March 4, 2021 • 49 mins
The United States is one of only 28 countries in the world that doesn’t have equal protection for women under the law enshrined in its constitution. There was a moment in the 70s where it came very close, but then the conservative movement was born.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles to be Chuck Brian over there, and
Jerry's over there. The three amigos equal in every single way,
shape and form. Uh. And that makes this, of course
(00:23):
stuff you should know, which is basically its own sovereign
nation of equality. M yeah, oh yeah, man, come on
me thought Jerry had more power than we did. Nope,
not a drop more nor drop less. Nary you drop less? Charles, Yeah,
I do too. It's a nice place to be, It's
(00:44):
a nice state to live in, you know, mentally and
physically agreed. I think here at the beginning, we're gonna
do a rare We're not gonna read a listener mail,
but a rare front loaded listener mail alert. We got
um first of all. A couple of years ago, a
woman named Graine Bailey suggested the topic of the Equal
(01:08):
Rights Amendment uh, and at the time pointed out the
difference between the words suffragette and suffragist. I clearly did
not read that email close enough, because it took an
email last week after one of us said suffragette in
a in a recent episode. Uh, and a woman named
Mary malan Oscars emailed and said, hey, by the way,
(01:32):
look it up. I mean she wasn't mean, she was
very nice. That sounded like I was being not too nice.
She's very nice about it. She said, you know, look
it up. There's a suffragette is sort of a disparaging
term rather than suffragist, and it was tagged by you know,
reporters in the early nineteen hundreds a thing and I
(01:53):
think in Britain to mock people fighting for the women's
right to vote. And I didn't know that until then.
I'm glad to know, so thank you Mary. Once you
hear that, it's it makes total sense, you know. Well,
of course, I just I don't know. I never knew that.
I never thought about it. I didn't either. This is
how people learn stuff. I just assumed you were making
a Bowie reference in the episode. I thought it was
(02:15):
you that said I'm pretty sure with you, all right,
Well either way, let's go with you. Okay, okay, we
probably both did, or more more to the point, probably
was me. But either way, that was a I think,
hats off to you, buddy, for for coming up with
that one. Well, I'll not say it again. You know what, Oh,
you won't say it anymore? No, of course not. Okay,
(02:37):
I thought you said, well, and i'll say it again.
I think that's the opposite of what you were just saying, No,
I won't. So we're talking today about the Equal Rights Amendment, which,
um is it represents a really like discouragingly long swath
of American history. Um. But if you set if you
(03:01):
look at the whole thing just from a historian's eye
or even an anthropologist side, it's really really interesting the
history of this, the Equal Rights Amendment. If you kind
of look at it much more subjectively and empathetic, empathically, empathetically,
it's a lot harder to swallow, but it's still interesting. Nonetheless,
(03:21):
And the yeah, so the Equal Rights Amendment is a
constitutional amendment, a proposed constitutional amendment that would give women,
um equal protection under the law to men that you
could not discriminate you, No, you couldn't make a law
that discriminated on the basis of sex. And I'll bet
(03:42):
there's a lot of people out there chuck that say, well,
that's already in the constitution, isn't it. Because there was
a poll that the AP conducted into they found that
about the people they they contacted thought that there was
already equal protection for for women in the constitution. That's
just not the case. But the same poll found of
(04:06):
those respondents were in favor of enshrining that protection in
the Constitution. So it's kind of weird that it's not
in there. If people think it's already in there, and
then when they find out it's not, they're in favor
of it overwhelmingly. Yeah, and been we you know, we
just happen to live in a country where pent of
the American public could be in favor of certain legislation
(04:28):
and it would you know, could very possibly fall on
deaf ears when it comes to our politicians. Yeah, yes,
because bipartisan support has been defined in recent times as
you know, what the Houses of Congress agree to, not
necessarily what the public agrees to, which is a different
form of bipartisanship. And to me, if you ask me,
(04:50):
the more important one, like if the if the public
generally agrees on something, go with that. It seems like
since they're elected representatives in on Christ they should kind
of go with that. So h yes, I can't wait.
It's gonna be there's gonna be a lot of big
changes around here, everybody. Yes, it should we kind of
go back to the beginnings. Yes we should, because it's
(05:13):
you know, I associate the e r A with the
seventies and the Ways Live movement, as we'll see. But
it goes back a lot further than that. Yeah, it does.
And it's it's crazy to think that since the early
nineteen twenties they've been trying to get this enshrined in
the constitution and it still isn't in the year one.
But that is the case. Um. The first versions of
the Equal Rights Amendment were written up in the early
(05:35):
twenties by a suffragist UH named Alice Paul. Um. Some
other women, notably one Crystal Eastman, also helped out a lot,
and they also helped get the Nineteenth Amendment pass, which
gave women the right to vote UH in nineteen twenty
and they got together and said, UM, you know, I
think the next step, obviously should be just to go
(05:56):
ahead and put this in the constitution, that women have
equal rights like men in all facets of life. It's
worth pointing out here, UM that Um paul was a
Quaker and a leader of the National Women's Party for
like fifty years or something. Uh. And the reason I
mentioned she was a Quaker because she actually named the
(06:16):
amendment the Lucretia Mott Amendment, after another Quaker woman from
the nineteenth century who was also a suffragists as well
as an abolitionist. Yeah, if you peel back, you know,
the layer of early twentieth century or nineteenth century progressive
there's a about a percent chance they were a Quaker.
All sorts of good stuff during It's pretty interesting. Yeah,
(06:37):
it really is. We should do one on the Quakers
for sure. Yeah. I have a friend who's a Quaker,
and uh, she talks about Quaker meetings and Quaker weddings
and stuff, and it all just seems so chill and peaceful.
It's very appealing, right, Um. But so Lucretia Mott apparently
was among what's considered the the beginning of the first
(06:58):
wave of feminism. Where was you know, Um, not only
do women need the right to vote? And this is
like the eighteen thirties, eighteen forties, I think, because when
she was really beginning to be active, Um, not only
should women have the right to vote, but um, these
people were also very frequently also abolitionists. Right, So when
UM Congress started passing laws that protected the rights, that
(07:22):
enshrined the rights of African Americans into the Constitution, into
the law of the land, saying you cannot discriminate against
people who based on their because their African Americans are
based on their race. UM, women said, well, hey, just
add sex in there, add sex, like, let's let's put
(07:43):
that into the fourteenth Amendment. And UM, that didn't make it.
It didn't make it into any of the amendments. And
that was a I don't think it caused a rift
or anything like that, but I think it was extremely
disappointing to the suffragists who had also worked for abolition
as well, that the two things couldn't go hand in hand. So, UM,
African Americans started to gain civil rights decades before women did.
(08:07):
Women gained the right to vote, UM, and women just
kind of had to carry on. The suffragist movement continued
on even after the abolitionist movement was successful. Yeah, and
then nineteen three Alice Paul said, well, here's what we'll do,
will reward this amendment that we've written. So it sounds
more constitutional, I guess, And so it sounds a little
(08:30):
more like the fourteenth Amendment, and the new version basically
said equal rights. I'm sorry, equality of rights under the
law shall not be denied or a bridge by the
United States or by any state on account of sex.
And you know, once again, this was proposed and um,
you know for about thirty years in most sessions I
(08:51):
think every session of Congress, every single one, and didn't
get a lot of support. Um. And you know, it's
not to say that all men in politics were against it,
but it certainly was not their legislative priority, clearly. And
if you have a run from n to nineteen seventy
with only ten women serving in the Senate, never more
(09:12):
than two at a time, then the writings on the
wall that the e r A is is not just
it's just not going to be a top priority. I know.
But that's sad writing, you know what I mean, Like
the fact that there weren't women, uh in Congress. It
certainly doesn't let men off the hook like they can't
do they can't pass this, can't possibly take up legislation
that guarantees the equal rights to women because we're moon
(09:33):
you know, like that's that's very bothersome. But there's something
else in there, chuck. So from nineteen twenty three when
Alice Paul first introduced that, all the way through to
nine seventy, it was taken up in every session of
Congress and it failed. And one of the things that
(09:53):
stuck out to me was that there was a guy
who um oversaw the House I think the House Judiciary Committee, um,
and he was a Democrat from New York and he
put the kai bosh on it. Emmanuel Seller. Yeah, so
he put the kai bosh on. He would not let
it get to a vote. And I was like, why
this guy was a Democrat in New York, what was
(10:14):
his problem? And it turns out that the opposition to
the e r A, which is now very clearly amongst
like it's liberals are for it, Progressives are for it,
Conservatives are typically against it. Um. It used to be
flip flopped where the liberals, especially New Deal liberals like
Eleanor Roosevelt, were against the Equal Rights Amendment and conservatives
(10:37):
like Eisenhower conservatives were typically in favor of it. In
that bizarre yeah it is. I mean Roosevelt, she had
her reasons. She wasn't just like, oh, I don't think
women should have rights. I think she said, you know,
she thought it would undermine workplace protections. Um. She was
a part of Kennedy's commission. She chaired the commission, the
(10:59):
President's Commission on the Status of Women, which I think
the result was released posthuous posthumously that said it wasn't
the ra A wasn't necessary, and she she kind of
came around a little bit. She never gave a full
throated endorsement, but she kind of stopped talking out against it.
