NOW Observes Constitution Day – Although Women Still Aren’t Included in the Constitution

Constitution Day recognizes the adoption of the U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787, when delegates to the Constitutional Convention met for the last time to sign the document they had created. This holiday is also known as Citizenship Day to recognize those who have become U.S. citizens.

NOW members will know that celebrating the Constitution means recognizing that it remains incomplete. The failure of the framers to include women in our nation's founding documents is a monumental mistake that has long demanded correction.

They didn't want women to own property, or vote, or have bodily autonomy. They saw women's rights and status as secondary to men's, and they wanted to keep it that way.

As historian Mary Beth Norton wrote in this paperon The Constitutional Status of Women in 1787,

"Since married women and their daughters were legally subordinate to husbands and fathers and were perceived solely as parts of households, it is therefore hardly surprising that they were ignored by the drafters of the Constitution."

The legacy of this omission is that generations of women have endured a system that pays them less, values them less, respects them less, and treats them more as second-class citizens.

Constitutional equality is one of NOW's core issues, and the time for the Equal Rights Amendment is NOW! The ERA is stalled in Washington, after the amendment met all the requirements to become the 28thAmendment to the Constitution. Two-thirds of each chamber of Congress have approved the amendment, and three-fourths of the states have ratified it.

The U.S. House of Representatives removed the time limit for ratification by the states in 2021. Similar bipartisan legislation has been introduced in the Senate to remove the original deadline. But that hasn't happened yet-and we've been waiting a long time for Washington to seal the deal on constitutional equality for women.

Here's some more history, from Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She delivered her remarks on women becoming part of the Constitution while she served on the U.S. Court of Appeals:

"It cannot be," she writes, "for example, that although the founding fathers never dreamed of the likes of Dolly Madison or even the redoubtable Abigail Adams ever serving on a jury, we would today say it is therefore necessary or proper to keep women off juries."

Justice Ginsburg would be appalled at how women's rights are being undermined, rolled back, challenged, and erased by the current Administration, and the mockery that has been made of the nation's Constitution.

On this Constitution Day, NOW members are recommitting to strengthening the Constitution, starting with the ERA.

Until Justice is Ours,

Kim Villanueva

National President