Congressional members are aiming to ensure that every U.S. citizen has equal rights despite their gender.
On Tuesday, U.S. Reps. Cori Bush (D-MO) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) led a press conference on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol to officially launch the Congressional Caucus for the Equal Rights Amendment.
If ratified into the U.S. constitution as the 28th amendment, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) would ensure that a U.S. citizen cannot be denied equal rights on the basis of sex.
While addressing the crowd, Bush said, “equality is overdue.”
“We are organizing Congress by launching this caucus to make sure that equality becomes enshrined in the supreme law of our land. It is time Congress makes constitutional gender equality a national priority,” she said.
Bush continued, “We’re here because, from the start, people like me and many of my constituents were intentionally written out of our nation’s founding document. That ain’t right. The absence of foundational equality allows discrimination to persist and injustice to fester.”
The congresswoman also addressed racial disparities in the workforce and said that women of color make much less than their male counterparts.
“On average, women make 77 cents on the dollar in comparison to men. We’ve heard that over and over again. So, as striking as this statistic sounds, it only really became real to me when I sat down and I actually did the math for myself in my own life and I realized exactly how much was missing,” she said.
She continued, “What does equal vision for the future look like? It looks like protection of abortion care. Accountability and justice for the one out of three women who experience some form of sexual violence…equality is overdue.”
Pressley addressed reporters and described the launching of the Congressional Caucus for the Equal Rights Amendment as “epic.”
“It is timely…
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