I think at a certain point she used to debate
Alice Paul like publicly. They would, you know, have back
(11:20):
and forth debates over you know, whether the e r
A was needed and how helpful it was going to be. So,
I mean, you don't like I I know that um
Eleanor Roosevelt is frequently criticized as not uh out right
feminist enough in a lot of ways, but she also
clearly seems to have been a feminist in her own
way for sure. Yeah, and we should point out to that.
(11:43):
Emmanuel Seller in ninety two, in a very big upset,
lost uh to a woman, an attorney named Elizabeth Holtzman,
largely due to his opposition to the era A. So yeah. Okay.
So so finally, by the early seventies, you're getting more
and more women who are starting to show up in
in Congress, um, like Bella as Bug and Shirley Chisholm,
(12:06):
and they basically said, like, this is our priority. We're
going to get this. This equal Rights Amendment finally passed
through Congress. And I don't know if it just happened
to be like an era of kind of bipartisan sentiment
um or what the deal was, but everybody finally came
together and that thing got passed. Like if a piece
(12:28):
of legislation has ever gotten passed, it was this one
in a bipartisan manner. Yeah. And you know what, Uh,
we'll get to how that passed. But a really big
reason is because it started becoming a big deal in
the media with this second wave, like you mentioned of
the women's lib movement, and in no small part by
a woman named Betty for Dan who wrote a book
(12:50):
called The Feminine Mystique that in nine sold a million copies.
And it's if she probably gets a at least a
short following her own she was really interesting. Um. The
reason she wrote this book is because she did a
survey for a college reunion for her former classmates, learned
(13:11):
that many of her former female classmates were not super
happy about being homemakers and not being able to work,
and center down a research rabbit hole on This kind
of became her passion project because she wanted to write
a magazine article, like a really in depth win. No
one wanted it, so she ended up publishing it as
a book called The Feminine Mystique, which kind of rocked
(13:32):
the world of America in the early early to mid sixties. Yeah,
because like in this book, she's basically saying, like this
whole this whole thing, we're all we're all going along
with this idea that the most the highest ideal a
woman can aspire to is to be the best wife
and mother she possibly can be, and that that's her identity.
It is as someone's wife, as someone's mother, that she
(13:54):
doesn't have her own identity that's independent of all of that.
That is a crushing a way to live for a
lot of women, not all women, as we'll see, but
a lot of women. And she spoke up for a
lot of them. Um, And I believe that this was
kind of it was already kind of out there in
pieces like people were talking about this, but Betty fre
(14:15):
Dan like put it all together and put it on
the map and got everyone talking. From what I've ever seen,
like almost single handedly started the second wave of feminism. Yeah,
and she put a pin in this little mini series.
She was played by Tracy Ullman UH in a mini
series last year called Mrs America that we're going to
get to a little more in depth than a second Yeah. So, um,
(14:37):
Betty fre Dan publishes the feminine mystique, like you said,
just totally rocked everybody's world for for better or worse
depending on your ideas about what the feminine mystique was about.
And saying, um, but yeah, like you're saying, like that
really laid the groundwork to this bipartisan um passing in
Congress of UH Equal Rights Amendment in nineteen seventy two,
(15:02):
I believe, right, Yeah, so it passes in a big way.
I think you said ninety three p Ninety three point
four in the House, ninety one point three in the Senate,
but which I can't wrap my head around that. How
did one third of a senator is that that senator
cross section of New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Michigan. Uh, here's
(15:23):
the deal, though. If you want something and shrined in
the constitution, that's a big deal in this country. They
don't do it willy nilly, nor should they um. But
you need not only like once it passes that it's
not automatic, then the state legislatures have to ratify it
by a two thirds margin, which means at least thirty
eight states have to ratify it. Um. And the e
(15:47):
r A had a stipulation that said, if that isn't
done in seven years, then you gotta go back to
the drawing board. And that was that was not in
the actual e r A. That was not in the
constitutional amendment. That was past and that's going to become
very important later. But it was in the legislation where
that e r A the amendment was sent to the
(16:08):
states for ratification, it said do this in seven years. Right, Okay,
that's that's just like that little slight distinction makes a
big difference down the road. Oh yeah, I mean the
r people pushing for the e r A certainly would
not have wanted an expiration date. No, And there's as
far as I could tell that they haven't ever attached
an expiration date to an amendment to be ratified before
(16:30):
it was just and it was also an arbitrary period
of time too, So just just chew on that, put
put that wadded up piece of gum in the back
of your cheek and save it for later. I wonder
in the debate if they were like, well, I mean,
how many years? Seven seven sounds good? Pour the Scotch. Uh.
(16:53):
So within one year, um, thirty of the thirty eight
states needed ratified it, which was super fast, and everyone
was like, you know, proponents like this is great, man,
it looks like this thing is gonna sail right into
the constitution. Uh. And then a woman popped up named
Phillis schlafe Lee and we're gonna take a break here
(17:14):
and we'll talk about Phillis right after this. And I guess,
(17:42):
depending on where your views are, Chuck, we should have
introduced Phillis chef Lee with the the Darth Vader theme
song when she made first makes her appear, Dune Dune, Dune, Dune.
It's exactly right. Did you watch any of these interviews
and debates, Yes, dude, you could. It's really interesting. If
(18:04):
you have your wits about you, you could despise everything
that ever came out of Philish Lafeley's mouth. It's very
very easy to do. Um. She equates gay people, which
I guess in the fashion of the time she calls homosexuals.
She calls them perverts. Says that they should not have
any rights afforded to married men and women. They shouldn't
(18:25):
be able to adopt children. She says, really despicable. I
didn't hear that one. She says a lot of very
despicable stuff. Um, and her whole viewpoint is despicable to
a lot of people. But there are very few people
walking around out there who have the poise and self
(18:47):
possession to go into the lions den and speak for
whatever she was convinced of was right. Um, that's you.
She has to be credited to at least that degree.
No matter what you think about her mind, she was
she had a lot of poise, I guess you could say.
And it's really kind of something to watch because I
(19:08):
saw this one. Did you see the the Good Morning
American debate from nine seventy between her and for Dan Yeah? Man,
And it's like it's really clear what a skilled debater
she was and how rattled she could get somebody. Yeah. Uh,
I mean she clearly. I felt bad for for Dan.
She was doing a good job, but she was she
was getting piste off and you could tell that she
(19:30):
just liked to get under people's skin while she just
remained perfectly, you know, erect in her seat with perfect posture.
And uh, that Mrs. America series, which it was on
our list and I'm gonna bump it back up to
next in line now to watch. But she was played,
um really really well judging from just the the accent
and the mannerisms by Cate Blanchett. It can do no wrong. Yeah,
(19:53):
I want to see that series too, um, but yes,
she so. If you see those two debating, it's like
a st in contrast, where Philis chaff Lee she Laughlely
is um basically sitting there at tea time at the
country club before the polo match. And Betty fre Dan,
if you put like a beret in sunglasses on a
French cigarette in her mouth, she's like sitting at the
(20:16):
beating at cafe, like listening to a poetry jam or
something like this. Just these two totally contrasting personalities. Be
A Cheffly debated her under the table, and it's not
like Betty fre Dan was was an intellectual slouch by
any measure. But it's just Philish Laughly could rattle anybody. Anybody,
she could rattle Santa Claus. I'm just gonna say it. Yeah,
(20:39):
I mean, she kind of made herself out to be
just this homemaker. Um. She would enter when she introduced
herself at engagement, she would thank her husband for letting
her come there. But when you kind of peek behind
the curtain, she had a master's in political science, she
had a law degree. She ran for Congress when she
was twenty seven years old and lost. And she was um,
(21:02):
sort of pre nineteen eighties, a big part in at
the very least, I don't even think they called it
the Christian Right at the time, that kind of organizing
what would later become the Christian Right movement. Yeah, you
can make a really good case that Philish laughy um
laid the groundwork for the current Republican Party in every
way from from Reagan onward to today. Um and and yeah,
(21:26):
she basically said like, I'm just a housewife from St. Louis,
proud housewife, wife and mother of six from St. Louis.
Um And in a lot of ways she was like
she made reference to law school during her debate to
Betty for Dan and she sounded like she was in
law school then, so it seems like she was just
(21:49):
a woman who said, I don't agree with this, and
I'm going to put a stop to it, and stood
in front of this unstoppable title wave and stopped it.
She stopped it. She stopped the E r A from
being ratified by the states right at the eleventh and
a half hour before it was ever passed and ratified
(22:13):
by the thirty eight states. You said they got thirty
states in the first year. By seven they were up
the thirty five states. They just needed three more, three
more states, and the whole thing was going to become
the law of the Lane. And Philish Slafely got in
the way of that almost single handedly at first. Yeah,
and you know she launched her her group was called
(22:33):
stop e r A, which you know, we obsess about acronyms.
It's sort of annoying when the first letter of an
acronym is the actual acronym. But stop ere A stood first,
stop taking our privileges. And her argument, you know, she
was like, and she used this to her advantage in
those debates, like see how angry these feminists are She's
(22:54):
she kind of coin that term. I think about the
angry women's Live movement. These angry feminists, they us want
they wanted to throw down everything that makes us a
female and everything that makes us women, and they want
to just set fire to it. And before you know what,
women are going to be able to be drafted in
the armed forces. Never happened. Uh, you know, they're they're
(23:15):
not going to be separate bathrooms or locker rooms anymore
from this point on. Not true. That started to happen
more in recent years, wrapped up same sex marriage. I
mean we'll we'll get to that. How she kind of
co opted gay rights and um, reproductive rights into all
this just to sort of coalesce that movement. Uh, and said,
(23:36):
you know, women are going to lose their right to
alimony and child support. Never happened. And just the life
as we know it, in the family as we know it.
