“My passions: the inclusion of women, people of color, and all outsiders in the Constitution,” reads Carol Jenkins’s Twitter biography.
Co-president and CEO of The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) Coalition, Emmy-award winning journalist, and women’s rights activist, Carol Jenkins spoke at Smith’s second Presidential Colloquium of the 2021 Fall Semester on Sept. 21.
The United States is “a staggering outlier in terms of equality,” said Jenkins. Jenkins’s goal is to get the Equal Rights Amendment passed in the United States. The ERA needs eight more Senate votes to get to the required sixty.
“Let me begin by saying that we should all be very, very afraid,” said Jenkins. Referring to the state of our democracy, Jenkins described how one in five hundred people died of COVID-19, how Texas restricted abortion rights, and how the United States Capitol was attacked on Jan 6, 2021 by insurrectionists refusing to accept the 2020 Presidential Election results.
The Constitution “is the source of centuries of our agitation–the document that determines how we live our lives, who has rights, who has protections [which] must be amended–quite frankly so that the patriarchy doesn’t continue to claim superior rights and advantages,” said Jenkins.
Black women “…perpetually rank in the bottom of every measure of progress we utilize in this country,” said Jenkins. According to Jenkins, this reflects back on the United States as a country which sees Black women as less than.
Jenkins discussed how Black mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers have to have “the talk” with their daughters and grandchildren. They reassure them that they are loved, that they matter, and that they are worthy of respect in a country where the culture says otherwise.
According to conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the Constitution does not prohibit discrimination against women. Referencing Congresswoman Jackie Speier, Jenkins explained how women “want in”–they want to have the concrete rights, protections, and privileges granted by the Constitution.
Jenkins argues that some see the passing of the Equal Rights Amendment as “just symbolic.”
“We’ll take it as a symbol, an incredible symbol that would mean women deserve to be in the Constitution, that they deserve equal rights, even if it did nothing. Give it to me because the cultural impact of that would be absolutely breathtaking. Just enormous–every little girl in this country would be able to say, ‘I’m in the constitution.’ Right now she can’t say that.”
Section 1 of The Equal Rights Amendment states, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.’”
However an individual identifies–including LGBTQ+ and non-binary individuals–they are protected under the ERA.
Section 2 of the ERA states, “The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”
This will allow the government to enact legislation protecting equality on the basis of sex as the law of the land. This includes, but is not limited to, protection against sex discrimination, sex-based violence, and the permanency of crucial social services.
“It is a limiting belief that we think the constitution has no impact, we think because it’s sort of the invisible thing that is behind us. Who thinks about the constitution on a daily basis? It is ingrained in our DNA. There are rules that have to be followed, there are rights and protections–they’ve all been…announced and declared. This is what our country is based on, and girls and women are not in that Constitution.”
To support getting the ERA passed, Jenkins encourages reaching out to your Senators and going to eracoalition.org to learn more.
