So, I’m leaving you, Virginia. Here’s how to carry on, and carry on!!!

Time for Me to Ramble On

When Alice Paul first introduced the ERA, this was the most popular phone in the US.

I’m sad about this, Virginia. Some very big changes are coming in my personal life this year. They’re all good changes, but require lots of my time and energy. My consort and I are going through carreer changes, and will likely move out of state. So, sigh…,  the smart thing to do is to step back from my position as ERA Coordinator — hopefully in time to show a new activist the ropes!!! (Could this be you? I’ll help you get your bearings, just drop by our website and apply.) Really, I would love to get someone in here doing this work!!!

Ratification is always a be-at-the-ready and time sensitive project, and I can’t promise to be available as needed in the next months.  But, know this: We are doing a great job!! The other day, I googled some information on the ERA and this blog came up as the #2 and #8 hits in the search!! Hurray, Virginia!!! We kick butt!!!

You, on the other hand, may well have the time and talent America’s women need on our side!!! If you do, just use that link up there to get in touch!!

How to Use this Blog in the Meantime

1. Remember, every delegate is up for re-election this fall. Please pay attention to emails/social media about VA NOW PAC’s candidate endorsements. We have a slate of very promising folks this year!!! Then, please, support those candidates as you can. We need a change of the guard in the GA.

2. Keep writing and contacting our legislators. For the summer, it’s Congress that matters. But, all of our state level public officials need to be nudged, and regularly. These older posts are good inspiration for that: Letter to Congress, Say It!! ERA YES!! (especially the bottom half), Docket (this one’s targeted to GOP who don’t support, scroll down). There’s more, but that’s a nice start.

3. Write letters to the editor. I cannot emphasize this enough. 96% of Americans believe that  men and women are equal before the law. 72% believe that equality is already guaranteed by the Constitution.They’re all wrong. This is true of Viriginia too. This is a gap we can close. This blog post is useful for that.

4. Draw from the Media & Messaging Page. I built that to be a longish term resource for all of us. Mix and match and make it your own!!! Combine with letters and idea from other posts. There’s lots of material here to use and reuse.

5. Use the Contact Congress & General Assembly Page to get in touch with our 2015 representatives. This page will be updated sometime after the fall election. I’ve been using the Congressional Directory and Virginia General Assembly Site (House // Senate) to get contact info for the site the emails I’ve sent you.

6. Encourage the legislators and candidates who support our issues, especially ratification. Call them, email them, elect and re-elect them.

7. Show your friends the work you do. Post your emails and letters to your Facebook, share them with people in every way. Once they see you do it, they’ll know they can do it. Nothing about this work should be kept private. This is not your hobby. This is a civil rights movement. Show the way. Use the hashtags at the right when you post on your own blogs, or Facebook, or Twitter, or Tumblr, even Instagram. Connect people to resources, tools. This blog.

8. Connect with the coalitions. From them you’ll get news about efforts in VA, but also in all the other un-ratified states and Congress. The ERA is a national issue, so on this point, yes, you need to meddle in the affairs of other states! Often! Loudly! Especially active are: ERA Action, ERA Coalition, ERA Education Project, Feminist Majority, People Demanding Action, Women Matter.

9. Keep and eye on our opponents. Not just the legislators, but the organizations. Watch out for ALEC, for the Koch Brothers, and for the Eagle Forum and Family Foundation — they’re still at it against the ERA.

Rinse. Repeat. Because I can promise you this: the fact of a woman in the White House will not necessarily mean that we’ll get our ERA. We’ve seen what obstructionism can do. We know we’ll need to do more than just get some Ovaries in the Oval Office.

Basically, you have to keep on it.

This chain, and women used it and its like, shut the Morman Temple in MD, the Republican National Committee headquarters , and closed Pennsylvania Avenue. For the ERA.

There’s a reason Geico and Progressive and Farmers Insurance run an ad every hour, every day, in serveral markets at a time. Repetition works. Repetition counts. Repetition gets into people’s heads. Sadly for grassroots activists, this is the only way, and it is labor intensive. But, it is the only way. The only way to get especially the opposition to listen to us and our friends is to be the constant buzz in their ear.

Get it?  😉

Make sure you place those letters to the editor in their districts as well as your own.

Bring the pressure. Anti-woman and
anti-feminist politicians will respond to nothing else.

We’re not alone. Efforts are gearing up nation wide. CNN gave ratification some awesom coverage in this 3 part series: The New Women Warriors. The new generation is taking up this banner. Let’s go!!!

It’s been a lot of excellent and joyful work running this online campaign to ratify the ERA with you. It’s my fervent hope that you will carry on in my absence. You are inspirations. Now, go spread that goodness around!!! Women belong in the Constitution!!!!

For women! Carry on!
Simone Roberts
Virginia NOW Historian

Social Media and Issues Survey

Dear Virginia,

VA NOW is gathering in Richmond this weekend, and we thought we’d take this moment to ask you how we can best serve you in the future.

Which issues are most vital to you? What do you think of our social media strategies?

This survey takes about 5 minutes to fill out, and it will really help us give you what you need.

