Proposed Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
Purpose: To secure equal representation for women in the Congress of the United States.
Justification: Although gender is not mentioned anywhere in the original Constitution, the white males who drafted it obviously intended the rights and privileges therein to apply only to themselves. It took the Abolitionist and Women’s Suffrage movements paving the way to change that and in 1865 the 13th Amendment was passed to end slavery. But in 1869 the 14th Amendment, ostensibly designed to establish formerly enslaved people’s full citizenship, in effect codified slavery of another kind. The 14th Amendment explicitly stated for the first time in the Constitution that only males could vote. The message to the women who fought for suffrage was clear: Although males may periodically fight, kill, and enslave each other, they are universally and eternally united against women.
It took women fifty more years to finally “win” the vote. The victory was had only because slightly more than half the men in Congress and in ¾ of the State Legislatures felt more good than harm could come of it. The underlying reason women finally were granted the vote by the patriarchs had nothing to do with an evolution in male thinking, or simple fairness -- it happened because the Anglo-Saxon Protestants who ran this country feared that the huge influx of eastern Europeans Catholics and other “undesirables”, might soon make them a minority of the population, and they could lose political control. Granting their presumedly subservient wives the right to vote, automatically doubled their electoral strength.
Over the ensuing 82 years, most immigrant and minority populations have had some electoral success and have been able to make some gains toward fair representation in Congress. But, as those who passed the 19th Amendment predicted, little true harm came from it. White Men still rule. Women, who in general are no less ignorant or malleable than men but usually more appreciative, have continued to thank men for the Vote by electing and re-electing them to office --- thereby perpetuating the Patriarchy, and denying themselves fair representation in government.
It will be argued that this Amendment is unnecessary – that the needs and views of females can be represented by anybody of any gender, and that if women want women in office they would elect them. But I assert that the first statement is not true, and that the second is not possible. And I assert that all reasonable people will concur.
Here’s why: If considered carefully, the Amendment will appeal to and make sense to both ends of the political spectrum and to everyone in between. I assume that the most politically and socially conservative among us live their lives with the belief that there are fundamental differences between the genders that go beyond any obvious or theorized physical differences. Conservatives, almost by definition, believe that men and women are very different creatures. Assuming that even an ultra-conservative American man is not so revisionist as to revoke women’s right to vote, how can he -- whether divinely endowed with authority over his woman or not -- presume to understand her wants and needs? How, for instance, could he not defer to her over issues of childbirth, children’s health, and child rearing? Wouldn’t he acknowledge that only other women can understand what women want, and what their babies need? How could he, as a legislator, ever accurately represent those concerns?
On the other side of the spectrum, liberals or progressives claim, in general, that there are no intrinsic differences between men and women but point out (rightfully) that there is a huge, institutionalized power differential between them. It is my contention that traditional efforts by the Left to rectify this problem -- by promoting women candidates and by lobbying for the Equal Rights Amendment—are mere band-aids.
Sadly, for a woman candidate to compete against a man -- and to be elected (especially to higher office) -- requires that she is (or pretends to be) as “tough and ruthless”, i.e. macho, as the man. As a case in point, consider Margaret Thatcher. So, since the ability to bluster should not be a criterion for office, and since no amount of political activism in the foreseeable future can ensure women of any meaningful percentage of the seats in Congress, I offer the following to be adopted as an Amendment to the US Constitution:
Both Houses of the
Congress of the United States of America shall consist of an equal number of
male and female members.
Each House District
shall be served by two Representatives; one male and one female.
Each State shall be
represented by four Senators; two male and two female.
To facilitate ratification of this amendment:
Special elections will be
held to fill the new seats. In a district or State where there exists a male
incumbent, the special election will be for the female seat, and vice versa.
Monies for the salaries
and expenses of the future members of the gender- equal Congress will be found
by halving the salaries and expenses of the existing members.
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I have run this Amendment idea by a number of people over the years, and there is usually only one other objection, besides the unsupported claim that anyone ought to be capable of representing anyone else. They ask; “If we give women equal representation, then won’t every group want to have that guarantee -- Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Baptists, Vegetarians, etc.?” I would think that the silliness of this concern would be obvious but apparently it isn’t, so allow me to clarify:
In, say, 500 years -- after generations of continued and inevitable “racial” and ethnic intermingling on this planet -- it is possible that all the regional, religious, language, cultural, and melanin related classifications that divide people will no longer exist. That is to say, these divisions are transient, and if they are not outright myth, then they are real only in that they serve some immediate political purpose. What is not myth or political contrivance, and what will never change, is the fact that human beings are comprised of two genders.
I will leave the myriad social, political, environmental, health, welfare, and global equanimity ramifications of this Amendment to your imaginations.