Women in the United States won the right to vote 100 years ago when the 19th Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920; but challenges to removing the vestiges of second class citizenship remain. Although the 14th Amendment went a long way in trying to eradicate the denial of ‘the equal protection of the laws’, ever since it was ratified in1868 there has been a struggle to fulfill its promise. When the 15th Amendment was ratified less than two years later it inserted gender into the document for the first time, and, as Eric Foner has noted, Elizabeth Cady Stanton warned, “If that word ‘male’ be inserted, it will take us a century at least to get it out.”

That century is more than over, and the time is now long overdue for women no longer to be subjugated to any remnants of their chattel status. With the passage of a 28th Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing gender equality, the state legislatures and the courts will not be able to apply their tortured reasoning to the issues of comparable pay, reproductive rights and other traditional and historical patterns of patriarchal abuse and denial of rights. This will not only help women, but will improve the status of children and men, increased dignity and integrity being only a few of the beneficial side effects of this action.

I believe that this change is supported by a large majority of Americans. Simple justice requires that it be done now.