NO RETREAT (image of woman with crown of laurels in a toga holding the American flag in one hand and a scrolled page that reads ‘ERA’ in the other) FROM EQUALITY THE NEED FOR THE ERA The Equal Rights Amendment is needed to establish a national policy that sex discrimination will not be tolerated. Current laws to prevent sex discrimination are simply not doing the job. These laws: - are full of loopholes - are subject to change - are not comprehensive. Women need the Equal Rights Amendment as part of our Constitution — the supreme law of the land — to fight discrimination based on sex. - Women who work outside the home need the ERA for better pay and more opportunities - Women who are full-time homemakers need the ERA for full economic security through elimination of sex discrimination in Social Security, pension plans, property rights, and credit. EQUAL PAY AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY DO NOT EXIST Women continue to be denied equal pay and equal opportunity on the basis of sex alone. In 1978 the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights published a report which showed that even when occupation, age, education, and years worked are taken into account: - Women still earn less than 60% of what white men earn - Minority women earn less than half of what white men earn - Women with college degrees earn less than men who did not complete high school - Women earn less today (as compared to men) than they did over twenty years ago! The same report showed that full-time homemakers have the least economic and legal protection of all. - Homemakers’ labor is not recognized as having economic value - Homemakers suffer economic dis crimination during marriage, as well as after—whether the marriage ends by death or divorce—in Social Security, pensions, and credit. AND YET ERA OPPONENTS WANT RETREAT Opponents of the ERA want the 35 states that have ratified the ERA to vote to withdraw—"“rescind’—their approval. They are demanding that the states deliberately retreat from equality for women. That’s what a vote to rescind a state’s ratification of the ERA really means—that discrimination against women is okay. RESCISSION HAS NEVER BEEN PERMITTED For 200 years it has been the practice and precedent that once a state has approved a proposed amendment to the Constitution, it cannot later withdraw its approval. Because billions of dollars in equal wages for women are at stake, opponents of the ERA are willing to make a chaotic free-for-all of the ratification process — not only for this amendment but for all future amendments. Those who advocate rescission are asking states to violate the existing rule of law that a state may not rescind a prior ratification. RETREAT BY ANOTHER NAME In some states ERA opponents want legislators to vote that their ratification of the ERA is null and void after March 22, 1979 - the original deadline set by Congress. The Constitution grants sole authority to Congress to determine the procedures, including the time, for the ratification process. After thorough consideration, Congress voted in 1978 to extend the time period until June 1982 because it recognized the continuing need for the ERA and for more time to consider this profound social issue. Don't be fooled by these attempts to declare ratification null and void! They are attempts by another name to retreat from equality. REAFFIRM EQUALITY Both houses of Congress in 1978 expressly rejected proposals to permit rescission. In 1979 every state legislature faced with rescission resisted the pressure to retreat from equality—despite an all-out campaign by ERA opponents in a dozen states. Any state legislator who votes for rescission is voting to destroy orderly Constitutional processes forevermore and voting for a full-scale retreat from equality for women in this country. Don't let them destroy! Don't let them retreat from higher pay and more opportunities for all women! Write today and urge a NO vote on rescission. Tell your legislators to REAFFIRM EQUALITY! FIGHT RESCISSION - FIGHT RESCISSION What You Can Do: - Write your representatives in both houses of the state legislature urging “NO RETREAT ON EQUALITY FOR WOMEN.” - Enlist your family and relatives, your friends and neighbors, your church group, your clubs and associations to do the same. - After you've written once, do it again and again until the legislators and the governor have no doubt of where the majority of people in the state stands—in favor of EQUALITY! - Join in the national campaign to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment: Contact NOW! NO RETREAT FROM EQUALITY The Complete Text Of 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. NOW National Organization for Women NOW National Action Center 425 13th Street, N.W., Suite 1048 Washington, D.C. 20004 (202)347-2279