Women’s Rights in America decline for lack of torchbearers, collective movement

Put Women in the
Constitution of United States

Time to retake the legacy. Reaffirm women and women’s rights. Reassert woman’s power

By Carolyn Bennett

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n today’s U.S. domestic and U.S. foreign affairs, violence is rampant; collective women’s voices are silent or silenced.

In America today, violence rising from men in power (and men still command inordinate power though women are half or majority) rages unchecked, with impunity. Men’s violence, male violence (sometimes executed by women) is law.

In America today, women feign ignorance, even stupidity, or they are intentionally oblivious to reality: some hang on to oppressive male-made religion, male-made laws that imprison and further entrench their enslavement through institutions of Church-Synagogue-Mosque, Marriage, the State.  

Seneca Falls, New York

Women's Rights National Historical Park

Women in U.S. Senate 2012

In America today, as the world celebrates, commemorates or mourns International Women’s Day, women of the United States of America cherry pick men-made issues or latch on to issues cherry picked for them by men: “rights” to “wealth”, to “marriage”, to something termed “man’s American dream,” to some pandered plastered piece of legislation called violence against women act ─ all the while U.S. violence devastates global women; all the while women of the world, migrant and immigrant women, domestic women suffer in the homes and hostels of leisure classes, displaced they cram with families and relations into camps and tents, on streets in boxes, on land borders, and shores of foreign waters ─ under constant U.S. bombs and arms’ terror and threat, all for a U.S. selective notion  of “liberty”: liberty for some, in some places, some of the time.  

 

I

n the face of today’s unconscionable character and performance in U.S. leadership, brainwashed women, allegiant to men’s bottom line, go shopping; sit on their hands or wring them; and or stupidly side with one or another men-made/money-made-and-played politician, ideology or party ─ all corrupt to the core.

This is a far cry from the legacy, the potential, the promise left by America’s eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth- century women.  Let us review some of it.

We hold these truths to be self-evident

that all men and women are created equal

Declaration of Sentiments, Women's Rights Convention

Seneca Falls, New York, July 1848

Women's Rights National Historical Park

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different   from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of   nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course.

W

e hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to   refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long  established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves, by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and  usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

 

S

uch has been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled.

The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. 

He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise. 

 He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.

 He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men - both natives and foreigners. 

 Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise,   thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides. 

 He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead. 

 He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns. 

 He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes, with impunity, provided they [are] done in the presence of her husband.

I

n the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master - the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement.

He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes of divorce; in case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the children shall be given, as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of women - the law, in all cases, going upon the false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands.

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fter depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government which recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it.  

He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and from those she is permitted to follow, she receives but a scanty remuneration. 

 He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction, which he considers most honorable to himself. As a teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is not known. 

 He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education - all colleges being closed against her. 

 He allows her in Church as well as State, but a subordinate position, claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and with some exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs of the Church. 

 He has created a false public sentiment, by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated but deemed of little account in man.
 

He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and her God.

H

e has endeavored, in every way that he could, to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.

Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation, - in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States.

In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumentality within our power to effect our object.

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e shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and national Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf. We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions, embracing every part of the country.

Firmly relying upon the final triumph of the Right and the True, we do this day affix our signatures to this declaration. Declaration of Sentiments, Women's Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, New York, July 1848