And this is something fifty years on. All this stuff
is still so relevant, like the dissolution of what you know,
people think was the perfect family in nineteen fifty basically yeah,
because I mean so she was a troll, like a
(23:57):
a proto troll. But like the kind. You didn't do
it online, you did it in person. But her her
points were coherent and understandable to people who agreed with her,
and they were that like, yeah, like the man's role
is to provide for and take care of the woman,
and the woman provides like the domestic labor, and that's
just the division of labor between the sexes. And if
(24:20):
if we have the c r A, that's going to
go away, and then there's going to be all this
other horrible stuff of that's going to break down the
fabric of society and do we really want that? And
so by by taking the argument away from the idea
of whether women have a fundamental human right to equal
(24:41):
protection under the law as men, which is who disagrees
with that? Nobody disagrees with that, uh, and mixing it
up with all these other what ifs and potential social
outcomes and the ruin of the family, gay men teaching
your children at school, Um, that is what can alidated
people into a movement behind fellish laughly. And it was
(25:04):
it was really underhanded, but it worked really really well
and it still works today. Like she came up with
that from what I can tell. Yeah, in seventy three,
when Roevie Wade passed, she was again savvy enough to say, well,
here's something else I can I can seize on, and
I can wrap this up like there's a there's a whole.
(25:25):
There's a really large block of voters who are conservative
Christians who you know, we've never really intermingled politics like
that before. And so let's wrap this up in pro choice.
Let's wrap it up with gay rights, big culture war
issues of the time to kind of rally and like
I said, coalescence group together in order to defeat the
(25:46):
Equal Rights Amendment. And like you said it, you know
it worked in a big, big way. And uh, I
can't wait to watch that TV show. I can't either,
And I don't want to suck all the oxygen away
from Betty for Dan and the other feminists. But um,
I was saying that Phillish Laughley was a troll, a
proto troll. And if you read some of the stuff
(26:06):
that she said in public, sometimes she sounds like a
spokesperson for the Taliban. Like she said things like, um
that that sexual harassment on the job was not a
problem for virtuous women, like you know exactly, um or,
and that the Adam bomb was a marvelous gift that
was given to our country by a wise God. Just
(26:27):
things that would drive any any liberal or progressive, especially
a feminist, up the wall. And in fact, Betty for
Dan in this very famous debate from three years before
that Good Morning America appearance that you and I saw um,
she said, uh, you're you're, you're like you should be
burned at the stake for for betraying your your gender,
(26:50):
any favors and stuff like that, because that just allowed
Laughley to say, see there exactly, that's exactly right. But
she could just get under your skin like that. So
fast forward many many years too kind of now almost Uh.
In seventeen, after about forty years of not much movement, UH,
(27:11):
Nevada became the first New state to ratify the e
r A, thanks in no small part to State Senator
Pat Spearman, and she said, this bill is about a
quality period umen. Just a few years ago Illinois UM
came aboard as well. And now it's back up to
thirty seven. Did we mention that five of the states
(27:32):
d ratified or rescinded their ratification. I don't think we did.
We did not, and I think that's an important point here. Yeah, Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho, Kentucky,
and South Dakota be very part of your legislatures. After
nineteen seventy seven, they um de ratified or de certified,
not de certified. They rescinded it. They did. They said,
(27:53):
this is based on there's actually precedence for that. Ohio
and New Jersey both rescinded their support for the Fourteenth
Amendment once their legislatures changed control to um white supremacists.
Basically in the nineteenth century, they said, we take back
our our vote for the fourteenth Amendment. It also said
a president though that Congress ignored that and still counted
(28:15):
Ohio and New Jersey as having ratified the Fourteenth Amendment
because they did officially, right, So it goes back up
to thirty five. Then, uh, Illinois made at thirty seven
in January of last year. It's crazy that it took
this long. Virginia finally became the thirty eight state, and
so proponents of the e r A said, all right,
(28:36):
we got there, that's the thirty eight um. This thing
should have never had an expiration date to begin with.
That's dumb. Whoever said seven years? And then Porto Scotch. Uh,
they should be burned at the stake. And um, they said,
let's just get this thing done. And they said, you
know what, back in seventy seven amendment was passed but
(28:59):
not ratified it until two hundred years later, two hundred
and two years, so like there's precedent there, and that
was about prohibiting the law raising or lowering taxes for
congressional salaries from taking effect until their next term, like big,
big stuff. Not knocking it. It's it's important, I guess.
But they said, you know that was done, so this
(29:19):
thing shouldn't have had an expiration date to begin with.
Opponents say, well, no, there was an expiration date, so
we have to honor it. And uh, that's you know,
that's the deal. Sorry. And there was even a three
year extension that brought it up too, and by the
time that extension was running out and it did not
look like anything was going to move or happen. There
(29:41):
no more states were going to move to ratify it.
Even the National Organization for Women and other feminist groups
basically through in the talent said it's done. We the
e r A lost this time. It's not gone forever,
but this amazing immense again tidal weight, this with just
the momentum of a freight train running through the country
(30:05):
is now dead just a few years after, which is
just nuts that that happened. It's just crazy. But that's
that's the fact that now thirty eight states have officially
voted in favor of ratifying. It set off a flurry
of lawsuits here in the United States, and when Virginia
became the last one in and basically everybody in anyone
(30:27):
suing the National Archives and Records Administration UM to either
certify and put it into the National Archives or the
National Record that UM that this is now a part
of the Constitution, or to not do that. And it's
totally up in the air of what that's going to be.
But apparently, UM, a lot of people, not everyone, because
(30:49):
there's plenty of people are like, it's official. Now take
all the b s away, and this is an official
law of the land. UM. There are plenty of people
who are proponents of the Equal Rights Amendment who say
we need to start over again. And one of those people,
UM was Ruth Bader Ginsburg who said it needs to
be voted on again. We need to pick up again.
Basically from square one. Yeah, and I think and we'll
(31:11):
talk about all this stuff. But I think there have
been so many laws enacted since then that do protect
so many of these rights. I think people like RBG
were like, you know what, let's start over, let's rewrite
it for the modern times, UM, making sure everything is
in there that we still need and yeah, and and
revote on it. And you know, I think that's reasonable,
(31:33):
So do that. So let's let's take a break, UM,
and then we'll talk come back and talk about those
questions like do we need the R and what would
happen if we did pass the R? How about that
sounds good? Alright, Chuck. So you made mention of like
(32:10):
a lot of laws that have been created since the
since UM the e R A was UM passed I
guess by Congress, uh, and even before then that protect
women as a as a form of what's called the
protective class in the United States. They're protective classes that
include UM races, religions, UM, sex, UH, the sexual orientation UH,
(32:36):
and gender identity. Is becoming a protected class. And if
you're a member of a protected class, it means that
if there's a law that excludes you from something, whether
intentionally or not, that law is considered discriminatory and you
can file a lawsuit against it, and then the courts
have to apply different um tests to it to see
just how discriminatory it is or if it's discriminatory at all,
(32:58):
and whether or not it should be struck down or
overruled um. And the reason that sex is a protected
class even without the Equal Rights Amendment is thanks very
much largely to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was an absolute
legal pioneer in figuring out how to get women the
(33:19):
protections under the law um that they were looking for
with the equal Equal Rights Amendment without the Equal Rights
Amendment being part of the constitution. Yeah, I mean, I
think people that say that we don't need the e
r A. And it's a very fine line between saying
I'm against the r A and saying I don't think
we need the e r A. It's it all falls
(33:41):
under the same banner ultimately. But people that say we
don't need the r A, say, you know, we got
the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four, and race, color, religion, sex,
or national origin. You can't hire and fire peer higher
and fire people based on that. That applies to pay
and benefits to there's also the Equal Pay Act of
(34:02):
nineteen sixty three that say there should be equal pay
for equal work. That's didn't you know, in practice hasn't
worked out that way because there's still a wage gap.
We did a good episode on that. Yeah, that was
a good one. Violence Against Women Act of nineteen UH
saying here Federal resources for Domestic and Sexual violence. Um,
(34:23):
and you like prevention and prosecution of that counseling and UH,
this one however, and you know, put a pin in
this one, because this is one that is used also
for people that say we do need the A R
A because that one expired and is still hung up
and has not gotten congressional reauthorization since twenty nineteen because
(34:44):
of politics. The Violence Against Women Act. Yeah, and then
Title nine is the last one in nineteen seventy two. Uh.
Title nine is the one you hear about mostly in
college athletics that says, I mean, it says a lot
of things, but in terms of college athletics, that had
the biggest impact, saying you gotta have the same amount
of women's sports as men's sports. Uh, in the same
(35:04):
like accommodations and UH, scholarships and all that stuff. And
then so like, we don't need the e r A
because we have all these things. So yeah, so you
have law, and then you also have case law too.
That UM basically hinges on the fourteenth Amendment, which says
that a citizen of the United States can't be discriminated
(35:25):
against or or is do equal protection under the law
UM by the States and by the US. And that
was written in the in in um past, in the
Fourteenth Amendment in the wake of slavery. It was meant
to UM basically make free recently freed African Americans full
citizens in the United States. But it doesn't specify on
(35:48):
the basis of race or on the basis of religion.
