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A Review of Equal Means Equal

by Sue Straus

 

After 7 years of working on her documentary, Kamala Lopez's film, Equal Means Equal saw fruition with viewings in 20 cities. WWHP co-sponsored Chicago's screening on August 26, Women's Rights Day: the date in 1920 that U.S. women won the right to vote with the ratification of the 19th Amendment. Our venue in Chicago, the Logan Theater, was sold out.

Alice Paul and other suffragette leaders saw voting rights as only one item on the road to equality; they started the fight to get women legally acknowledged equality under the Constitution with ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The ERA has yet to be ratified. Equal Means Equal centers its argument around the importance of the ERA and its relevance today.

The film begins with the first European settlers in America, and the history of how women were legally property of male relatives or their husband -- women could not own property, vote, or sit in the jury box.

The film goes on to feature an interview with the late Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia. He remarks that women's rights are not guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, and nor did he believe they needed to be. " You do not need the Constitution to reflect the wishes of the current society. Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, then we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws."

He does not address the strength of a Constitutional amendment over a law. Laws are easily overturned -- Constitutional amendments are not.

The film creates an intersectional web of the many issues women face; pregnancy discrimination in hiring, rape, domestic violence, reproductive and other health issues, wage inequality, poverty, and more. The center of this web is the argument that there is no federal legal protection for discrimination against women, and if the ERA existed, these issues would be far easier to address.

The film also calls attention to failings of the U.S. Government. The U.S. is one of six nations that has not passed CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, an international treaty adopted by the U.N. in 1979 . The United States is also behind industrialized countries (Greece, Belarus, Poland, Kuwait, Japan, Israel, and many others) in mortality rates of mothers and children, legally required paid maternity and paternity leave, and free or subsidized child care. While it is considered critical to have at least 30% of the federal legislative body be female, the U.S. falls below with 19.4%.

Feedback on the film was overwhelmingly positive, or people were just overwhelmed with the massive amount of information it presented. The key message was that the equal rights of women must be a part of the United States Constitution.

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African American Women's
Equal Pay Day -- August 23rd

 

Joi Chaney, Executive Director of the Equal Pay Today! Campaign--A Project of the Tides Center.

August 23rd was the day this year when African American women's earnings caught up to their white, non-Hispanic male counterparts. It is the day that acknowledges that Black women receive only 63 cents on the dollar to white men. This is less than white women, who make 78 cents on the dollar.

According to the National Women's Law Center " A black woman starting her career today (and working full-time, year round) will lose an average of $877,480 over her 40-year career, relative to a white man." This illustrates another level of complexity in the fight for equal pay, and underscores the need for legal protection for women through legislation such as the ERA.

 

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Upcoming Events

 

Beyond Rosie the Riveter: Women and Work

An exhibition at the Koehnline Museum of Art

 

This year's exhibition explores the vital role women have played at work,

in supporting their families, their communities, the world.