Lucretia Mott	Harriet Cady Eaton	Margaret Pryor
Elizabeth Cady Stanton	Eunice Newton Foote	Mary Ann McClintock
Margaret Schooley	Martha C. Wright	Jane C. Hunt
Amy Post	Catharine F. Stebbins	Mary Ann Frink
Lydia Mount	Delia Mathews	Catharine C. Paine
Elizabeth W. McClintock	Malvina Seymour	Phebe Mosher
Catharine Shaw	Deborah Scott	Sarah Hallowell
Mary McClintock	Mary Gilbert	Sophrone Taylor
Cynthia Davis	Hannah Plant	Lucy Jones
Sarah Whitney	Mary H. Hallowell	Elizabeth Conklin
Sally Pitcher	Mary Conklin	Susan Quinn
Mary S. Mirror	Phebe King	Julia Ann Drake
Charlotte Woodward	Martha Underhill	Dorothy Mathews
Eunice Barker	Sarah R. Woods	Lydia Gild
Sarah Hoffman	Elizabeth Leslie	Martha Ridley
Rachel D. Bonnel	Betsey Tewksbury	Rhoda Palmer
Margaret Jenkins	Cynthia Fuller	Mary Martin
P. A. Culvert	Susan R. Doty	Rebecca Race
Sarah A. Mosher	Mary E. Vail	Lucy Spalding
Lavinia Latham	Sarah Smith	Eliza Martin
Maria E. Wilbur	Elizabeth D. Smith	Caroline Barker
Ann Porter	Experience Gibbs	Antoinette E. Segur
Hannah J. Latham	Sarah Sisson
The following are the names of the gentlemen present in favor of the movement:		Richard P. Hunt
Samuel D. Tillman	Justin Williams	Elisha Foote
Frederick Douglass	Henry Seymour	Henry W. Seymour
David Spalding	William G. Barker	Elias J. Doty
John Jones	William S. Dell	James Mott
William Burroughs	Robert Smallbridge	Jacob Mathews
Charles L. Hoskins	Thomas McClintock	Saron Phillips
Jacob P. Chamberlain	Jonathan Metcalf	Nathan J. Milliken
S.E. Woodworth	Edward F. Underhill	George W. Pryor
Joel D. Bunker	Isaac Van Tassel	Thomas Dell
E. W. Capron	Stephen Shear	Henry Hatley
Azaliah Schooley

  

The Equal Rights Amendment

Section 1

Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

Section 2

The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3

This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

Written by suffragist leader Alice Paul, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was first proposed and introduced in Congress in 1923.

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ithout the ERA, the Constitution does not explicitly guarantee that the rights it protects are held equally by all citizens without regard to sex. The first – and still the only – right specifically affirmed as equal for women and men is the right to vote.

The equal protection clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment was first applied to sex discrimination only in 1971, and it has never been interpreted to grant equal rights on the basis of sex in the uniform and inclusive way that the ERA would.

The ERA would provide a clearer judicial standard for deciding cases of sex discrimination, since federal and state courts (some working with state ERAs, some without) still reflect confusion and inconsistency in dealing with such claims. It would also clarify sex discrimination jurisprudence and 40 years of precedent for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who claimed in an interview reported in the January 2011 California Lawyer that the Constitution, specifically the 14th Amendment, does not protect against sex discrimination.

The ERA would provide a strong legal defense against a rollback of the significant advances in women’s rights made in the past 50 years. Without it, Congress can weaken or replace existing laws on women’s rights, and judicial precedents on issues of gender equality can be eroded or ignored by reactionary courts responding to a conservative political agenda.

Eleanor Roosevelt
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
1948

Without the ERA, women regularly and men occasionally have to fight long, expensive, and difficult legal battles in an effort to prove that their rights are equal to those of the other sex.

Affirm together
Global  Women's Rights

The ERA would improve the United States’ human rights standing in the world community.

The governing documents of many other countries affirm legal gender equality, however imperfect the global implementation of that ideal may be.

C

ongress passed the ERA in 1972 and sent it to the states, with a seven-year deadline for ratification. Congress later extended the deadline to June 30, 1982. The ERA received 35 of the necessary 38-state ratifications.

The amendment has been reintroduced in every session of Congress since that time. The ERA resolutions in the 112th Congress (2011-2012) are S.J. Res. 21 (lead sponsor Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ) and H.J. Res. 69 (lead sponsors Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, and Rep. Judy Biggert, R-IL). To put the ERA into the Constitution, the bills would require passage by a two thirds vote in each house of Congress and ratification by 38 states.

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hy is it that American women for decades have argued endlessly ─ divided themselves and the country, allowed themselves to be played by men ─ over wedge issues such abortion and chattel-era marriage; yet they cannot organize collectively in full strength and power to pass substantive, regularly monitored, and enforced human rights law?

More than a century has passed ─ 165 years ─ since the Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls. Doesn’t that make you feel ashamed of a critical, colossal, but not inevitable failure to assert woman’s power? It does me.

