Wrong about women’s rights

Re “The ERA: still a bad idea,” Current, April 8

Even after three years of law school and 10 years of practice, I am completely baffled by Phyllis Schlafly’s analysis of the 1972 Equal Rights Amendment. On its face, the amendment did no more than prohibit the denial or abridgement of rights based on gender. Yet Schlafly insists that it “would actually have taken away some of women’s rights.”

Nonsense. The ERA harbors no potential to subject women to military conscription (even assuming Congress were to reinstate the draft), deprive women of Social Security benefits or abolish the “presumption” that a husband should support his wife. Schlafly has liberally reaped the benefits of the women’s movement in making her own career. If her position is that the ERA has become moot with the passage of time, that position at least finds some rational support. But for her to vilify women’s equality based on fictitious disasters is an insult to your readers’ intelligence.

MARGARET DAUGHERTY

Los Angeles

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Schlafly’s recycled rant in favor of inequality of the sexes reminds me of my first job here in California. In those days, there were a number of “protections” (or “rights,” as Schlafly might call them) for women in the workforce. We were “protected” against having to lift anything heavier than 25 pounds (the calculators in the office where I worked weighed exactly 24 pounds), and we were “protected” against earning overtime pay (we weren’t allowed to work longer than an eight-hour day).

No thanks, Phyllis, I prefer equality to your bogus “rights” and to the “protections” that are -- thankfully -- no longer in effect.

SANDRA WOLBER

Granada Hills

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Schlafly’s tirade against the ERA makes it clear that she doesn’t know women’s history. Women were never “given” the vote. It took 72 years of continuous sacrifice and effort. Passage of the 19th Amendment by Congress was achieved by one vote in the Senate. How many more years will it take before equal rights for women are guaranteed in the Constitution?

RENEE CHANON

Los Angeles