
14:28
Speaker 1: She was played by Tracy Ullman UH in a mini
14:31
Speaker 1: series last year called Mrs America that we're going to
14:34
Speaker 1: get to a little more in depth than a second Yeah. So, um,
14:37
Speaker 1: Betty fre Dan publishes the feminine mystique, like you said,
14:40
Speaker 1: just totally rocked everybody's world for for better or worse
14:44
Speaker 1: depending on your ideas about what the feminine mystique was about.
14:48
Speaker 1: And saying, um, but yeah, like you're saying, like that
14:51
Speaker 1: really laid the groundwork to this bipartisan um passing in
14:57
Speaker 1: Congress of UH Equal Rights Amendment in nineteen seventy two,
15:02
Speaker 1: I believe, right, Yeah, so it passes in a big way.
15:06
Speaker 1: I think you said ninety three p Ninety three point
15:09
Speaker 1: four in the House, ninety one point three in the Senate,
15:12
Speaker 1: but which I can't wrap my head around that. How
15:14
Speaker 1: did one third of a senator is that that senator
15:17
Speaker 1: cross section of New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Michigan. Uh, here's
15:23
Speaker 1: the deal, though. If you want something and shrined in
15:26
Speaker 1: the constitution, that's a big deal in this country. They
15:29
Speaker 1: don't do it willy nilly, nor should they um. But
15:33
Speaker 1: you need not only like once it passes that it's
15:35
Speaker 1: not automatic, then the state legislatures have to ratify it
15:39
Speaker 1: by a two thirds margin, which means at least thirty
15:43
Speaker 1: eight states have to ratify it. Um. And the e
15:47
Speaker 1: r A had a stipulation that said, if that isn't
15:50
Speaker 1: done in seven years, then you gotta go back to
15:53
Speaker 1: the drawing board. And that was that was not in
15:55
Speaker 1: the actual e r A. That was not in the
15:58
Speaker 1: constitutional amendment. That was past and that's going to become
16:01
Speaker 1: very important later. But it was in the legislation where
16:06
Speaker 1: that e r A the amendment was sent to the
16:08
Speaker 1: states for ratification, it said do this in seven years. Right, Okay,
16:13
Speaker 1: that's that's just like that little slight distinction makes a
16:16
Speaker 1: big difference down the road. Oh yeah, I mean the
16:19
Speaker 1: r people pushing for the e r A certainly would
16:21
Speaker 1: not have wanted an expiration date. No, And there's as
16:24
Speaker 1: far as I could tell that they haven't ever attached
16:27
Speaker 1: an expiration date to an amendment to be ratified before
16:30
Speaker 1: it was just and it was also an arbitrary period
16:33
Speaker 1: of time too, So just just chew on that, put
16:37
Speaker 1: put that wadded up piece of gum in the back
16:39
Speaker 1: of your cheek and save it for later. I wonder
16:42
Speaker 1: in the debate if they were like, well, I mean,
16:44
Speaker 1: how many years? Seven seven sounds good? Pour the Scotch. Uh.
16:53
Speaker 1: So within one year, um, thirty of the thirty eight
16:57
Speaker 1: states needed ratified it, which was super fast, and everyone
17:01
Speaker 1: was like, you know, proponents like this is great, man,
17:04
Speaker 1: it looks like this thing is gonna sail right into
17:06
Speaker 1: the constitution. Uh. And then a woman popped up named
17:10
Speaker 1: Phillis schlafe Lee and we're gonna take a break here
17:14
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about Phillis right after this. And I guess,
17:42
Speaker 1: depending on where your views are, Chuck, we should have
17:45
Speaker 1: introduced Phillis chef Lee with the the Darth Vader theme
17:49
Speaker 1: song when she made first makes her appear, Dune Dune, Dune, Dune.
17:56
Speaker 1: It's exactly right. Did you watch any of these interviews
18:00
Speaker 1: and debates, Yes, dude, you could. It's really interesting. If
18:04
Speaker 1: you have your wits about you, you could despise everything
18:07
Speaker 1: that ever came out of Philish Lafeley's mouth. It's very
18:10
Speaker 1: very easy to do. Um. She equates gay people, which
18:15
Speaker 1: I guess in the fashion of the time she calls homosexuals.
18:18
Speaker 1: She calls them perverts. Says that they should not have
18:21
Speaker 1: any rights afforded to married men and women. They shouldn't
18:25
Speaker 1: be able to adopt children. She says, really despicable. I
18:30
Speaker 1: didn't hear that one. She says a lot of very
18:32
Speaker 1: despicable stuff. Um, and her whole viewpoint is despicable to
18:37
Speaker 1: a lot of people. But there are very few people
18:42
Speaker 1: walking around out there who have the poise and self
18:47
Speaker 1: possession to go into the lions den and speak for
18:52
Speaker 1: whatever she was convinced of was right. Um, that's you.
18:58
Speaker 1: She has to be credited to at least that degree.
19:01
Speaker 1: No matter what you think about her mind, she was
19:04
Speaker 1: she had a lot of poise, I guess you could say.
19:06
Speaker 1: And it's really kind of something to watch because I
19:08
Speaker 1: saw this one. Did you see the the Good Morning
19:11
Speaker 1: American debate from nine seventy between her and for Dan Yeah? Man,
19:15
Speaker 1: And it's like it's really clear what a skilled debater
19:18
Speaker 1: she was and how rattled she could get somebody. Yeah. Uh,
19:23
Speaker 1: I mean she clearly. I felt bad for for Dan.
