March 5, 2009 Issue
High Country Celebrates Women
Women’s History Month
Pam Phillips, Evelyn Johnson and Billana Berry of the Watauga Country Library stand beside a display of books about notable women for Women’s History Month. The display will be up at the library for the remainder of the month. Photo by Heather Hendricks March has been Women’s History Month since 1987, and was created as an initiative to increase awareness and knowledge of the ignored history of 51 percent of the population.
The month highlights all types of women’s history—from women in public life to those in the private sphere.
Up to the 1970s, women’s history was virtually unknown in academia, schools or among the general public. Even the history of the 72-year campaign for the vote had all but disappeared. But in 1978, educators in California started celebrating women’s history during the second week of March to coincide with International Women’s Day.
That event had first taken place in Europe on March 8, 1911, during the worldwide battle over votes for women. By the 1970s, International Women’s Day continued, now with the backing of the United Nations.
After 1978 in the United States, celebrations of women’s history soon occurred country-wide, and in 1981, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Rep. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) co-sponsored the first Joint Congressional Resolution for a National Women’s History Week. In 1987, the week expanded to the whole of March after a petition to Congress by the National Women’s History Project. Today, following the example of the United Staes, several countries in Europe also celebrate women’s history throughout March.
Equal Rights Amendment Display at Library
Watauga County Public Library has installed a display of books about many notable women for Women’s History Month. The display also highlights the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), with a map of the United States showing the states that did not ratify within the then deadline of 1982.
North Carolina is one of the states that did not ratify the amendment that said, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.”
It was believed in 1982 that the ERA process had to start over. It was re-introduced in Congress on July 14, 1982, and has been filed repeatedly since then. To be adopted, the ERA would require passage by a two-thirds vote in each house of Congress and ratification by 38 states.
But the previous ERA votes may not be dead. In 1992, the Madison Amendment relating to Congressional pay which passed Congress in 1789, was ratified and became the 27th amendment. The acceptance of an amendment after 203 years has led to legal opinion that Congress has the power to maintain the viability of the ERA’s existing 35 state ratifications. So the ERA may need only three states to become part of the nation’s fundamental law.
For more information, click to http://www.eracampaign.net/news.html.
Call to Revive the ERA in North Carolina
Blowing Rock’s Pinky Hayden called last fall for a conference in Boone about the matter. Hayden served as the High Country’s first female state representative in Raleigh between 1981 and 1984. While the ERA passed in the House, the Senate refused to debate it.
In a speech at the library entitled Reviving the Equal Rights Amendment, Hayden said North Carolina needs “to correct [its] bad behavior of 1982.”
Local Women in Women’s History
In 1981, Jenny Miller, United Way director for the last five years and also a representative of the High Country Women’s Fund, found herself in the High Country campaigning for the Equal Rights Amendment. She had just recently moved from Washington, D.C to Charlotte.
“I was a volunteer for eight months in the western part of [North Carolina] for the National Organization of Women,” she said. “In D.C. there was not a person who didn’t want the Equal Rights Amendment, [but] I was shocked at my reception.
“There were men who said that if they gave equal rights for women then ‘I couldn’t open the door for my wife.’”
Miller also said that back then the opposition “patronized women.
“We were told if we passed the ERA women wouldn’t be able to have babies. They did the whole fear thing, instilling fear into the masses,” she added.
“More men than women were threatened by it,” Miller said. “Women too, but they weren’t speaking out. The reception was less than welcoming.”
Miller believes that today there is potential for passing the ERA in North Carolina because there are so many more women on boards and in local and state government and with the inauguration of the first female governor.
“It’s a perfect climate for the ERA [today],” she said. “It is shocking to me that the ERA isn’t on the books. What is so important to me [if we ratified] is that we [would] have some law that says you have to treat women a certain way.”
Miller cited equal pay for women as one example where women could benefit from the ERA.
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