Supporters of the VA Ratify ERA campaign call for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment in the 2020 Virginia General Assembly session during a news conference at the State Capitol. (Photo by Katja Timm)
“We are organizing to make our demand for equality loud and clear,” says Rosie Couture, the 15-year-old founder of Generation Ratify and a rising sophomore at Washington-Liberty High School in Arlington County.
Couture joined Virginia first lady Pamela Northam and other advocates Monday on the steps of the State Capitol to call for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in the 2020 Virginia General Assembly session.
“We cannot succeed if half of us are held back,” Northam told attendees, starting off the series of speakers at the news conference to launch the 2020 VA Ratify ERA campaign. After the meeting, the organizers offered free ice cream as a start to the #iScream4Equality tour around Virginia, starting in the Richmond area.
Couture and other speakers emphasized the importance of youth involvement to ratify the ERA. Generation Ratify encourages supporters to get involved for the future generations of women who cannot vote yet.
Rosie Couture (fourth from right) of Generation Ratify was among those at the VA Ratify ERA campaign launch. (Photo by Katja Timm)
“After making voters listen to us, we will make our legislators listen to us,” Couture says. “Although we are a youth-led movement, we are uplifted by the women who have fought to get where we are today.”
Lisa Sales, chair of the Fairfax County Commission for Women and a member of the VA Ratify ERA leadership team, spoke about Virginia’s history in relation to the ERA.
“Virginia has so much potential, and we’ve been on the wrong side of history so many times,” Sales says. “Even when women were given the right to vote, it still only granted some women the right to vote.”
Sales noted that the ERA has passed the Virginia Senate six times, but has languished in the House of Delegates.
Congress passed the amendment in 1972, stating that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex,” but for the measure to be added to the U.S. Constitution, 38 states must ratify it. By 1982, 35 states had ratified the amendment, and in 2017 and 2018, two more joined, making the total 37. If the VA Ratify ERA campaign succeeds, Virginia could be No. 38.
“Eileen Davis, one of our longtime advocates and marathoners, likes to say we’re ‘half-ratified,’ ” Sales says. “But ‘half-ratified’ doesn’t get us there, so we’ve got to make it happen in 2020, which is also the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote.”
In addition to the news conference at the Capitol, the governor’s mansion was lit up in purple, white and gold during the weekend to show the colors of the American suffrage movement. There will also be screenings around the state of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg biopic “On the Basis of Sex,” including one at 6 p.m. today at the Byrd Theatre.