19:25
Speaker 1: She was doing a good job, but she was she
19:28
Speaker 1: was getting piste off and you could tell that she
19:30
Speaker 1: just liked to get under people's skin while she just
19:33
Speaker 1: remained perfectly, you know, erect in her seat with perfect posture.
19:38
Speaker 1: And uh, that Mrs. America series, which it was on
19:41
Speaker 1: our list and I'm gonna bump it back up to
19:43
Speaker 1: next in line now to watch. But she was played,
19:46
Speaker 1: um really really well judging from just the the accent
19:50
Speaker 1: and the mannerisms by Cate Blanchett. It can do no wrong. Yeah,
19:53
Speaker 1: I want to see that series too, um, but yes,
19:57
Speaker 1: she so. If you see those two debating, it's like
19:59
Speaker 1: a st in contrast, where Philis chaff Lee she Laughlely
20:04
Speaker 1: is um basically sitting there at tea time at the
20:07
Speaker 1: country club before the polo match. And Betty fre Dan,
20:11
Speaker 1: if you put like a beret in sunglasses on a
20:13
Speaker 1: French cigarette in her mouth, she's like sitting at the
20:16
Speaker 1: beating at cafe, like listening to a poetry jam or
20:19
Speaker 1: something like this. Just these two totally contrasting personalities. Be
20:24
Speaker 1: A Cheffly debated her under the table, and it's not
20:26
Speaker 1: like Betty fre Dan was was an intellectual slouch by
20:30
Speaker 1: any measure. But it's just Philish Laughly could rattle anybody. Anybody,
20:36
Speaker 1: she could rattle Santa Claus. I'm just gonna say it. Yeah,
20:39
Speaker 1: I mean, she kind of made herself out to be
20:42
Speaker 1: just this homemaker. Um. She would enter when she introduced
20:45
Speaker 1: herself at engagement, she would thank her husband for letting
20:48
Speaker 1: her come there. But when you kind of peek behind
20:50
Speaker 1: the curtain, she had a master's in political science, she
20:54
Speaker 1: had a law degree. She ran for Congress when she
20:57
Speaker 1: was twenty seven years old and lost. And she was um,
21:02
Speaker 1: sort of pre nineteen eighties, a big part in at
21:06
Speaker 1: the very least, I don't even think they called it
21:08
Speaker 1: the Christian Right at the time, that kind of organizing
21:10
Speaker 1: what would later become the Christian Right movement. Yeah, you
21:13
Speaker 1: can make a really good case that Philish laughy um
21:16
Speaker 1: laid the groundwork for the current Republican Party in every
21:21
Speaker 1: way from from Reagan onward to today. Um and and yeah,
21:26
Speaker 1: she basically said like, I'm just a housewife from St. Louis,
21:29
Speaker 1: proud housewife, wife and mother of six from St. Louis.
21:33
Speaker 1: Um And in a lot of ways she was like
21:36
Speaker 1: she made reference to law school during her debate to
21:40
Speaker 1: Betty for Dan and she sounded like she was in
21:44
Speaker 1: law school then, so it seems like she was just
21:49
Speaker 1: a woman who said, I don't agree with this, and
21:52
Speaker 1: I'm going to put a stop to it, and stood
21:54
Speaker 1: in front of this unstoppable title wave and stopped it.
22:00
Speaker 1: She stopped it. She stopped the E r A from
22:05
Speaker 1: being ratified by the states right at the eleventh and
22:09
Speaker 1: a half hour before it was ever passed and ratified
22:13
Speaker 1: by the thirty eight states. You said they got thirty
22:15
Speaker 1: states in the first year. By seven they were up
22:18
Speaker 1: the thirty five states. They just needed three more, three
22:21
Speaker 1: more states, and the whole thing was going to become
22:24
Speaker 1: the law of the Lane. And Philish Slafely got in
22:27
Speaker 1: the way of that almost single handedly at first. Yeah,
22:30
Speaker 1: and you know she launched her her group was called
22:33
Speaker 1: stop e r A, which you know, we obsess about acronyms.
22:38
Speaker 1: It's sort of annoying when the first letter of an
22:40
Speaker 1: acronym is the actual acronym. But stop ere A stood first,
22:44
Speaker 1: stop taking our privileges. And her argument, you know, she
22:48
Speaker 1: was like, and she used this to her advantage in
22:51
Speaker 1: those debates, like see how angry these feminists are She's
22:54
Speaker 1: she kind of coin that term. I think about the
22:57
Speaker 1: angry women's Live movement. These angry feminists, they us want
23:00
Speaker 1: they wanted to throw down everything that makes us a
23:04
Speaker 1: female and everything that makes us women, and they want
23:07
Speaker 1: to just set fire to it. And before you know what,
23:10
Speaker 1: women are going to be able to be drafted in
23:12
Speaker 1: the armed forces. Never happened. Uh, you know, they're they're
23:15
Speaker 1: not going to be separate bathrooms or locker rooms anymore
23:17
Speaker 1: from this point on. Not true. That started to happen
23:20
Speaker 1: more in recent years, wrapped up same sex marriage. I
23:24
Speaker 1: mean we'll we'll get to that. How she kind of
23:27
Speaker 1: co opted gay rights and um, reproductive rights into all
23:31
Speaker 1: this just to sort of coalesce that movement. Uh, and said,
23:36
Speaker 1: you know, women are going to lose their right to
23:37
Speaker 1: alimony and child support. Never happened. And just the life
23:41
Speaker 1: as we know it, in the family as we know it.