It just says, if you're a U. S citizen, you
get equal protection under the law. And so Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
one of the reasons she's such a legal pioneer here
in this respect is because she's the one who figured
out how to argue that the Fourteenth Amendment applies to
sex as well. And the whole thing about legal stuff
(36:09):
and this is all new to me. But but it's
really kind of interesting is that depending on how enshrined
classes a protected group is in law. Um, the more
protected it is, the stricter the scrutiny that judges are
going to apply to determining whether a law is discriminatory
(36:29):
or not. And the most the most scrutiny you can
apply to something, it's called strict scrutiny, and that's typically
reserved for things that are protected by the Constitution. And
that means that if you have a law that even
remotely steps on the rights of one of those protected classes,
it's probably an illegal, discriminatory law. Yeah, how does that
work with how does that work in practice? Does that
(36:53):
mean they just spend more time or like what what
does that even mean? So? I think what it means
is that you if you pass a law, and let's
say that I pass a law and it accidentally discriminates
against your ability to get your hands on oatmeal. I
can get all the oatmeal I want, but you can't.
Let's say, in the Constitution, Chuck is specifically protected under
(37:16):
the law. That means that this law that prevents you
from getting oatmeal, that's a discriminatory law. And so it's
going to be really easy for you to bring a
lawsuit and for a judge to say, like there's even
a little bit of discrimination here. This law is illegal
because it's discriminated against Chuck and he's it says in
the Constitution you can't discriminate against Chuck. It just means
(37:38):
that that the standards for that law um to stand. Uh,
like everyone else on the planet basically has to benefit
from you not getting oatmeal for some reason, and that
that that's just not how laws work. So it would
be really easy for you to to bring a lawsuit
and get that law overturned because it discriminates it because
(38:00):
you're a protected class. Now, if it's just like everybody
likes Chuck, but it doesn't say in the Constitution that
you can't be discriminated against, they're going to use a
slightly less strict test to determine whether the thing is
is a discriminatory law or not. And so maybe yeah,
it generally um promotes oatmeal use among other people, among
(38:21):
all people, but there's some other people who don't get
it too. That doesn't really matter because you know, it's
not enshrined to the Constitution. So it's almost like degrees
and once you're in the Constitution as you as a
protected class, like it is really difficult to discriminate against you.
And that's one reason why people say, no, we need this,
we need this in the constitution because women, uh and
(38:43):
sex and gender even should be a protected class. You
should not be able to discriminate against somebody based on that. Yeah,
I mean that's the main um. That is the main
argument for proponents of the r A is saying, no,
let's make this of the real deal. Um there. You know,
cases can be overturned, laws can be reversed, Executive actions
(39:04):
can have devastating impacts, um. And and only being enshrined
in the Constitution will make this like like you said,
just so locked down and protected that people can't mess
with it anymore. I think we've seen in recent years
that you know, precedent can be argued and laws can
(39:24):
be overturned, and it's like, sure, we have all these
laws that passed since the r A first came uh
was ratified you know, in the nineteen seventies. But it
doesn't take much, you know, especially when you look at
a very imbalanced Supreme Court when Pete for people to
kind of worry that these these things can be taken away. Yeah.
(39:47):
And I mean, like there was a famous quote from
antonin Scalia when he was alive and Ajustice on the
Supreme Court basically saying like, no, the Constitution most decidedly
does not protect against discrimination on the basis of sex.
And you know, when when you hear Supreme Court justice
saying that, it's like, well, you know, how many cases
is it gonna take before he rules like, no, you
(40:08):
can totally discriminate against somebody on the basis of sex
if it's in the constitution. It doesn't matter what Anton
and its school or any other justice thinks. It's in
the constitution, So that that level of protection, like you
were saying, would be, it's just a totally different level
of protection than you know, customarily we we don't discriminate.
It's no, you can't discriminate. That's the difference between those
(40:29):
two things. Yeah, and not just reversing laws, but passing
new laws that maybe violate violate that equal treatment under
the law. Uh. And you know some other things that
that that constitutionally um could come into play if if
it were to go through is something like the Pink
tax I. Don't think we've ever done a show on
(40:50):
the Pink tax I. Don't think so either. But this
is you know, this is the notion that like you know,
from everything that like similar products for men and women, uh,
they charge women more than they do for men for
these products. UM to stuff like you know, menstrual equality
or equity. Basically you know, tampons, uh, pads other menstruation
(41:13):
products should not be taxed anymore. They should be like
treated like any other essential item. Yeah. And then so
so there are a lot of things, a lot of
protections that it would afford. One thing that frequently is
UM cited as as UM protecting women against is like violence,
like say, domestic violence. From what I read, it probably
wouldn't UM because it protects against being discriminated against by
(41:38):
the law. It doesn't necessarily afford protection from like an
individual person or something like that, necessarily a company, although
being in trined in the constitution, you could really sue
a company's pants off for discriminating against you. UM. But
there are there are some things that would do, some
things that wouldn't do, and then there's some things up
in the air. And one of the reasons why this
is still such a cultural UM flashpoint still today in
(42:03):
is because now more than ever UM it has become
equated with taxpayer funded abortion. And the reasoning behind people
who oppose the e r A because they think it's
basically tantamount too just completely repealing any restrictions on abortion.
Abortion from that point on is only women can get abortions,
(42:25):
and so if there's a law against abortion, there's a
law that's discriminating against women. Therefore you can't have laws
regulating abortions. And so that's why, especially with the Christian right,
it's still such a flash point today, and that's why
starting from scratch again is going to be no easier
than it was back in nineteen two. Yeah, now you're
(42:48):
probably right. Uh, it's pretty frustrating though to get to
that thirty eight state threshold, and because of some dumb,
arbitrary expiration date placed on it, it's still being held
up in the year yeah, in the year one. And
then also, the United States has an obligation is like
basically the leader of the free world to join the
(43:12):
rest of the Western nations in in enshrining equal protection
and the law for bisex um. I guess the United
States is one of only twenty eight countries in the
world that doesn't guarantee gender equality, one of chuck and
a hundred percent of the countries that have written their
(43:32):
constitution since nineteen fifty have included some guarantee of gender
equality in those constitutions. So it's kind of sad that
we don't have that still to this day. Yeah, and
if you look around the country this, you know, Dave
Ruse helped us out with this article, and he points
out stuff like, you know, if you go to Nepal,
their Supreme Court struck Donalogu exempting marital rape from criminal
(43:55):
prosecution because of its e er a clause. UH. In Tanzania, UH,
the Court of Appeal struck down a law that allowed
a fifteen year old girls to be married without parental consent,
while boys only had to be at eighteen. So, you know,
when you look at countries around the world that are
are seemingly ahead of the USA and in terms of
(44:18):
equal protection, is just it's it's baffling and disappointing. Baffling,
is right. Yeah, do you got anything else? I got
nothing else. It's good stuff. I have one more thing.
If you're give me another second, you're ready. So when
I was researching this, my head was just spinning again
and again and again. Um and It reminded me of
something that I read recently, and that is as really
(44:39):
easy to get bounced around from one outrage to another,
to one thing, to care about this issue, and then
oh wait what about this issue? And I saw some
advice somewhere I don't remember where, but it was, if
you want to affect change, pick one issue and dedicate
yourself to it. And that doesn't mean that you don't
care about all the other issues that you do care about.
It's just this one issue is your specialty. You're an
(45:03):
expert in it, and you're probably going to get further
going like that. You're probably going to be able to
see more change doing that than you would just kind
of bouncing from issue to issue to issue. So I mean,
if this like really got to you and you really
want to do something about it, make the make getting
the e R A past your specialty, you know totally. Okay, Well,
(45:25):
thanks for letting me stand on the soapbox for a second.
And since I'm getting off of my soapbox and Chuck
is putting it up in the soapbox caddy that we
keep here in the studio, UM, that means it's time
for listener mail. I'm gonna call this a ninja in
the Connecticut for us. Nice? Did you read this one? No?
(45:47):
I haven't. This is kind of crazy. It's long, but
it's worth it. Hey, guys. When I was about seven,
my mom married the man I called dad, and we
promptly moved from Texas to Connecticut, where we used to
go camping a lot. On one trip or I'll out
in the woods midnight, rolls around and go to bed.
About an hour later, I heard my tent on zipping
and my dad started shaking my foot, saying, come out here,
(46:07):
there's an effing ninja. So I throw on some slippers
in my jacket, but grudgingly trudge out to see a kid,
you not a ninja sitting next to the fire pit.
I remember actually shaking my head in disbelief to reaffirm
this wasn't some very strange dream. And now when I
say there was a ninja, I mean full black garb
with a slit to see through. This dude had twin
(46:27):
swords on his back, throwing stars, tiger claws for climbing,
grapple hooks, all the tools. Apparently, my dad saw him
rolling out of a bush and I had to see
what was going on. The story behind this guy was
he was a national a National guardsman and also ran
a jew kindo and ninajut So do jo and Rhode
(46:48):
Island as his main gig. We sit for the next
couple of hours and this guy is just showing a
stuff like how fast you can climb a tree or
how to throw a star. The night progresses and he
asked if we were familiar with Bruce Lee, as an
average fan of Enter the Dragon from around eight. I
said yes, and he asked if I'd ever seen his
one inch punch. Excitedly, I said sure, I have. And
(47:09):
then his name is Brian Ninsha, he said Brian then
asked if he could demonstrate it on me, a pudgy
twelve year old. I said no, thanks, I'm good and
I explicitly did not want to fly backwards with any
force uh. And he said no, no, I'll do it
with an open palm so it doesn't hurt. I give in.