Thanks, and we hope to see you this weekend.

The 1st Woman President Needs Equal Rights!!!

Dear Virginia,

Happy ERA Monday, and Happy Presidents Day!! It’s a double day, and I have a double request of you.

First: Del. Mark Cole holds an open house at his office tomorrow, Feb. 17. Activists will be present as the weather allows,
but snow can’t stop email, or phone calls!!!

Click here for a post with a great email for Chair Cole and his contact information. Tell him the ERA MUST BE PUT ON THE DOCKET and moved into the full Privileges and Elections Committee.

Please, send the same email to Speaker Howell.

This committee is heavily resistant. We must push hard this week! On the same post, you can contact the whole committee.

When pressed, their objections tend to crumble down to traditional and fundamentalist forms of sexism. Show them that’s the only reason they could refuse us our rights.

Feel some tweetage coming on? Yeah, me too.

To tweet the House: @VaHouse.
To tweet the House GOP: @vahousegop.
To tweet the Hosue Dems: @VAHouseDems.

1st Woman #POTUS deserves full #civilrights, #RatifyERA, SJ 216 on the P&E docket!!

(*)   (*)   (*)

Second, in honor of Presidents Day, I ask you for one more action.

The fundamental political difference between the first woman president and all the men before her is that she might not enjoy fully protected civil rights under the Constitution she will swear to defend and protect.

Clinton? Warren? … Clinton/Warren?

Warren/Clinton?
Who knows.

This week, let’s focus on the Senate.

Send them this email:
Email Page for Senator Warner
Email Page for Senator Kaine

 

 

Subject: Please Support Women’s Civil Rights, Lift the Deadline on Ratification

Dear Honorable Senator _______,

You serve with women who swear to protect and defend the Constitution, but are not fully protected by it. Our nation’s daughters have long risked their lives in our wars, but are not yet fully protected by that Constitution.

On this Presidents Day, consider: our next president could well be a woman — who still may not be fully invested with the civil rights enshrined in our laws.

This is an inconsistency that should not stand for one more year. This March when Senator Cardin offers a new resolution, please sign on to support it and then encourage your colleagues to do so — especially friendlier Republicans. Cardin aims for vigorous bi-partisan support.

Ratification of Equal Rights Amendment would accomplish one civil goal: it would mend the patchwork of laws that currently tack together the rag doll of women’s citizenship.

I urge you to join which would remove the historically aberrant and wholly arbitrary deadline on ratification.

Justices Scalia and Ginsberg agree on one thing: the 14th Amendment clearly applies only to “male citizens” and “male inhabitants” of the Republic. What “rights” women do have are only supported by laws and statutes — all of which can change given a hostile political wind.

Our nation’s women are caught in a stalemate. States wait for a signal from Congress, Congress for a signal from the states. Be first, lead, honor the nation’s women with fully established civil rights. Assure us that a future female president will not be so civilly vulneralby as women are today. Send the signal — it’s time for ratification. Lift the deadline.

Let the Constitution protect and defend our women as our women do the Constitution.

With my lasting gratitude for your service to our state and the nation,

Your Name
City, State

(*)   (*)   (*) 

 

For women!

Simone Roberts

Web Editor / Historian / ERA Coordinator

VA NOW and its

VIRGINIA ERA NETWORK

ERA Campaign Moves into 2015, VA NOW and the new Coalition

Advocates, my best wishes

to you for a healthy,

happy, and robust 2015!! 

VA NOW and Virginia ERA Network are gearing up for a fast-moving legislative session. Only 45 days! Our plans are ambitious, our strategies are solid, and we’re in for the long haul!

And they all involve you. Without your voices and your time, our advocacy can’t achieve the volume needed to get heard loud and clear in Richmond!

Let’s turn the volume up to 11!!

VA NOW has joined forces with the Women’s Equality Coalition, which includes Women Matter and People Demand Action, among other groups. WEC organizations are reaching out the ACLU, to Moral Mondays organizers, LULAC, and Color of Change for petition and email campaign efforts.

The ERA is a civil rights issue for all women, for all communities, and this coalition will make that connection crystal clear to our General Assembly.

One lesson our advocates on The Hill and in Richmond have taken to heart is this:

The more present we are on a daily basis, the more representatives listen.

Women Matter have very good relations in Richmond, and plan to be a constant presence in the halls, in offices. We need to be there, too, with our calls / emails / messages / tweets.

This means that from time to time this blog will amplify calls to action and updates from groups in the coalition, while still doing our work of creating a crowd’s background roar of “ERA to the Floor!”

So, I’ll still ask you to contact legislators one batch at a time using our Contact VA Congress and General Assembly Page.

But, I’ll also be directing you to petitions like the one up at Credo Mobilize, and to calls for action from other coalition members.

Advocates from the several coalition members will be on Capitol Hill and at the General Assembly in force in 2015!

Stay tuned and get ready
to get loud, Advocates!

For women!
Simone Roberts
ERA Coordinator, Web Editor, Historian
Virginia NOW

ERA Campaign — Happy Holidays to You!!! — Week 4

To you and your families, Virginia NOW wish a loving and reflective
Chanukah, Yule, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Pancha Ganapati.