23:43
Speaker 1: And this is something fifty years on. All this stuff
23:45
Speaker 1: is still so relevant, like the dissolution of what you know,
23:50
Speaker 1: people think was the perfect family in nineteen fifty basically yeah,
23:55
Speaker 1: because I mean so she was a troll, like a
23:57
Speaker 1: a proto troll. But like the kind. You didn't do
24:00
Speaker 1: it online, you did it in person. But her her
24:03
Speaker 1: points were coherent and understandable to people who agreed with her,
24:08
Speaker 1: and they were that like, yeah, like the man's role
24:11
Speaker 1: is to provide for and take care of the woman,
24:14
Speaker 1: and the woman provides like the domestic labor, and that's
24:17
Speaker 1: just the division of labor between the sexes. And if
24:20
Speaker 1: if we have the c r A, that's going to
24:23
Speaker 1: go away, and then there's going to be all this
24:24
Speaker 1: other horrible stuff of that's going to break down the
24:27
Speaker 1: fabric of society and do we really want that? And
24:31
Speaker 1: so by by taking the argument away from the idea
24:36
Speaker 1: of whether women have a fundamental human right to equal
24:41
Speaker 1: protection under the law as men, which is who disagrees
24:45
Speaker 1: with that? Nobody disagrees with that, uh, and mixing it
24:49
Speaker 1: up with all these other what ifs and potential social
24:52
Speaker 1: outcomes and the ruin of the family, gay men teaching
24:55
Speaker 1: your children at school, Um, that is what can alidated
25:00
Speaker 1: people into a movement behind fellish laughly. And it was
25:04
Speaker 1: it was really underhanded, but it worked really really well
25:08
Speaker 1: and it still works today. Like she came up with
25:11
Speaker 1: that from what I can tell. Yeah, in seventy three,
25:13
Speaker 1: when Roevie Wade passed, she was again savvy enough to say, well,
25:18
Speaker 1: here's something else I can I can seize on, and
25:22
Speaker 1: I can wrap this up like there's a there's a whole.
25:25
Speaker 1: There's a really large block of voters who are conservative
25:31
Speaker 1: Christians who you know, we've never really intermingled politics like
25:34
Speaker 1: that before. And so let's wrap this up in pro choice.
25:38
Speaker 1: Let's wrap it up with gay rights, big culture war
25:41
Speaker 1: issues of the time to kind of rally and like
25:43
Speaker 1: I said, coalescence group together in order to defeat the
25:46
Speaker 1: Equal Rights Amendment. And like you said it, you know
25:49
Speaker 1: it worked in a big, big way. And uh, I
25:52
Speaker 1: can't wait to watch that TV show. I can't either,
25:55
Speaker 1: And I don't want to suck all the oxygen away
25:57
Speaker 1: from Betty for Dan and the other feminists. But um,
26:00
Speaker 1: I was saying that Phillish Laughley was a troll, a
26:03
Speaker 1: proto troll. And if you read some of the stuff
26:06
Speaker 1: that she said in public, sometimes she sounds like a
26:10
Speaker 1: spokesperson for the Taliban. Like she said things like, um
26:14
Speaker 1: that that sexual harassment on the job was not a
26:17
Speaker 1: problem for virtuous women, like you know exactly, um or,
26:22
Speaker 1: and that the Adam bomb was a marvelous gift that
26:24
Speaker 1: was given to our country by a wise God. Just
26:27
Speaker 1: things that would drive any any liberal or progressive, especially
26:32
Speaker 1: a feminist, up the wall. And in fact, Betty for
26:35
Speaker 1: Dan in this very famous debate from three years before
26:38
Speaker 1: that Good Morning America appearance that you and I saw um,
26:41
Speaker 1: she said, uh, you're you're, you're like you should be
26:45
Speaker 1: burned at the stake for for betraying your your gender,
26:50
Speaker 1: any favors and stuff like that, because that just allowed
26:53
Speaker 1: Laughley to say, see there exactly, that's exactly right. But
26:56
Speaker 1: she could just get under your skin like that. So
27:00
Speaker 1: fast forward many many years too kind of now almost Uh.
27:06
Speaker 1: In seventeen, after about forty years of not much movement, UH,
27:11
Speaker 1: Nevada became the first New state to ratify the e
27:14
Speaker 1: r A, thanks in no small part to State Senator
27:17
Speaker 1: Pat Spearman, and she said, this bill is about a
27:21
Speaker 1: quality period umen. Just a few years ago Illinois UM
27:26
Speaker 1: came aboard as well. And now it's back up to
27:28
Speaker 1: thirty seven. Did we mention that five of the states
27:32
Speaker 1: d ratified or rescinded their ratification. I don't think we did.
