Happy Birthday, 19th Amendment!

“I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet. Don't forget to be a good boy… .”

Tennessee state lawmaker Harry Burn received that note from his mom in August 1920. And like a good son, he subsequently changed his vote from “nay” to “yea,” breaking a 48-48 deadlock in the state’s general assembly. “I knew that a mother’s advice is always safest for her boy to follow,” Burn commented afterward, while noting it wasn’t often that a man had a chance “to free 17 million women from political slavery.”

The vote made Tennessee the 36^th state to ratify the 19^th Amendment: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” American women were finally guaranteed  access to the democratic process.

Today marks the 90^th anniversary of the amendment’s certification. It was fitting that it ultimately took a woman—the deft Mrs. Burn—to finally make the amendment happen. But she was just the last in a long line of women and men who spent decades overcoming entrenched opposition. Many of the arguments against the 19^th Amendment today are widely forgotten precisely because they are so at odds with reality.  Some opponents argued that women were too delicate to vote—that their emotional equilibrium would be upset by the strain of casting a ballot. Others seriously believed that women suffrage would produce a nation of transvestites.

Of course, women still have plenty to fight for, especially when it comes to economics. Most of them still get little respect in the job market. In 2008, the four top occupations for U.S. women were: secretary (or administrative assistant), K-8 schoolteacher, registered nurse and cashier. Even when women get jobs in male-dominated occupations, they still earn less.

It took 72 years from the Seneca Falls Convention to ratification of the 19^th Amendment. Most of the pioneers who started the women’s rights movement never got to vote. If America’s legislative commitment to gender equality follows that historical path, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) still has a good chance. The ERA states 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.” Anyone who doubts its ongoing relevance need only review the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. The ERA was passed by Congress in 1972 but never ratified. So it should be ready for its comeback in about 2050. But sooner would be a lot better.