STOP THE ERA

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Today, an issue being pushed on campuses around women's rights, especially in relation to affirmative action, is the so-called Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the Constitution. Especially in this presidential election year, a number of women's groups have organized to confront candidates on the ERA and push for its support. The biggest push for passage has always been from educated, financially well-off women who want a bigger slice of the American pie--equal opportunity to be politicians, lawyers, doctors and business executives. But ever since the ERA first came up 50 years ago working women have never rallied behind it--why?

The answer is that although it may help open the doors of professional schools etc., it has been used to attack protective laws and benefits that working class women fought long and hard to win. The ERA is worded very vaguely, "Equality of rights under law shall not be denied or abridged... on account of sex" and in every case we know of it has been used to cut out protective legislation, never to extend those benefits to men. Equal access to law school for a few, while a good thing, should not be at the expense of the millions of working women in this country...

Women's equality will never come about through the politicians and their schemes like the ERA. Even if their intentions were good, the capitalist system exists by exploiting people (including women) as much as it can. It promotes male chauvinism (and racism) which keep people divided, as well as actually paying women less, forcing them into "last hired, first fired" positions.

But people are fighting back, they don't ignore these attacks any more than they ignore attacks on wages, jobs, schools or any other part of their lives. In California at the hearings about the ERA in 1974, hundreds of people went to make it clear that a big fight was brewing if they tried to do away with protective laws. When, in fact, the laws were eliminated, busloads of homemakers, striking electronic workers, farmworkers and many other marched to the State Building demanding "Restore the Protective Laws." Men and women were saying "We can't let them get away with it." They were beginning to realize that the only way to win real equality is to fight against women's oppression as part of the struggle to end all oppression, to build the struggle against this system that causes all oppression. Stopping the ERA because it is an attempt to get rid of protective legislation is an important step in building that struggle. Carol Radway '75   Revolutionary Student Brigade