27:36
Speaker 1: We did not, and I think that's an important point here. Yeah, Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho, Kentucky,
27:41
Speaker 1: and South Dakota be very part of your legislatures. After
27:45
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, they um de ratified or de certified,
27:50
Speaker 1: not de certified. They rescinded it. They did. They said,
27:53
Speaker 1: this is based on there's actually precedence for that. Ohio
27:56
Speaker 1: and New Jersey both rescinded their support for the Fourteenth
28:00
Speaker 1: Amendment once their legislatures changed control to um white supremacists.
28:05
Speaker 1: Basically in the nineteenth century, they said, we take back
28:08
Speaker 1: our our vote for the fourteenth Amendment. It also said
28:11
Speaker 1: a president though that Congress ignored that and still counted
28:15
Speaker 1: Ohio and New Jersey as having ratified the Fourteenth Amendment
28:19
Speaker 1: because they did officially, right, So it goes back up
28:22
Speaker 1: to thirty five. Then, uh, Illinois made at thirty seven
28:26
Speaker 1: in January of last year. It's crazy that it took
28:30
Speaker 1: this long. Virginia finally became the thirty eight state, and
28:34
Speaker 1: so proponents of the e r A said, all right,
28:36
Speaker 1: we got there, that's the thirty eight um. This thing
28:40
Speaker 1: should have never had an expiration date to begin with.
28:42
Speaker 1: That's dumb. Whoever said seven years? And then Porto Scotch. Uh,
28:47
Speaker 1: they should be burned at the stake. And um, they said,
28:51
Speaker 1: let's just get this thing done. And they said, you
28:53
Speaker 1: know what, back in seventy seven amendment was passed but
28:59
Speaker 1: not ratified it until two hundred years later, two hundred
29:02
Speaker 1: and two years, so like there's precedent there, and that
29:05
Speaker 1: was about prohibiting the law raising or lowering taxes for
29:09
Speaker 1: congressional salaries from taking effect until their next term, like big,
29:13
Speaker 1: big stuff. Not knocking it. It's it's important, I guess.
29:17
Speaker 1: But they said, you know that was done, so this
29:19
Speaker 1: thing shouldn't have had an expiration date to begin with.
29:22
Speaker 1: Opponents say, well, no, there was an expiration date, so
29:26
Speaker 1: we have to honor it. And uh, that's you know,
29:30
Speaker 1: that's the deal. Sorry. And there was even a three
29:32
Speaker 1: year extension that brought it up too, and by the
29:36
Speaker 1: time that extension was running out and it did not
29:39
Speaker 1: look like anything was going to move or happen. There
29:41
Speaker 1: no more states were going to move to ratify it.
29:44
Speaker 1: Even the National Organization for Women and other feminist groups
29:49
Speaker 1: basically through in the talent said it's done. We the
29:53
Speaker 1: e r A lost this time. It's not gone forever,
29:55
Speaker 1: but this amazing immense again tidal weight, this with just
30:01
Speaker 1: the momentum of a freight train running through the country
30:05
Speaker 1: is now dead just a few years after, which is
30:08
Speaker 1: just nuts that that happened. It's just crazy. But that's
30:12
Speaker 1: that's the fact that now thirty eight states have officially
30:16
Speaker 1: voted in favor of ratifying. It set off a flurry
30:20
Speaker 1: of lawsuits here in the United States, and when Virginia
30:23
Speaker 1: became the last one in and basically everybody in anyone
30:27
Speaker 1: suing the National Archives and Records Administration UM to either
30:32
Speaker 1: certify and put it into the National Archives or the
30:35
Speaker 1: National Record that UM that this is now a part
30:39
Speaker 1: of the Constitution, or to not do that. And it's
30:42
Speaker 1: totally up in the air of what that's going to be.
30:44
Speaker 1: But apparently, UM, a lot of people, not everyone, because
30:49
Speaker 1: there's plenty of people are like, it's official. Now take
30:51
Speaker 1: all the b s away, and this is an official
30:53
Speaker 1: law of the land. UM. There are plenty of people
30:56
Speaker 1: who are proponents of the Equal Rights Amendment who say
30:58
Speaker 1: we need to start over again. And one of those people,
31:01
Speaker 1: UM was Ruth Bader Ginsburg who said it needs to
31:05
Speaker 1: be voted on again. We need to pick up again.
