PINELLAS PARK – Former Congresswoman Pat Schroeder pledged her continued support of Florida’s move to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment during a guest appearance at the Pinellas Park Library on Sept. 24.
Photo by RENEE BURRELL
Sandy Oestreich, left, founder of the Equal Rights Alliance, strikes a pose with Pat Schroeder, former congresswoman, at Pinellas Park Library, Sept. 24.
“Working women have been getting nailed over and over again,” Schroeder said. “I don’t understand why they don’t get really mad and fight.”
The event, sponsored by The Equal Rights Alliance, gave many citizens the opportunity to applaud and thank Schroeder for her years of work advocating for women, children and families.
Schroeder, who led the fight for passage of ERA while serving as a member of the House Judiciary Committee, takes credit for having introduced the Family and Medical Act Leave in 1993, which provides job protection leave for births, adoptions, and in the event of illness of a child or parent.
Schroeder is the author of “Champion of the Great American Family” and “24 Years of Housework … And the Place Is Still A Mess.”
Attendees brought up various issues, including those concerning widows and lost Social Security benefits, and questioned how the passage of the ERA will financially benefit working families.
To combat ERA opponents, mainly big business, Schroeder suggested women use their leverage as consumers by patronizing only corporations and businesses owned by women and those with women holding executive and management positions.
“What we women buy every year totals more than the gross national product of Japan,” she said. “We can shop our way to equality. We have consumer power leverage. We need to use it.”
At this, two young women in attendance offered to research and create a Web site that would list such companies. References to “The Feminist Dollar Book” were made. With this, Shroeder, pleased with their youthful optimism, ended the chat but vowed to keep returning to Florida until the state ratifies.
Gay Reed of St. Petersburg said, “As a Floridian and with Florida being one of the hold-out states that hasn’t ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, I came today because I want to support and encourage our legislators to finally make the decision to ratify.”
Sandy Oestreich, ERA Inc. founder and president, who also served in North Redington Beach as commissioner and vice mayor from 1995-1999, founded ERA Inc. in 2001 because, she said, “women’s rights have only inched forward since 1920, and because voting is still the only incontestable right women have in the U.S. Constitution. We need 38 states. We have 35. That’s just three more to go, including Florida.”
Oestreich urged attendees to contact Florida legislators and request they cosponsor and vote for upcoming ERA bills to ensure equality of rights not be denied or abridged on account of sex, which will benefit men as well.
Oestreich got a strong reaction from attendees when she pointed out the irony in the fact that American women in the armed forces are fighting for Afghanistan and Iraqi women’s democratic rights.
“Yet they come back from fighting for it there, only to be denied it for themselves here.”
Oestreich relayed that recent poll findings revealed 72 percent of citizens think ERA is already included in the Constitution.
“Unfortunately, it’s not,” she said.
For information on Equal Rights Alliance, call 393-0932.
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