He positions me safely away from the fire pit with
(47:29):
my back facing the tent, about seven ft away from anything. Uh.
Never trust anyone by the way whose instruction is okay,
Now just stand there while I hit you. Uh. He
inhales deeply does the flath hand against my stern um,
just like can kill Bill. Then in an instant, I
saw his muscles tense up as he audibly exhaled sharply
and hit my chest open handed. I go airborne and
(47:52):
hit my tailbone next on a tent steak seven ft
behind me, and can't really walk without crutches for a
couple of weeks. Kids at school never believe me when
prodding about why I was on crutches, because who would
believe a kid that says I had to run in
with a ninja in the middle of the woods. Uh.
That is from Drew Carroll and shaying Cheyenne Wyoming, Shyenne, Wyoming.
(48:19):
That is a great, great story. That was a magnificent
listener mail. I mean, hats off for that one. Thank you.
And if you're Brian and you're out there, I want
to hear what happened to you. Yeah, Uh, he's probably
He's like, I've been doing a ten year bid for
beating a kid up in the woods, but the kids
said I could hit him. Oh boy. Well, if you
(48:40):
want to get in touch with this like Drew and
try to top Drew zie a listener mail. Drew, by
the way, is the current listener male Champion. UM, we
want to see if you can do it. You can
send us an email, wrap it up spanking on the bottom,
and send it off to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio
dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
(49:01):
I heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. H
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles to be Chuck Brian over there, and
Jerry's over there. The three amigos equal in every single way,
shape and form. Uh. And that makes this, of course
(00:23):
stuff you should know, which is basically its own sovereign
nation of equality. M yeah, oh yeah, man, come on
me thought Jerry had more power than we did. Nope,
not a drop more nor drop less. Nary you drop less? Charles, Yeah,
I do too. It's a nice place to be, It's
(00:44):
a nice state to live in, you know, mentally and
physically agreed. I think here at the beginning, we're gonna
do a rare We're not gonna read a listener mail,
but a rare front loaded listener mail alert. We got
um first of all. A couple of years ago, a
woman named Graine Bailey suggested the topic of the Equal
(01:08):
Rights Amendment uh, and at the time pointed out the
difference between the words suffragette and suffragist. I clearly did
not read that email close enough, because it took an
email last week after one of us said suffragette in
a in a recent episode. Uh, and a woman named
Mary malan Oscars emailed and said, hey, by the way,
(01:32):
look it up. I mean she wasn't mean, she was
very nice. That sounded like I was being not too nice.
She's very nice about it. She said, you know, look
it up. There's a suffragette is sort of a disparaging
term rather than suffragist, and it was tagged by you know,
reporters in the early nineteen hundreds a thing and I
(01:53):
think in Britain to mock people fighting for the women's
right to vote. And I didn't know that until then.
I'm glad to know, so thank you Mary. Once you
hear that, it's it makes total sense, you know. Well,
of course, I just I don't know. I never knew that.
I never thought about it. I didn't either. This is
how people learn stuff. I just assumed you were making
a Bowie reference in the episode. I thought it was
(02:15):
you that said I'm pretty sure with you, all right,
Well either way, let's go with you. Okay, okay, we
probably both did, or more more to the point, probably
was me. But either way, that was a I think,
hats off to you, buddy, for for coming up with
that one. Well, I'll not say it again. You know what, Oh,
you won't say it anymore? No, of course not. Okay,
(02:37):
I thought you said, well, and i'll say it again.
I think that's the opposite of what you were just saying, No,
I won't. So we're talking today about the Equal Rights Amendment, which,
um is it represents a really like discouragingly long swath
of American history. Um. But if you set if you
(03:01):
look at the whole thing just from a historian's eye
or even an anthropologist side, it's really really interesting the
history of this, the Equal Rights Amendment. If you kind
of look at it much more subjectively and empathetic, empathically, empathetically,
it's a lot harder to swallow, but it's still interesting. Nonetheless,
(03:21):
And the yeah, so the Equal Rights Amendment is a
constitutional amendment, a proposed constitutional amendment that would give women,
um equal protection under the law to men that you
could not discriminate you, No, you couldn't make a law
that discriminated on the basis of sex. And I'll bet
(03:42):
there's a lot of people out there chuck that say, well,
that's already in the constitution, isn't it. Because there was
a poll that the AP conducted into they found that
about the people they they contacted thought that there was
already equal protection for for women in the constitution. That's
just not the case. But the same poll found of
(04:06):
those respondents were in favor of enshrining that protection in
the Constitution. So it's kind of weird that it's not
in there. If people think it's already in there, and
then when they find out it's not, they're in favor
of it overwhelmingly. Yeah, and been we you know, we
just happen to live in a country where pent of
the American public could be in favor of certain legislation
(04:28):
and it would you know, could very possibly fall on
deaf ears when it comes to our politicians. Yeah, yes,
because bipartisan support has been defined in recent times as
you know, what the Houses of Congress agree to, not
necessarily what the public agrees to, which is a different
form of bipartisanship. And to me, if you ask me,
(04:50):
the more important one, like if the if the public
generally agrees on something, go with that. It seems like
since they're elected representatives in on Christ they should kind
of go with that. So h yes, I can't wait.
It's gonna be there's gonna be a lot of big
changes around here, everybody. Yes, it should we kind of
go back to the beginnings. Yes we should, because it's
(05:13):
you know, I associate the e r A with the
seventies and the Ways Live movement, as we'll see. But
it goes back a lot further than that. Yeah, it does.
And it's it's crazy to think that since the early
nineteen twenties they've been trying to get this enshrined in
the constitution and it still isn't in the year one.
But that is the case. Um. The first versions of
the Equal Rights Amendment were written up in the early
(05:35):
twenties by a suffragist UH named Alice Paul. Um. Some
other women, notably one Crystal Eastman, also helped out a lot,
and they also helped get the Nineteenth Amendment pass, which
gave women the right to vote UH in nineteen twenty
and they got together and said, UM, you know, I
think the next step, obviously should be just to go
(05:56):
ahead and put this in the constitution, that women have
equal rights like men in all facets of life. It's
worth pointing out here, UM that Um paul was a
Quaker and a leader of the National Women's Party for
like fifty years or something. Uh. And the reason I
mentioned she was a Quaker because she actually named the
(06:16):
amendment the Lucretia Mott Amendment, after another Quaker woman from
the nineteenth century who was also a suffragists as well
as an abolitionist. Yeah, if you peel back, you know,
the layer of early twentieth century or nineteenth century progressive
there's a about a percent chance they were a Quaker.
All sorts of good stuff during It's pretty interesting. Yeah,
(06:37):
it really is. We should do one on the Quakers
for sure. Yeah. I have a friend who's a Quaker,
and uh, she talks about Quaker meetings and Quaker weddings
and stuff, and it all just seems so chill and peaceful.
It's very appealing, right, Um. But so Lucretia Mott apparently
was among what's considered the the beginning of the first
(06:58):
wave of feminism. Where was you know, Um, not only
do women need the right to vote? And this is
like the eighteen thirties, eighteen forties, I think, because when
she was really beginning to be active, Um, not only
should women have the right to vote, but um, these
people were also very frequently also abolitionists. Right, So when
UM Congress started passing laws that protected the rights, that
(07:22):
enshrined the rights of African Americans into the Constitution, into
the law of the land, saying you cannot discriminate against
people who based on their because their African Americans are
based on their race. UM, women said, well, hey, just
add sex in there, add sex, like, let's let's put
(07:43):
that into the fourteenth Amendment. And UM, that didn't make it.
It didn't make it into any of the amendments. And
that was a I don't think it caused a rift
or anything like that, but I think it was extremely
disappointing to the suffragists who had also worked for abolition
as well, that the two things couldn't go hand in hand. So, UM,
African Americans started to gain civil rights decades before women did.
(08:07):
Women gained the right to vote, UM, and women just
kind of had to carry on. The suffragist movement continued
on even after the abolitionist movement was successful. Yeah, and
then nineteen three Alice Paul said, well, here's what we'll do,
will reward this amendment that we've written. So it sounds
more constitutional, I guess, And so it sounds a little
(08:30):
more like the fourteenth Amendment, and the new version basically
said equal rights. I'm sorry, equality of rights under the
law shall not be denied or a bridge by the
United States or by any state on account of sex.
And you know, once again, this was proposed and um,
you know for about thirty years in most sessions I
(08:51):
think every session of Congress, every single one, and didn't
get a lot of support. Um. And you know, it's
not to say that all men in politics were against it,
but it certainly was not their legislative priority, clearly. And
if you have a run from n to nineteen seventy
with only ten women serving in the Senate, never more
(09:12):
than two at a time, then the writings on the
wall that the e r A is is not just
it's just not going to be a top priority. I know.