31:07
Speaker 1: Basically from square one. Yeah, and I think and we'll
31:11
Speaker 1: talk about all this stuff. But I think there have
31:13
Speaker 1: been so many laws enacted since then that do protect
31:17
Speaker 1: so many of these rights. I think people like RBG
31:20
Speaker 1: were like, you know what, let's start over, let's rewrite
31:23
Speaker 1: it for the modern times, UM, making sure everything is
31:27
Speaker 1: in there that we still need and yeah, and and
31:31
Speaker 1: revote on it. And you know, I think that's reasonable,
31:33
Speaker 1: So do that. So let's let's take a break, UM,
31:36
Speaker 1: and then we'll talk come back and talk about those
31:39
Speaker 1: questions like do we need the R and what would
31:40
Speaker 1: happen if we did pass the R? How about that
31:43
Speaker 1: sounds good? Alright, Chuck. So you made mention of like
32:10
Speaker 1: a lot of laws that have been created since the
32:13
Speaker 1: since UM the e R A was UM passed I
32:17
Speaker 1: guess by Congress, uh, and even before then that protect
32:21
Speaker 1: women as a as a form of what's called the
32:24
Speaker 1: protective class in the United States. They're protective classes that
32:28
Speaker 1: include UM races, religions, UM, sex, UH, the sexual orientation UH,
32:36
Speaker 1: and gender identity. Is becoming a protected class. And if
32:38
Speaker 1: you're a member of a protected class, it means that
32:40
Speaker 1: if there's a law that excludes you from something, whether
32:43
Speaker 1: intentionally or not, that law is considered discriminatory and you
32:49
Speaker 1: can file a lawsuit against it, and then the courts
32:51
Speaker 1: have to apply different um tests to it to see
32:55
Speaker 1: just how discriminatory it is or if it's discriminatory at all,
32:58
Speaker 1: and whether or not it should be struck down or
33:00
Speaker 1: overruled um. And the reason that sex is a protected
33:05
Speaker 1: class even without the Equal Rights Amendment is thanks very
33:10
Speaker 1: much largely to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was an absolute
33:14
Speaker 1: legal pioneer in figuring out how to get women the
33:19
Speaker 1: protections under the law um that they were looking for
33:22
Speaker 1: with the equal Equal Rights Amendment without the Equal Rights
33:25
Speaker 1: Amendment being part of the constitution. Yeah, I mean, I
33:29
Speaker 1: think people that say that we don't need the e
33:31
Speaker 1: r A. And it's a very fine line between saying
33:35
Speaker 1: I'm against the r A and saying I don't think
33:37
Speaker 1: we need the e r A. It's it all falls
33:41
Speaker 1: under the same banner ultimately. But people that say we
33:45
Speaker 1: don't need the r A, say, you know, we got
33:47
Speaker 1: the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four, and race, color, religion, sex,
33:52
Speaker 1: or national origin. You can't hire and fire peer higher
33:56
Speaker 1: and fire people based on that. That applies to pay
33:59
Speaker 1: and benefits to there's also the Equal Pay Act of
34:02
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three that say there should be equal pay
34:05
Speaker 1: for equal work. That's didn't you know, in practice hasn't
34:09
Speaker 1: worked out that way because there's still a wage gap.
34:10
Speaker 1: We did a good episode on that. Yeah, that was
34:13
Speaker 1: a good one. Violence Against Women Act of nineteen UH
34:18
Speaker 1: saying here Federal resources for Domestic and Sexual violence. Um,
34:23
Speaker 1: and you like prevention and prosecution of that counseling and UH,
34:29
Speaker 1: this one however, and you know, put a pin in
34:31
Speaker 1: this one, because this is one that is used also
34:34
Speaker 1: for people that say we do need the A R
34:35
Speaker 1: A because that one expired and is still hung up
34:40
Speaker 1: and has not gotten congressional reauthorization since twenty nineteen because
34:44
Speaker 1: of politics. The Violence Against Women Act. Yeah, and then
34:48
Speaker 1: Title nine is the last one in nineteen seventy two. Uh.
34:52
Speaker 1: Title nine is the one you hear about mostly in
34:53
Speaker 1: college athletics that says, I mean, it says a lot
34:56
Speaker 1: of things, but in terms of college athletics, that had
34:58
Speaker 1: the biggest impact, saying you gotta have the same amount
35:01
Speaker 1: of women's sports as men's sports. Uh, in the same
35:04
Speaker 1: like accommodations and UH, scholarships and all that stuff. And
35:09
Speaker 1: then so like, we don't need the e r A
35:11
Speaker 1: because we have all these things. So yeah, so you
35:13
Speaker 1: have law, and then you also have case law too.
35:17
Speaker 1: That UM basically hinges on the fourteenth Amendment, which says
35:22
Speaker 1: that a citizen of the United States can't be discriminated
35:25
Speaker 1: against or or is do equal protection under the law
35:30
Speaker 1: UM by the States and by the US. And that
35:34
Speaker 1: was written in the in in um past, in the
35:37
Speaker 1: Fourteenth Amendment in the wake of slavery. It was meant
35:40
Speaker 1: to UM basically make free recently freed African Americans full
35:44
Speaker 1: citizens in the United States. But it doesn't specify on
35:48
Speaker 1: the basis of race or on the basis of religion.
35:52
Speaker 1: It just says, if you're a U. S citizen, you
35:54
Speaker 1: get equal protection under the law. And so Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
35:57
Speaker 1: one of the reasons she's such a legal pioneer here
36:00
Speaker 1: in this respect is because she's the one who figured
36:02
Speaker 1: out how to argue that the Fourteenth Amendment applies to
36:05
Speaker 1: sex as well. And the whole thing about legal stuff
36:09
Speaker 1: and this is all new to me. But but it's
36:11
Speaker 1: really kind of interesting is that depending on how enshrined
36:17
Speaker 1: classes a protected group is in law. Um, the more
36:22
Speaker 1: protected it is, the stricter the scrutiny that judges are
36:26
Speaker 1: going to apply to determining whether a law is discriminatory
36:29
Speaker 1: or not. And the most the most scrutiny you can
36:32
Speaker 1: apply to something, it's called strict scrutiny, and that's typically
36:35
Speaker 1: reserved for things that are protected by the Constitution. And
36:38
Speaker 1: that means that if you have a law that even
36:40
Speaker 1: remotely steps on the rights of one of those protected classes,
36:43
Speaker 1: it's probably an illegal, discriminatory law. Yeah, how does that
36:49
Speaker 1: work with how does that work in practice? Does that
36:53
Speaker 1: mean they just spend more time or like what what
36:56
Speaker 1: does that even mean? So? I think what it means
36:59
Speaker 1: is that you if you pass a law, and let's
37:02
Speaker 1: say that I pass a law and it accidentally discriminates
37:05
Speaker 1: against your ability to get your hands on oatmeal. I
37:08
Speaker 1: can get all the oatmeal I want, but you can't.