I write this post for you on the Winter Solstice, once called Modraniht – Mother’s Night – by the Saxons, and now Longest Night among many, a night of rest to reflect on loss or fear, and to surround them with tenderness and honor. You have from me that tenderness and honor.

The solstice is also a light festival, the night we round the curve of the year toward light, growth, action.

This week, I ask you to help me expand this campaign.

I know we all have a million things to do right now preparing for the holidays, so I’m going to make it easy for you to ask your friends and neighbors to jump in too. We really do need numbers too big to ignore. Just email this message to your networks and friends, with my thanks and best holiday wishes.

People who join in this campaign don’t have to join NOW or Virginia NOW (though, hey, we would welcome you heartily!), and don’t have to give a donation to us (though, hey, we will not turn you down!), but commit something more precious still — time and energy converted into persistent action for the next couple of months. For which, you will have my consistent support and humble gratitude.

Ask your friends, family, neighbors, dentist — anyone you know will get behind ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment — to jump in and connect with VA NOW’s social media, especially the Virginia ERA Network blog or dedicated Constant Contact list.

We’re ambitious this year. The ERA is one of several big advocacy pushes from VA NOW in 2015. Getting connected to our other media will keep you in the loop on several major issues (sorry to be vague, but official language is being crafted, I have to be hush-hush for now).

Our VA NOW state website is vanow.org. It’s enormous, full of resources and empowerment. Sections most concerned with our advocacy work are Represent and Ratify. Local chapters are all listed and connected to the site as well. Please explore. All our media are accessible there, but let me lay it out for you.

Our ERA dedicated website is VirginiaERANet.com. There you’ll see the source material and results of much hard work by our president, Diana Egozcue. It’s an easy to navigate, and very well researched source on the ERA and ratification.

The ERA dedicated blog is, well, VirginiaERANetwork.wordpress.com. Follow the blog to get emails like this when the same information is posted to the blog. There you can find an archive of past posts (complete with legislator contact info, previous talking points, the whole kit), and connections to our partners in the ERA coalition (including The ERA Coalition!).

Or, sign-up for the dedicated ERA Constant Contact mailing list. The blog, the e-blast — either way you’ll be contacted weekly with guidance on whom to contact and what to say to them in order to get the ERA on the floor of the House of Delegates for a vote in 2015!!

Our state chapter blog is VirginiaNOW.wordpress.com. We use this blog to share and discuss issues and opinions on our whole range of issues and advocacy work. We also announce endorsements and recommendations from the VA NOW Political Action Committee on this blog. We also use this blog to increase audience for our local chapters when they have projects, events, or advocacy they want shared across the state.

On our Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/VirginiaNOW, we promote action and event in our local chapters, news from across the intersectional feminist spectrum, and as much feminist fun and encouragement as we can cram in there.

Oh, but there’s more!! We are also on Twitter and Tumblr, with these and even wider messages and social activism.

All this from a team of only two volunteers! (Myself, and Paradise Kendra, Vice President of Communications.) You cannot beat a deal like that. Except by getting women fully included in the civil rights promised by the US Constitution. That deal would beat most anything!!

VA NOW is working in with a large coalition of groups in Virginia and Nationally to push for ratification in all 15 of the unratified states, and to convince Congress to lift the deadline. These efforts are enthusiastic, energetic and simultaneous. Let’s make 2015 the real Year of the Woman!!

Our partners include: Women Matter, Unite Women – VA, People Demanding Action – VA, the ACLU-VA, and these national organizations: The Alice Paul Institute, America Association of University Women, The American Civil Liberties Union, Equal Rights Alliance – Florida, ERA Action, ERA Coalition, ERA Education Project, Feminist Majority Foundation, KATRINA’S DREAM, League of Women Voters, National Organization for Women, NCWO Equal Rights Task Force, PDA ERA 3 State Strategy, Third Wave Feminism, and Unite Women.

THERE’S MORE! Members of the coalition are currently in discussion with the NAACP and General Federation of Women’s Clubs to join forces with us. That’s a welcome historical shift!!

Again, my thanks for sticking with me, for helping me spread the word in this busy and loving season.

Happy Holidays to All, and to All Equal Rights!!

Simone Roberts
Web Editor / Historian / ERA Coordinator
Virginia NOW

(*) (*) (*) (*) (*) (*) (*)

Hashtags for Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr:
#ERA #RatifyIL #WeDemandERA
#RatifyERA #rallywomen #ERANow
#WOMENSRIGHTS #EQUALITY #VAERA
#VANOW #LetsPasstheERA #KatrinasDream
#LiftERADeadline #BetterTogether #VA4ERA #ERAMonday

If you find new #s, send them along to me! @pomored.

Some Coalition Twitters to follow:
@ERAAction – ERA Action
@VirginiaNOW – Virginia Chapter of NOW
@PDAVirginia – Progressive Democrats of Virginia
@Women_Matter – Women Matter (VA)
@WOW_VA – Unite Women Virginia
@KatrinadDream – Katrina’s Dream ERA Pilgrim Helene Swanson