But that's sad writing, you know what I mean, Like
the fact that there weren't women, uh in Congress. It
certainly doesn't let men off the hook like they can't
do they can't pass this, can't possibly take up legislation
that guarantees the equal rights to women because we're moon
(09:33):
you know, like that's that's very bothersome. But there's something
else in there, chuck. So from nineteen twenty three when
Alice Paul first introduced that, all the way through to
nine seventy, it was taken up in every session of
Congress and it failed. And one of the things that
(09:53):
stuck out to me was that there was a guy
who um oversaw the House I think the House Judiciary Committee, um,
and he was a Democrat from New York and he
put the kai bosh on it. Emmanuel Seller. Yeah, so
he put the kai bosh on. He would not let
it get to a vote. And I was like, why
this guy was a Democrat in New York, what was
(10:14):
his problem? And it turns out that the opposition to
the e r A, which is now very clearly amongst
like it's liberals are for it, Progressives are for it,
Conservatives are typically against it. Um. It used to be
flip flopped where the liberals, especially New Deal liberals like
Eleanor Roosevelt, were against the Equal Rights Amendment and conservatives
(10:37):
like Eisenhower conservatives were typically in favor of it. In
that bizarre yeah it is. I mean Roosevelt, she had
her reasons. She wasn't just like, oh, I don't think
women should have rights. I think she said, you know,
she thought it would undermine workplace protections. Um. She was
a part of Kennedy's commission. She chaired the commission, the
(10:59):
President's Commission on the Status of Women, which I think
the result was released posthuous posthumously that said it wasn't
the ra A wasn't necessary, and she she kind of
came around a little bit. She never gave a full
throated endorsement, but she kind of stopped talking out against it.
I think at a certain point she used to debate
Alice Paul like publicly. They would, you know, have back
(11:20):
and forth debates over you know, whether the e r
A was needed and how helpful it was going to be. So,
I mean, you don't like I I know that um
Eleanor Roosevelt is frequently criticized as not uh out right
feminist enough in a lot of ways, but she also
clearly seems to have been a feminist in her own
way for sure. Yeah, and we should point out to that.
(11:43):
Emmanuel Seller in ninety two, in a very big upset,
lost uh to a woman, an attorney named Elizabeth Holtzman,
largely due to his opposition to the era A. So yeah. Okay.
So so finally, by the early seventies, you're getting more
and more women who are starting to show up in
in Congress, um, like Bella as Bug and Shirley Chisholm,
(12:06):
and they basically said, like, this is our priority. We're
going to get this. This equal Rights Amendment finally passed
through Congress. And I don't know if it just happened
to be like an era of kind of bipartisan sentiment
um or what the deal was, but everybody finally came
together and that thing got passed. Like if a piece
(12:28):
of legislation has ever gotten passed, it was this one
in a bipartisan manner. Yeah. And you know what, Uh,
we'll get to how that passed. But a really big
reason is because it started becoming a big deal in
the media with this second wave, like you mentioned of
the women's lib movement, and in no small part by
a woman named Betty for Dan who wrote a book
(12:50):
called The Feminine Mystique that in nine sold a million copies.
And it's if she probably gets a at least a
short following her own she was really interesting. Um. The
reason she wrote this book is because she did a
survey for a college reunion for her former classmates, learned
(13:11):
that many of her former female classmates were not super
happy about being homemakers and not being able to work,
and center down a research rabbit hole on This kind
of became her passion project because she wanted to write
a magazine article, like a really in depth win. No
one wanted it, so she ended up publishing it as
a book called The Feminine Mystique, which kind of rocked
(13:32):
the world of America in the early early to mid sixties. Yeah,
because like in this book, she's basically saying, like this
whole this whole thing, we're all we're all going along
with this idea that the most the highest ideal a
woman can aspire to is to be the best wife
and mother she possibly can be, and that that's her identity.
It is as someone's wife, as someone's mother, that she
(13:54):
doesn't have her own identity that's independent of all of that.
That is a crushing a way to live for a
lot of women, not all women, as we'll see, but
a lot of women. And she spoke up for a
lot of them. Um, And I believe that this was
kind of it was already kind of out there in
pieces like people were talking about this, but Betty fre
(14:15):
Dan like put it all together and put it on
the map and got everyone talking. From what I've ever seen,
like almost single handedly started the second wave of feminism. Yeah,
and she put a pin in this little mini series.
She was played by Tracy Ullman UH in a mini
series last year called Mrs America that we're going to
get to a little more in depth than a second Yeah. So, um,
(14:37):
Betty fre Dan publishes the feminine mystique, like you said,
just totally rocked everybody's world for for better or worse
depending on your ideas about what the feminine mystique was about.
And saying, um, but yeah, like you're saying, like that
really laid the groundwork to this bipartisan um passing in
Congress of UH Equal Rights Amendment in nineteen seventy two,
(15:02):
I believe, right, Yeah, so it passes in a big way.
I think you said ninety three p Ninety three point
four in the House, ninety one point three in the Senate,
but which I can't wrap my head around that. How
did one third of a senator is that that senator
cross section of New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Michigan. Uh, here's
(15:23):
the deal, though. If you want something and shrined in
the constitution, that's a big deal in this country. They
don't do it willy nilly, nor should they um. But
you need not only like once it passes that it's
not automatic, then the state legislatures have to ratify it
by a two thirds margin, which means at least thirty
eight states have to ratify it. Um. And the e
(15:47):
r A had a stipulation that said, if that isn't
done in seven years, then you gotta go back to
the drawing board. And that was that was not in
the actual e r A. That was not in the
constitutional amendment. That was past and that's going to become
very important later. But it was in the legislation where
that e r A the amendment was sent to the
(16:08):
states for ratification, it said do this in seven years. Right, Okay,
that's that's just like that little slight distinction makes a
big difference down the road. Oh yeah, I mean the
r people pushing for the e r A certainly would
not have wanted an expiration date. No, And there's as
far as I could tell that they haven't ever attached
an expiration date to an amendment to be ratified before
(16:30):
it was just and it was also an arbitrary period
of time too, So just just chew on that, put
put that wadded up piece of gum in the back
of your cheek and save it for later. I wonder
in the debate if they were like, well, I mean,
how many years? Seven seven sounds good? Pour the Scotch. Uh.
(16:53):
So within one year, um, thirty of the thirty eight
states needed ratified it, which was super fast, and everyone
was like, you know, proponents like this is great, man,
it looks like this thing is gonna sail right into
the constitution. Uh. And then a woman popped up named
Phillis schlafe Lee and we're gonna take a break here
(17:14):
and we'll talk about Phillis right after this. And I guess,
(17:42):
depending on where your views are, Chuck, we should have
introduced Phillis chef Lee with the the Darth Vader theme
song when she made first makes her appear, Dune Dune, Dune, Dune.
It's exactly right. Did you watch any of these interviews
and debates, Yes, dude, you could. It's really interesting. If
(18:04):
you have your wits about you, you could despise everything
that ever came out of Philish Lafeley's mouth. It's very
very easy to do. Um. She equates gay people, which
I guess in the fashion of the time she calls homosexuals.
She calls them perverts. Says that they should not have
any rights afforded to married men and women. They shouldn't
(18:25):
be able to adopt children. She says, really despicable. I
didn't hear that one. She says a lot of very
despicable stuff. Um, and her whole viewpoint is despicable to
a lot of people. But there are very few people
walking around out there who have the poise and self
(18:47):
possession to go into the lions den and speak for
whatever she was convinced of was right. Um, that's you.
She has to be credited to at least that degree.
No matter what you think about her mind, she was
she had a lot of poise, I guess you could say.
And it's really kind of something to watch because I
(19:08):
saw this one. Did you see the the Good Morning
American debate from nine seventy between her and for Dan Yeah? Man,
And it's like it's really clear what a skilled debater
she was and how rattled she could get somebody. Yeah. Uh,
I mean she clearly. I felt bad for for Dan.
She was doing a good job, but she was she
was getting piste off and you could tell that she
(19:30):
just liked to get under people's skin while she just
remained perfectly, you know, erect in her seat with perfect posture.
And uh, that Mrs. America series, which it was on
our list and I'm gonna bump it back up to
next in line now to watch. But she was played,
um really really well judging from just the the accent
and the mannerisms by Cate Blanchett. It can do no wrong. Yeah,
(19:53):
I want to see that series too, um, but yes,
she so. If you see those two debating, it's like
a st in contrast, where Philis chaff Lee she Laughlely
is um basically sitting there at tea time at the
country club before the polo match. And Betty fre Dan,
if you put like a beret in sunglasses on a
French cigarette in her mouth, she's like sitting at the
(20:16):
beating at cafe, like listening to a poetry jam or
something like this. Just these two totally contrasting personalities. Be
A Cheffly debated her under the table, and it's not
like Betty fre Dan was was an intellectual slouch by
any measure. But it's just Philish Laughly could rattle anybody. Anybody,
she could rattle Santa Claus. I'm just gonna say it. Yeah,
(20:39):
I mean, she kind of made herself out to be
just this homemaker. Um. She would enter when she introduced
herself at engagement, she would thank her husband for letting
her come there. But when you kind of peek behind
the curtain, she had a master's in political science, she
had a law degree. She ran for Congress when she
was twenty seven years old and lost. And she was um,
(21:02):
sort of pre nineteen eighties, a big part in at
the very least, I don't even think they called it
the Christian Right at the time, that kind of organizing
what would later become the Christian Right movement. Yeah, you
can make a really good case that Philish laughy um
laid the groundwork for the current Republican Party in every
way from from Reagan onward to today. Um and and yeah,
(21:26):
she basically said like, I'm just a housewife from St. Louis,
proud housewife, wife and mother of six from St. Louis.