37:11
Speaker 1: Let's say, in the Constitution, Chuck is specifically protected under
37:16
Speaker 1: the law. That means that this law that prevents you
37:20
Speaker 1: from getting oatmeal, that's a discriminatory law. And so it's
37:24
Speaker 1: going to be really easy for you to bring a
37:26
Speaker 1: lawsuit and for a judge to say, like there's even
37:30
Speaker 1: a little bit of discrimination here. This law is illegal
37:32
Speaker 1: because it's discriminated against Chuck and he's it says in
37:35
Speaker 1: the Constitution you can't discriminate against Chuck. It just means
37:38
Speaker 1: that that the standards for that law um to stand. Uh,
37:45
Speaker 1: like everyone else on the planet basically has to benefit
37:48
Speaker 1: from you not getting oatmeal for some reason, and that
37:52
Speaker 1: that that's just not how laws work. So it would
37:54
Speaker 1: be really easy for you to to bring a lawsuit
37:57
Speaker 1: and get that law overturned because it discriminates it because
38:00
Speaker 1: you're a protected class. Now, if it's just like everybody
38:03
Speaker 1: likes Chuck, but it doesn't say in the Constitution that
38:06
Speaker 1: you can't be discriminated against, they're going to use a
38:08
Speaker 1: slightly less strict test to determine whether the thing is
38:13
Speaker 1: is a discriminatory law or not. And so maybe yeah,
38:16
Speaker 1: it generally um promotes oatmeal use among other people, among
38:21
Speaker 1: all people, but there's some other people who don't get
38:24
Speaker 1: it too. That doesn't really matter because you know, it's
38:27
Speaker 1: not enshrined to the Constitution. So it's almost like degrees
38:30
Speaker 1: and once you're in the Constitution as you as a
38:32
Speaker 1: protected class, like it is really difficult to discriminate against you.
38:36
Speaker 1: And that's one reason why people say, no, we need this,
38:39
Speaker 1: we need this in the constitution because women, uh and
38:43
Speaker 1: sex and gender even should be a protected class. You
38:46
Speaker 1: should not be able to discriminate against somebody based on that. Yeah,
38:50
Speaker 1: I mean that's the main um. That is the main
38:53
Speaker 1: argument for proponents of the r A is saying, no,
38:56
Speaker 1: let's make this of the real deal. Um there. You know,
39:00
Speaker 1: cases can be overturned, laws can be reversed, Executive actions
39:04
Speaker 1: can have devastating impacts, um. And and only being enshrined
39:10
Speaker 1: in the Constitution will make this like like you said,
39:14
Speaker 1: just so locked down and protected that people can't mess
39:17
Speaker 1: with it anymore. I think we've seen in recent years
39:20
Speaker 1: that you know, precedent can be argued and laws can
39:24
Speaker 1: be overturned, and it's like, sure, we have all these
39:29
Speaker 1: laws that passed since the r A first came uh
39:33
Speaker 1: was ratified you know, in the nineteen seventies. But it
39:38
Speaker 1: doesn't take much, you know, especially when you look at
39:40
Speaker 1: a very imbalanced Supreme Court when Pete for people to
39:44
Speaker 1: kind of worry that these these things can be taken away. Yeah.
39:47
Speaker 1: And I mean, like there was a famous quote from
39:49
Speaker 1: antonin Scalia when he was alive and Ajustice on the
39:52
Speaker 1: Supreme Court basically saying like, no, the Constitution most decidedly
39:56
Speaker 1: does not protect against discrimination on the basis of sex.
40:00
Speaker 1: And you know, when when you hear Supreme Court justice
40:02
Speaker 1: saying that, it's like, well, you know, how many cases
40:05
Speaker 1: is it gonna take before he rules like, no, you
40:08
Speaker 1: can totally discriminate against somebody on the basis of sex
40:10
Speaker 1: if it's in the constitution. It doesn't matter what Anton
40:13
Speaker 1: and its school or any other justice thinks. It's in
40:15
Speaker 1: the constitution, So that that level of protection, like you
40:18
Speaker 1: were saying, would be, it's just a totally different level
40:22
Speaker 1: of protection than you know, customarily we we don't discriminate.