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 believe it is time that torchbearers rise, retake the legacy, and carry on. Reaffirm women and women’s rights. Reassert and collectively sustain the power of women.

Sources and notes

Declaration of Sentiments, Women’s Rights National Park, New York, http://www.nps.gov/wori/historyculture/declaration-of-sentiments.htm

http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/

National Council of Women’s Organizations, 714 G Street, SE, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20003, 202-293-4505, (fax) 202-293-4507, ncwo@ncwo-online.org, www.womensorganizations.org; ERA Task Force (Roberta W. Francis, Chair): era@equalrightsamendment.org, www.equalrightsamendment.org October 2011

The Equal Rights Amendment: Unfinished Business for the Constitution, a 17-minute educational video premiered in Seneca Falls, NY, during the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the 1848 Woman’s Rights Convention, is available from the Alice Paul Centennial Foundation, Mt. Laurel, NJ, 856-231-1885.

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
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We hold these truths

Declaration of Sentiments
Women's Rights Convention
Seneca Falls, New York
July 1848

“We hold these truths to be self-evident; 

that all men and women are created equal; 

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; 

that among these are life, liberty, 

and the pursuit of happiness; 

that to secure these rights governments are instituted, d

eriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. 

Whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, 

it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, 

and to insist upon the institution of a new government, 

laying its foundation on such principles, 

and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem 

most likely to effect their safety and happiness.” [excerpt]

We hold these truths to be self-evident

Compiled and edited 

by Carolyn Bennett

In Congress

July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Rights of Colonies
Paine, 1765

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

Original 13 British Colonies

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

The Equal Rights Amendment
1923

Written by suffragist leader Alice Paul 

Section 1: Equality of rights under the law 

shall not be denied or abridged 

by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
Section 2: The Congress shall have the power to enforce,
by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3: This amendment shall take effect 

two years after the date of ratification.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights 

1948

All human beings are born free and equal 

in dignity and rights. 

They are endowed 

with reason and conscience 

and should act towards one another 

in a spirit of brotherhood. [excerpt]

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The 56 signatures on the [1776] Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1

Georgia:

   Button Gwinnett

   Lyman Hall

   George Walton

Column 2

North Carolina:

   William Hooper

   Joseph Hewes

   John Penn

South Carolina:

   Edward Rutledge

   Thomas Heyward, Jr.

   Thomas Lynch, Jr.

   Arthur Middleton

Column 3

Massachusetts:

John Hancock

Maryland:

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:

George Wythe

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Carter Braxton

Column 4

Pennsylvania:

   Robert Morris

   Benjamin Rush

   Benjamin Franklin

   John Morton

   George Clymer

   James Smith

   George Taylor

   James Wilson

   George Ross

Delaware:

   Caesar Rodney

   George Read

   Thomas McKean

Column 5

New York:

   William Floyd

   Philip Livingston

   Francis Lewis

   Lewis Morris

New Jersey:

   Richard Stockton

   John Witherspoon

   Francis Hopkinson

   John Hart

   Abraham Clark

Column 6

New Hampshire:

   Josiah Bartlett

   William Whipple

Massachusetts:

   Samuel Adams

   John Adams

   Robert Treat Paine

   Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:

   Stephen Hopkins

   William Ellery

Connecticut:

   Roger Sherman

   Samuel Huntington

   William Williams

   Oliver Wolcott

New Hampshire:

   Matthew Thornton

Sources and notes

"The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription," U.S. National Archives & Records Administration 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, MD, 20740-6001, • 1-86-NARA-NARA • 1-866-272-6272

Page URL:  http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

Transcript unchanged from National Archives copy wordings, spellings, fonts, style, etc.

Accessed www.archives.gov July 4, 2012 

Images
Princeton library brings Revolutionary-era texts alive online
Posted July 2, 2012; 12:00 p.m.http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S34/08/93G96/index.xml?section=featured

Original 13 British colonies, http://www.westfield.ma.edu/personalpages/draker/edcom/final/webprojects/fa05/sectiona/colonies/index.html_______________________________

Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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