24th Critics Choice Awards – Arrivals – Santa Monica, California, U.S., January 13, 2019 - Patricia Arquette. REUTERS/Danny Moloshok
Actress and activist Patricia Arquette argued for the ERA on Tuesday during a House hearing, saying women do not have equal protection under the law and laying bare with chilling examples how women today are often treated as sub-humans in America and do not have the same value as men.
“So let’s look at the treatment of women in America today. These are present day truths, these are not antiquated horrors we have to search for in history books,” Arquette said, before presenting facts that should shame the so-called “land of the free.”
Watch here:
Patricia Arquette argued for the ERA on Tuesday, saying: “Women have waited 232 years to be enshrined as full and equal citizens…. Why, because in 1787, women were left out of the Constitution intentionally.
I am here to appeal to you to remove the 1982 deadline placed on Congress for the ratification of the ERA.”
The ERA was approved in 1972, but was not ratified by the 38 states necessary. Women are not specifically guaranteed equal rights under the Constitution.
“There’s a groundswell in this country, women are being elected in record numbers, women are rising up by the millions and saying they will not be sexually assaulted, they will not be paid less, they will not be treated as sub-human, and they will have their voices heard.”
Arquette made the point that people use the 14th amendment to suggest women already have Constitutional protections, but recent (now passed) Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia interpreted the Constitution thusly, “Certainly the Constitution doesn’t require discrimination on the basis of sex. The question is whether it prohibits it. It doesn’t.”
“This is how a recent Supreme Court Justice interpreted women’s rights in the Constitution… Women’s protection cannot be left to interpretation alone,” Arquette argued passionately.
Then, she laid it down.
“So let’s look at the treatment of women in America today. These are present day truths, these are not antiquated horrors we have to search for in history books.
“In America, in 2019, there are estimated to be hundreds of thousands of untested, evidentiary rape kits across the nation. Only half our states mandate the timely testing of evidence contained in these rape kits.”
“Many victims are being billed for the collection of their own forensic evidence… Even though it’s estimated that one quarter of all women in America will be raped in their lifetime.
“In some states in America today, women can be forced to co-parent with their convicted rapist.”
“We have the only rising mortality rate in the developed world, American women, esp African American, Latina and Native American women, are dying of pregnancy related complications here in the wealthiest country on earth.”
“Four million women over 65 are living in poverty.”
“These are just a few examples of how systemic bias against women is expressed in America.”
“Why? Because women don’t have the same value as men in America.”
We are lucky to have such devoted activists as Arquette and Alyssa Milano, both of whom jeopardize their own careers and reputation every time they speak out.
An average of three women a day die in this country due to intimate partner violence. Do we think a mostly male system would allow women to run around killing men at this rate whenever they became impassioned? Obviously not, since even women who are defending themselves from systemic violence often serve more time in jail than their abusers:
“Overall, a white female defendant who killed a white person could expect an average sentence of 10-30 years; however, if the woman was a victim of domestic violence her predicted sentence was life.”
Let that sink in. We punish women for defending their own lives, and this is while the NRA/GOP legislators tells women to get a gun to defend themselves.
According to this above linked reference to a study conducted by the Michigan Women’s Justice & Clemency Project (see Hastings Women’s Law Journal, 2007), “These domestic violence victims had higher conviction rates (78%) and longer sentences than all others charged with homicide, including those with previous violent criminal records (62%). African-American women were convicted at a higher rate (80%) than all others (62%) of all others.”
Estimates range between 40-80% of women convicted of murder acted in self-defense against their abusers. Male aggression is evident in almost all homicides, even when women are the ultimate offenders. Unlike men, most women who kill do not have criminal histories. Women serving time for Murder I or II or Voluntary Manslaughter comprise about 10-15% of women in prison.
One-third of murdered women are killed by male partners; only 4% of men are murdered by female partners.
That’s not equality under the law by any stretch of the imagination.
Representative Steve Cohen added some Trump shade to Tuesday’s ERA hearing, “Just to channel the President: Justice Ginsburg, if you’re listening, get us the ERA.”
Yes, please. Get us the ERA. It’s an emergency.
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