40:26
Speaker 1: It's no, you can't discriminate. That's the difference between those
40:29
Speaker 1: two things. Yeah, and not just reversing laws, but passing
40:33
Speaker 1: new laws that maybe violate violate that equal treatment under
40:38
Speaker 1: the law. Uh. And you know some other things that
40:41
Speaker 1: that that constitutionally um could come into play if if
40:45
Speaker 1: it were to go through is something like the Pink
40:47
Speaker 1: tax I. Don't think we've ever done a show on
40:50
Speaker 1: the Pink tax I. Don't think so either. But this
40:53
Speaker 1: is you know, this is the notion that like you know,
40:56
Speaker 1: from everything that like similar products for men and women, uh,
41:00
Speaker 1: they charge women more than they do for men for
41:02
Speaker 1: these products. UM to stuff like you know, menstrual equality
41:08
Speaker 1: or equity. Basically you know, tampons, uh, pads other menstruation
41:13
Speaker 1: products should not be taxed anymore. They should be like
41:17
Speaker 1: treated like any other essential item. Yeah. And then so
41:20
Speaker 1: so there are a lot of things, a lot of
41:23
Speaker 1: protections that it would afford. One thing that frequently is
41:26
Speaker 1: UM cited as as UM protecting women against is like violence,
41:30
Speaker 1: like say, domestic violence. From what I read, it probably
41:33
Speaker 1: wouldn't UM because it protects against being discriminated against by
41:38
Speaker 1: the law. It doesn't necessarily afford protection from like an
41:41
Speaker 1: individual person or something like that, necessarily a company, although
41:45
Speaker 1: being in trined in the constitution, you could really sue
41:48
Speaker 1: a company's pants off for discriminating against you. UM. But
41:52
Speaker 1: there are there are some things that would do, some
41:54
Speaker 1: things that wouldn't do, and then there's some things up
41:55
Speaker 1: in the air. And one of the reasons why this
41:57
Speaker 1: is still such a cultural UM flashpoint still today in
42:03
Speaker 1: is because now more than ever UM it has become
42:07
Speaker 1: equated with taxpayer funded abortion. And the reasoning behind people
42:12
Speaker 1: who oppose the e r A because they think it's
42:15
Speaker 1: basically tantamount too just completely repealing any restrictions on abortion.
42:20
Speaker 1: Abortion from that point on is only women can get abortions,
42:25
Speaker 1: and so if there's a law against abortion, there's a
42:27
Speaker 1: law that's discriminating against women. Therefore you can't have laws
42:32
Speaker 1: regulating abortions. And so that's why, especially with the Christian right,
42:37
Speaker 1: it's still such a flash point today, and that's why
42:40
Speaker 1: starting from scratch again is going to be no easier
42:44
Speaker 1: than it was back in nineteen two. Yeah, now you're
42:48
Speaker 1: probably right. Uh, it's pretty frustrating though to get to
42:52
Speaker 1: that thirty eight state threshold, and because of some dumb,
42:56
Speaker 1: arbitrary expiration date placed on it, it's still being held
43:01
Speaker 1: up in the year yeah, in the year one. And
43:05
Speaker 1: then also, the United States has an obligation is like
43:07
Speaker 1: basically the leader of the free world to join the
43:12
Speaker 1: rest of the Western nations in in enshrining equal protection
43:17
Speaker 1: and the law for bisex um. I guess the United
43:21
Speaker 1: States is one of only twenty eight countries in the
43:23
Speaker 1: world that doesn't guarantee gender equality, one of chuck and
43:28
Speaker 1: a hundred percent of the countries that have written their
43:32
Speaker 1: constitution since nineteen fifty have included some guarantee of gender
43:36
Speaker 1: equality in those constitutions. So it's kind of sad that
43:40
Speaker 1: we don't have that still to this day. Yeah, and
43:43
Speaker 1: if you look around the country this, you know, Dave
43:45
Speaker 1: Ruse helped us out with this article, and he points
43:48
Speaker 1: out stuff like, you know, if you go to Nepal,
43:50
Speaker 1: their Supreme Court struck Donalogu exempting marital rape from criminal
43:55
Speaker 1: prosecution because of its e er a clause. UH. In Tanzania, UH,
44:01
Speaker 1: the Court of Appeal struck down a law that allowed
44:03
Speaker 1: a fifteen year old girls to be married without parental consent,
44:07
Speaker 1: while boys only had to be at eighteen. So, you know,
44:10
Speaker 1: when you look at countries around the world that are
44:13
Speaker 1: are seemingly ahead of the USA and in terms of
44:18
Speaker 1: equal protection, is just it's it's baffling and disappointing. Baffling,
44:22
Speaker 1: is right. Yeah, do you got anything else? I got
44:26
Speaker 1: nothing else. It's good stuff. I have one more thing.
44:29
Speaker 1: If you're give me another second, you're ready. So when
44:32
Speaker 1: I was researching this, my head was just spinning again
44:34
Speaker 1: and again and again. Um and It reminded me of
44:37
Speaker 1: something that I read recently, and that is as really
44:39
Speaker 1: easy to get bounced around from one outrage to another,
44:43
Speaker 1: to one thing, to care about this issue, and then
44:45
Speaker 1: oh wait what about this issue? And I saw some
44:47
Speaker 1: advice somewhere I don't remember where, but it was, if
44:50
Speaker 1: you want to affect change, pick one issue and dedicate
44:54
Speaker 1: yourself to it. And that doesn't mean that you don't
44:56
Speaker 1: care about all the other issues that you do care about.
44:59
Speaker 1: It's just this one issue is your specialty. You're an
45:03
Speaker 1: expert in it, and you're probably going to get further
45:07
Speaker 1: going like that. You're probably going to be able to
45:09
Speaker 1: see more change doing that than you would just kind
45:12
Speaker 1: of bouncing from issue to issue to issue. So I mean,
45:15
Speaker 1: if this like really got to you and you really
45:17
Speaker 1: want to do something about it, make the make getting
45:20
Speaker 1: the e R A past your specialty, you know totally. Okay, Well,
45:25
Speaker 1: thanks for letting me stand on the soapbox for a second.