Um And in a lot of ways she was like
she made reference to law school during her debate to
Betty for Dan and she sounded like she was in
law school then, so it seems like she was just
(21:49):
a woman who said, I don't agree with this, and
I'm going to put a stop to it, and stood
in front of this unstoppable title wave and stopped it.
She stopped it. She stopped the E r A from
being ratified by the states right at the eleventh and
a half hour before it was ever passed and ratified
(22:13):
by the thirty eight states. You said they got thirty
states in the first year. By seven they were up
the thirty five states. They just needed three more, three
more states, and the whole thing was going to become
the law of the Lane. And Philish Slafely got in
the way of that almost single handedly at first. Yeah,
and you know she launched her her group was called
(22:33):
stop e r A, which you know, we obsess about acronyms.
It's sort of annoying when the first letter of an
acronym is the actual acronym. But stop ere A stood first,
stop taking our privileges. And her argument, you know, she
was like, and she used this to her advantage in
those debates, like see how angry these feminists are She's
(22:54):
she kind of coin that term. I think about the
angry women's Live movement. These angry feminists, they us want
they wanted to throw down everything that makes us a
female and everything that makes us women, and they want
to just set fire to it. And before you know what,
women are going to be able to be drafted in
the armed forces. Never happened. Uh, you know, they're they're
(23:15):
not going to be separate bathrooms or locker rooms anymore
from this point on. Not true. That started to happen
more in recent years, wrapped up same sex marriage. I
mean we'll we'll get to that. How she kind of
co opted gay rights and um, reproductive rights into all
this just to sort of coalesce that movement. Uh, and said,
(23:36):
you know, women are going to lose their right to
alimony and child support. Never happened. And just the life
as we know it, in the family as we know it.
And this is something fifty years on. All this stuff
is still so relevant, like the dissolution of what you know,
people think was the perfect family in nineteen fifty basically yeah,
because I mean so she was a troll, like a
(23:57):
a proto troll. But like the kind. You didn't do
it online, you did it in person. But her her
points were coherent and understandable to people who agreed with her,
and they were that like, yeah, like the man's role
is to provide for and take care of the woman,
and the woman provides like the domestic labor, and that's
just the division of labor between the sexes. And if
(24:20):
if we have the c r A, that's going to
go away, and then there's going to be all this
other horrible stuff of that's going to break down the
fabric of society and do we really want that? And
so by by taking the argument away from the idea
of whether women have a fundamental human right to equal
(24:41):
protection under the law as men, which is who disagrees
with that? Nobody disagrees with that, uh, and mixing it
up with all these other what ifs and potential social
outcomes and the ruin of the family, gay men teaching
your children at school, Um, that is what can alidated
people into a movement behind fellish laughly. And it was
(25:04):
it was really underhanded, but it worked really really well
and it still works today. Like she came up with
that from what I can tell. Yeah, in seventy three,
when Roevie Wade passed, she was again savvy enough to say, well,
here's something else I can I can seize on, and
I can wrap this up like there's a there's a whole.
(25:25):
There's a really large block of voters who are conservative
Christians who you know, we've never really intermingled politics like
that before. And so let's wrap this up in pro choice.
Let's wrap it up with gay rights, big culture war
issues of the time to kind of rally and like
I said, coalescence group together in order to defeat the
(25:46):
Equal Rights Amendment. And like you said it, you know
it worked in a big, big way. And uh, I
can't wait to watch that TV show. I can't either,
And I don't want to suck all the oxygen away
from Betty for Dan and the other feminists. But um,
I was saying that Phillish Laughley was a troll, a
proto troll. And if you read some of the stuff
(26:06):
that she said in public, sometimes she sounds like a
spokesperson for the Taliban. Like she said things like, um
that that sexual harassment on the job was not a
problem for virtuous women, like you know exactly, um or,
and that the Adam bomb was a marvelous gift that
was given to our country by a wise God. Just
(26:27):
things that would drive any any liberal or progressive, especially
a feminist, up the wall. And in fact, Betty for
Dan in this very famous debate from three years before
that Good Morning America appearance that you and I saw um,
she said, uh, you're you're, you're like you should be
burned at the stake for for betraying your your gender,
(26:50):
any favors and stuff like that, because that just allowed
Laughley to say, see there exactly, that's exactly right. But
she could just get under your skin like that. So
fast forward many many years too kind of now almost Uh.
In seventeen, after about forty years of not much movement, UH,
(27:11):
Nevada became the first New state to ratify the e
r A, thanks in no small part to State Senator
Pat Spearman, and she said, this bill is about a
quality period umen. Just a few years ago Illinois UM
came aboard as well. And now it's back up to
thirty seven. Did we mention that five of the states
(27:32):
d ratified or rescinded their ratification. I don't think we did.
We did not, and I think that's an important point here. Yeah, Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho, Kentucky,
and South Dakota be very part of your legislatures. After
nineteen seventy seven, they um de ratified or de certified,
not de certified. They rescinded it. They did. They said,
(27:53):
this is based on there's actually precedence for that. Ohio
and New Jersey both rescinded their support for the Fourteenth
Amendment once their legislatures changed control to um white supremacists.
Basically in the nineteenth century, they said, we take back
our our vote for the fourteenth Amendment. It also said
a president though that Congress ignored that and still counted
(28:15):
Ohio and New Jersey as having ratified the Fourteenth Amendment
because they did officially, right, So it goes back up
to thirty five. Then, uh, Illinois made at thirty seven
in January of last year. It's crazy that it took
this long. Virginia finally became the thirty eight state, and
so proponents of the e r A said, all right,
(28:36):
we got there, that's the thirty eight um. This thing
should have never had an expiration date to begin with.
That's dumb. Whoever said seven years? And then Porto Scotch. Uh,
they should be burned at the stake. And um, they said,
let's just get this thing done. And they said, you
know what, back in seventy seven amendment was passed but
(28:59):
not ratified it until two hundred years later, two hundred
and two years, so like there's precedent there, and that
was about prohibiting the law raising or lowering taxes for
congressional salaries from taking effect until their next term, like big,
big stuff. Not knocking it. It's it's important, I guess.
But they said, you know that was done, so this
(29:19):
thing shouldn't have had an expiration date to begin with.
Opponents say, well, no, there was an expiration date, so
we have to honor it. And uh, that's you know,
that's the deal. Sorry. And there was even a three
year extension that brought it up too, and by the
time that extension was running out and it did not
look like anything was going to move or happen. There
(29:41):
no more states were going to move to ratify it.
Even the National Organization for Women and other feminist groups
basically through in the talent said it's done. We the
e r A lost this time. It's not gone forever,
but this amazing immense again tidal weight, this with just
the momentum of a freight train running through the country
(30:05):
is now dead just a few years after, which is
just nuts that that happened. It's just crazy. But that's
that's the fact that now thirty eight states have officially
voted in favor of ratifying. It set off a flurry
of lawsuits here in the United States, and when Virginia
became the last one in and basically everybody in anyone
(30:27):
suing the National Archives and Records Administration UM to either
certify and put it into the National Archives or the
National Record that UM that this is now a part
of the Constitution, or to not do that. And it's
totally up in the air of what that's going to be.
But apparently, UM, a lot of people, not everyone, because
(30:49):
there's plenty of people are like, it's official. Now take
all the b s away, and this is an official
law of the land. UM. There are plenty of people
who are proponents of the Equal Rights Amendment who say
we need to start over again. And one of those people,
UM was Ruth Bader Ginsburg who said it needs to
be voted on again. We need to pick up again.
Basically from square one. Yeah, and I think and we'll
(31:11):
talk about all this stuff. But I think there have
been so many laws enacted since then that do protect
so many of these rights. I think people like RBG
were like, you know what, let's start over, let's rewrite
it for the modern times, UM, making sure everything is
in there that we still need and yeah, and and
revote on it. And you know, I think that's reasonable,
(31:33):
So do that. So let's let's take a break, UM,
and then we'll talk come back and talk about those
questions like do we need the R and what would
happen if we did pass the R? How about that
sounds good? Alright, Chuck. So you made mention of like
(32:10):
a lot of laws that have been created since the
since UM the e R A was UM passed I
guess by Congress, uh, and even before then that protect
women as a as a form of what's called the
protective class in the United States. They're protective classes that
include UM races, religions, UM, sex, UH, the sexual orientation UH,
(32:36):
and gender identity. Is becoming a protected class. And if
you're a member of a protected class, it means that
if there's a law that excludes you from something, whether
intentionally or not, that law is considered discriminatory and you
can file a lawsuit against it, and then the courts
have to apply different um tests to it to see
just how discriminatory it is or if it's discriminatory at all,
(32:58):
and whether or not it should be struck down or
overruled um. And the reason that sex is a protected
class even without the Equal Rights Amendment is thanks very
much largely to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was an absolute
legal pioneer in figuring out how to get women the
(33:19):
protections under the law um that they were looking for
with the equal Equal Rights Amendment without the Equal Rights
Amendment being part of the constitution. Yeah, I mean, I
think people that say that we don't need the e
r A. And it's a very fine line between saying
I'm against the r A and saying I don't think
we need the e r A. It's it all falls
(33:41):
under the same banner ultimately. But people that say we
don't need the r A, say, you know, we got
the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four, and race, color, religion, sex,
or national origin. You can't hire and fire peer higher
and fire people based on that. That applies to pay
and benefits to there's also the Equal Pay Act of
(34:02):
nineteen sixty three that say there should be equal pay
for equal work. That's didn't you know, in practice hasn't
worked out that way because there's still a wage gap.
