The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Week of the women — but don’t hold your breath
This is a momentous, historic week for women. The arc goes back a century.
Aug. 18 marked the day the 19th Amendment was ratified by the 36th state, Tennessee, which enabled the amendment to became law as part of the U.S. Constitution. Women gained the right to vote, a right they should have had all along. It was a partial victory, however, because it would take many more decades until obstacles were removed through civil and voting rights acts for Black women (and men) to vote freely.
This we know. But did you realize that Connecticut was late to the party? I like to tout our state as advanced in many ways, but that sure wasn’t the case 100 years ago. Connecticut was the 37th state to ratify the 19th, on Sept. 14, 1920. That’s fine, but it took no moral courage since adoption was already a fact with Tennessee’s (one-vote margin) ratification a month earlier.
I remembered that Connecticut did the right thing belatedly, but had to look up why. Turns out back then the General Assembly met only in the odd-numbered years and so a special session would have to be called. The governor at the time, Marcus Holcomb, “refused and would not budge,” according to an article by Elizabeth Normen in “Connecticut Explored.”
“With the November elections now looming and the inevitability of women’s voting weighing on the minds of many Connecticut legislators up for reelection,” the governor, who was not seeking reelection, “apparently had a change of heart” and called a special session for Sept. 14. “Perhaps seeking to appease and appeal to a swath of new voters, the Connecticut General Assembly passed the amendment.”
Hey, at least we were better than Florida, which didn’t act until 1969.
From the touchstone of ratification of women gaining the right to vote 100 years ago this week, the arc reaches to the first Black and South Asian woman nominated for vice president in a major party. Kamala Harris, accepting the nomination at the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night, spoke inspirationally of “A vision of our nation as a beloved community — where all are welcome, no matter what we look like, where we come from or who we love. A country where we may not agree on every detail, but we are united by the fundamental belief that every human being is of infinite worth, deserving of compassion, dignity and respect. A country where we look out for one another, where we rise and fall as one, where we face our challenges and celebrate our triumphs — together.”
This was a high point, forward-looking.
New York Times columnist Gail Collins in her Aug. 19 column saw it this way: “This convention marks the point where everyone has agreed the debate about gender at the top is all over. The future looks pretty terrifying on occasion, but it’s almost certainly going to be one full of expanding political opportunities for women.” I hope she is right. But I’m looking at the arc. And though women are celebrating this week, progress has been neither swift nor complete.
Remember, the fight for the right to vote goes back to at least 1848 with the Seneca Falls Convention in New York when suffragettes adopted the Declaration of Sentiments (“We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal...”)
It took more than 70 years — nearly a lifetime — for a woman to be able legally to cast a ballot in an election.
Think of Alice Paul, one of the most influential women in America, who lived in Ridgefield for 30 years. (Alice Paul Day has been recognized in town since 2011 on Jan. 11, her birthday.)
She initiated and organized the Woman Suffrage Procession in 1913, the day before the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson. Within weeks, about 8,000 marchers signed up. (Are you thinking of the Women’s March on Washington and other cities in 2017, the day after President Trump’s inauguration? That attracted an estimated 2 million marchers.)
Alice Paul lived to see her efforts, with others, come to fruition seven years later with the vote. But she did not, could not, stop there.
The founder of the National Women’s Party, she also was one of the authors of the original Equal Rights Amendment, which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex.
The ERA was first proposed in 1923. Finally, on March 22, 1972 it passed the U.S. Senate and was sent to the states for ratification.
Believe it or not, we are still waiting.
Connecticut, not lagging this time, ratified the ERA in 1973. Finally, in January of this year, the necessary majority of states was reached (with Virginia’s vote), but — and it’s a big one — the deadline had expired. It could be extended, and the House voted to do so on Feb. 13. The Senate has not. As with so many other measures, Senate leadership is letting it languish.
Here we are in 2020, waiting for a basic rights bill first proposed in 1923 and passed by Congress in 1972 to become law.
The arc of progress is long. Have faith, yes, but take action.