45:29
Speaker 1: And since I'm getting off of my soapbox and Chuck
45:31
Speaker 1: is putting it up in the soapbox caddy that we
45:34
Speaker 1: keep here in the studio, UM, that means it's time
45:36
Speaker 1: for listener mail. I'm gonna call this a ninja in
45:43
Speaker 1: the Connecticut for us. Nice? Did you read this one? No?
45:47
Speaker 1: I haven't. This is kind of crazy. It's long, but
45:49
Speaker 1: it's worth it. Hey, guys. When I was about seven,
45:52
Speaker 1: my mom married the man I called dad, and we
45:54
Speaker 1: promptly moved from Texas to Connecticut, where we used to
45:57
Speaker 1: go camping a lot. On one trip or I'll out
46:00
Speaker 1: in the woods midnight, rolls around and go to bed.
46:02
Speaker 1: About an hour later, I heard my tent on zipping
46:04
Speaker 1: and my dad started shaking my foot, saying, come out here,
46:07
Speaker 1: there's an effing ninja. So I throw on some slippers
46:11
Speaker 1: in my jacket, but grudgingly trudge out to see a kid,
46:13
Speaker 1: you not a ninja sitting next to the fire pit.
46:17
Speaker 1: I remember actually shaking my head in disbelief to reaffirm
46:19
Speaker 1: this wasn't some very strange dream. And now when I
46:22
Speaker 1: say there was a ninja, I mean full black garb
46:25
Speaker 1: with a slit to see through. This dude had twin
46:27
Speaker 1: swords on his back, throwing stars, tiger claws for climbing,
46:30
Speaker 1: grapple hooks, all the tools. Apparently, my dad saw him
46:34
Speaker 1: rolling out of a bush and I had to see
46:36
Speaker 1: what was going on. The story behind this guy was
46:39
Speaker 1: he was a national a National guardsman and also ran
46:43
Speaker 1: a jew kindo and ninajut So do jo and Rhode
46:48
Speaker 1: Island as his main gig. We sit for the next
46:51
Speaker 1: couple of hours and this guy is just showing a
46:53
Speaker 1: stuff like how fast you can climb a tree or
46:55
Speaker 1: how to throw a star. The night progresses and he
46:58
Speaker 1: asked if we were familiar with Bruce Lee, as an
47:00
Speaker 1: average fan of Enter the Dragon from around eight. I
47:03
Speaker 1: said yes, and he asked if I'd ever seen his
47:05
Speaker 1: one inch punch. Excitedly, I said sure, I have. And
47:09
Speaker 1: then his name is Brian Ninsha, he said Brian then
47:12
Speaker 1: asked if he could demonstrate it on me, a pudgy
47:15
Speaker 1: twelve year old. I said no, thanks, I'm good and
47:18
Speaker 1: I explicitly did not want to fly backwards with any
47:20
Speaker 1: force uh. And he said no, no, I'll do it
47:23
Speaker 1: with an open palm so it doesn't hurt. I give in.
47:26
Speaker 1: He positions me safely away from the fire pit with
47:29
Speaker 1: my back facing the tent, about seven ft away from anything. Uh.
47:33
Speaker 1: Never trust anyone by the way whose instruction is okay,
47:36
Speaker 1: Now just stand there while I hit you. Uh. He
47:39
Speaker 1: inhales deeply does the flath hand against my stern um,
47:42
Speaker 1: just like can kill Bill. Then in an instant, I
47:44
Speaker 1: saw his muscles tense up as he audibly exhaled sharply
47:48
Speaker 1: and hit my chest open handed. I go airborne and
47:52
Speaker 1: hit my tailbone next on a tent steak seven ft
47:56
Speaker 1: behind me, and can't really walk without crutches for a
47:58
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. Kids at school never believe me when
48:02
Speaker 1: prodding about why I was on crutches, because who would
48:05
Speaker 1: believe a kid that says I had to run in
48:06
Speaker 1: with a ninja in the middle of the woods. Uh.
48:10
Speaker 1: That is from Drew Carroll and shaying Cheyenne Wyoming, Shyenne, Wyoming.
48:19
Speaker 1: That is a great, great story. That was a magnificent
48:22
Speaker 1: listener mail. I mean, hats off for that one. Thank you.
48:26
Speaker 1: And if you're Brian and you're out there, I want
48:29
Speaker 1: to hear what happened to you. Yeah, Uh, he's probably
48:32
Speaker 1: He's like, I've been doing a ten year bid for
48:34
Speaker 1: beating a kid up in the woods, but the kids
48:36
Speaker 1: said I could hit him. Oh boy. Well, if you
48:40
Speaker 1: want to get in touch with this like Drew and
48:42
Speaker 1: try to top Drew zie a listener mail. Drew, by
48:45
Speaker 1: the way, is the current listener male Champion. UM, we
48:48
Speaker 1: want to see if you can do it. You can
48:50
Speaker 1: send us an email, wrap it up spanking on the bottom,
48:53
Speaker 1: and send it off to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio
48:56
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
49:01
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49:04
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49:06
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