When Leadership Requires Keeping Your Hand On the Plow
Issue 247 — December 11, 2023
“I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.” — Alice Paul, suffragist leader and author of the Equal Rights Amendment, which a century later still is not published into the U.S. Constitution.
“Ordinary equality…” This week marks its important but traditionally little-noticed anniversary.
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), first introduced in Congress on December 13, 1923, was written by Paul, a suffragist instrumental in the 1920 ratification of the 19th amendment, which enshrined women’s right to vote in the U.S. Constitution. Yet 100 years later, the ERA is still vying for a permanent place in the U.S. Constitution.
True, access to voting rights has never been fully and easily available to all citizens. But at least the right to vote regardless of sex exists in the language of the nation’s most consequential legal document.
Not so for other gender equality rights.
Paul started the National Women’s Party after the 19th Amendment was adopted, believing that without a political organization’s leadership that could use the newfound legal clout, women’s concerns would never be taken seriously by politicians.
She was one of the few women’s suffrage leaders who realized that getting the right to vote was necessary but not sufficient to enable women to be equal partners in society. She argued that those who had fought for suffrage should then shift their work to getting laws passed that would continue to expand women’s rights.
“When you put your hand to the plow,” Paul said, “you can’t put it down until you get to the end of the row.”
How right she was! And we aren’t at the end of the row yet.
The ERA language is simple:
Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.
Doesn’t sound very radical, does it?
Not radical, just fair. Although Alice Paul didn’t see the ERA pass in her lifetime, her spark ignited progress in employment, education, politics, and beyond. Could she have imagined a female vice president? Perhaps.
Myself with two women who have never put down the plow in the fight for gender equality, Gloria Steinem (L) and A’Shanti Gholar (R).
Equal rights are an accepted part of most Americans’ thinking today. Yet despite over 90% public approval and a similar number believing that the ERA is already in the Constitution, we still don’t have the ERA.
To me, the most poignant lesson of the suffrage movement was the one Paul understood most clearly.
At the turn of the 20th century, the women’s suffrage movement had a broad agenda. They were talking about many of the things we talk about today. Childcare, healthcare, fair wage issues — all of those things.
But by the time they had secured the right to vote, they had dropped that agenda.
The result was that the movement lost its power as a political force.
It was a failing of the prevailing leadership to think they had won. Alice Paul was one of few suffrage leaders who realized that a movement has to move, that power and energy come from moving forward not from standing still after a victory. The suffrage story warns us: victory is not the end. The real work begins afterward.
Now, thanks to a resurgent movement in support of the ERA, the necessary number of states have ratified it. All that remains is for the archivist to publish it into the Constitution, the nation’s most fundamental legal document.
On December 13, the ERA Coalition will convene a march from the White House to Congress and other activities to call attention to the urgency of publishing the ERA.
Here’s the link to participate in person or virtually. Take The Lead is a program partner of the ERA Coalition. There is much work yet for us to do.
“No country can truly develop if half its population is left behind,” as Justine Greening, UK Secretary of State for International Development has aptly said.
With leaders who have vision, courage, action, we can create a more just, inclusive, and equitable world, a future that today’s little girls and boys will look back on proudly, or perhaps will ask, “What took you so long?”
Alice Paul’s work illustrates that one person taking action can make an enormous difference. Her leadership legacy should inspire others to move the dial toward full intersectional gender parity. When I do leadership development training, I call this “caring enough to make it happen.”
It’s up to all of us to “plow until we get to the end of the row.”
GLORIA FELDT is the Cofounder and President of Take The Lead, a motivational speaker, a global expert in women’s leadership development and DEI for individuals and companies that want to build gender balance. She is a bestselling author of five books, most recently Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women Will Take The Lead for (Everyone’s) Good. Honored as Forbes 50 Over 50, and Former President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she is a frequent media commentator. Learn more at www.gloriafeldt.com and www.taketheleadwomen.com. Find her @GloriaFeldt on all social media.