We did a good episode on that. Yeah, that was
a good one. Violence Against Women Act of nineteen UH
saying here Federal resources for Domestic and Sexual violence. Um,
(34:23):
and you like prevention and prosecution of that counseling and UH,
this one however, and you know, put a pin in
this one, because this is one that is used also
for people that say we do need the A R
A because that one expired and is still hung up
and has not gotten congressional reauthorization since twenty nineteen because
(34:44):
of politics. The Violence Against Women Act. Yeah, and then
Title nine is the last one in nineteen seventy two. Uh.
Title nine is the one you hear about mostly in
college athletics that says, I mean, it says a lot
of things, but in terms of college athletics, that had
the biggest impact, saying you gotta have the same amount
of women's sports as men's sports. Uh, in the same
(35:04):
like accommodations and UH, scholarships and all that stuff. And
then so like, we don't need the e r A
because we have all these things. So yeah, so you
have law, and then you also have case law too.
That UM basically hinges on the fourteenth Amendment, which says
that a citizen of the United States can't be discriminated
(35:25):
against or or is do equal protection under the law
UM by the States and by the US. And that
was written in the in in um past, in the
Fourteenth Amendment in the wake of slavery. It was meant
to UM basically make free recently freed African Americans full
citizens in the United States. But it doesn't specify on
(35:48):
the basis of race or on the basis of religion.
It just says, if you're a U. S citizen, you
get equal protection under the law. And so Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
one of the reasons she's such a legal pioneer here
in this respect is because she's the one who figured
out how to argue that the Fourteenth Amendment applies to
sex as well. And the whole thing about legal stuff
(36:09):
and this is all new to me. But but it's
really kind of interesting is that depending on how enshrined
classes a protected group is in law. Um, the more
protected it is, the stricter the scrutiny that judges are
going to apply to determining whether a law is discriminatory
(36:29):
or not. And the most the most scrutiny you can
apply to something, it's called strict scrutiny, and that's typically
reserved for things that are protected by the Constitution. And
that means that if you have a law that even
remotely steps on the rights of one of those protected classes,
it's probably an illegal, discriminatory law. Yeah, how does that
work with how does that work in practice? Does that
(36:53):
mean they just spend more time or like what what
does that even mean? So? I think what it means
is that you if you pass a law, and let's
say that I pass a law and it accidentally discriminates
against your ability to get your hands on oatmeal. I
can get all the oatmeal I want, but you can't.
Let's say, in the Constitution, Chuck is specifically protected under
(37:16):
the law. That means that this law that prevents you
from getting oatmeal, that's a discriminatory law. And so it's
going to be really easy for you to bring a
lawsuit and for a judge to say, like there's even
a little bit of discrimination here. This law is illegal
because it's discriminated against Chuck and he's it says in
the Constitution you can't discriminate against Chuck. It just means
(37:38):
that that the standards for that law um to stand. Uh,
like everyone else on the planet basically has to benefit
from you not getting oatmeal for some reason, and that
that that's just not how laws work. So it would
be really easy for you to to bring a lawsuit
and get that law overturned because it discriminates it because
(38:00):
you're a protected class. Now, if it's just like everybody
likes Chuck, but it doesn't say in the Constitution that
you can't be discriminated against, they're going to use a
slightly less strict test to determine whether the thing is
is a discriminatory law or not. And so maybe yeah,
it generally um promotes oatmeal use among other people, among
(38:21):
all people, but there's some other people who don't get
it too. That doesn't really matter because you know, it's
not enshrined to the Constitution. So it's almost like degrees
and once you're in the Constitution as you as a
protected class, like it is really difficult to discriminate against you.
And that's one reason why people say, no, we need this,
we need this in the constitution because women, uh and
(38:43):
sex and gender even should be a protected class. You
should not be able to discriminate against somebody based on that. Yeah,
I mean that's the main um. That is the main
argument for proponents of the r A is saying, no,
let's make this of the real deal. Um there. You know,
cases can be overturned, laws can be reversed, Executive actions
(39:04):
can have devastating impacts, um. And and only being enshrined
in the Constitution will make this like like you said,
just so locked down and protected that people can't mess
with it anymore. I think we've seen in recent years
that you know, precedent can be argued and laws can
(39:24):
be overturned, and it's like, sure, we have all these
laws that passed since the r A first came uh
was ratified you know, in the nineteen seventies. But it
doesn't take much, you know, especially when you look at
a very imbalanced Supreme Court when Pete for people to
kind of worry that these these things can be taken away. Yeah.
(39:47):
And I mean, like there was a famous quote from
antonin Scalia when he was alive and Ajustice on the
Supreme Court basically saying like, no, the Constitution most decidedly
does not protect against discrimination on the basis of sex.
And you know, when when you hear Supreme Court justice
saying that, it's like, well, you know, how many cases
is it gonna take before he rules like, no, you
(40:08):
can totally discriminate against somebody on the basis of sex
if it's in the constitution. It doesn't matter what Anton
and its school or any other justice thinks. It's in
the constitution, So that that level of protection, like you
were saying, would be, it's just a totally different level
of protection than you know, customarily we we don't discriminate.
It's no, you can't discriminate. That's the difference between those
(40:29):
two things. Yeah, and not just reversing laws, but passing
new laws that maybe violate violate that equal treatment under
the law. Uh. And you know some other things that
that that constitutionally um could come into play if if
it were to go through is something like the Pink
tax I. Don't think we've ever done a show on
(40:50):
the Pink tax I. Don't think so either. But this
is you know, this is the notion that like you know,
from everything that like similar products for men and women, uh,
they charge women more than they do for men for
these products. UM to stuff like you know, menstrual equality
or equity. Basically you know, tampons, uh, pads other menstruation
(41:13):
products should not be taxed anymore. They should be like
treated like any other essential item. Yeah. And then so
so there are a lot of things, a lot of
protections that it would afford. One thing that frequently is
UM cited as as UM protecting women against is like violence,
like say, domestic violence. From what I read, it probably
wouldn't UM because it protects against being discriminated against by
(41:38):
the law. It doesn't necessarily afford protection from like an
individual person or something like that, necessarily a company, although
being in trined in the constitution, you could really sue
a company's pants off for discriminating against you. UM. But
there are there are some things that would do, some
things that wouldn't do, and then there's some things up
in the air. And one of the reasons why this
is still such a cultural UM flashpoint still today in
(42:03):
is because now more than ever UM it has become
equated with taxpayer funded abortion. And the reasoning behind people
who oppose the e r A because they think it's
basically tantamount too just completely repealing any restrictions on abortion.
Abortion from that point on is only women can get abortions,
(42:25):
and so if there's a law against abortion, there's a
law that's discriminating against women. Therefore you can't have laws
regulating abortions. And so that's why, especially with the Christian right,
it's still such a flash point today, and that's why
starting from scratch again is going to be no easier
than it was back in nineteen two. Yeah, now you're
(42:48):
probably right. Uh, it's pretty frustrating though to get to
that thirty eight state threshold, and because of some dumb,
arbitrary expiration date placed on it, it's still being held
up in the year yeah, in the year one. And
then also, the United States has an obligation is like
basically the leader of the free world to join the
(43:12):
rest of the Western nations in in enshrining equal protection
and the law for bisex um. I guess the United
States is one of only twenty eight countries in the
world that doesn't guarantee gender equality, one of chuck and
a hundred percent of the countries that have written their
(43:32):
constitution since nineteen fifty have included some guarantee of gender
equality in those constitutions. So it's kind of sad that
we don't have that still to this day. Yeah, and
if you look around the country this, you know, Dave
Ruse helped us out with this article, and he points
out stuff like, you know, if you go to Nepal,
their Supreme Court struck Donalogu exempting marital rape from criminal
(43:55):
prosecution because of its e er a clause. UH. In Tanzania, UH,
the Court of Appeal struck down a law that allowed
a fifteen year old girls to be married without parental consent,
while boys only had to be at eighteen. So, you know,
when you look at countries around the world that are
are seemingly ahead of the USA and in terms of
(44:18):
equal protection, is just it's it's baffling and disappointing. Baffling,
is right. Yeah, do you got anything else? I got
nothing else. It's good stuff. I have one more thing.
If you're give me another second, you're ready. So when
I was researching this, my head was just spinning again
and again and again. Um and It reminded me of
something that I read recently, and that is as really
(44:39):
easy to get bounced around from one outrage to another,
to one thing, to care about this issue, and then
oh wait what about this issue? And I saw some
advice somewhere I don't remember where, but it was, if
you want to affect change, pick one issue and dedicate
yourself to it. And that doesn't mean that you don't
care about all the other issues that you do care about.
It's just this one issue is your specialty. You're an
(45:03):
expert in it, and you're probably going to get further
going like that. You're probably going to be able to
see more change doing that than you would just kind
of bouncing from issue to issue to issue. So I mean,
if this like really got to you and you really
want to do something about it, make the make getting
the e R A past your specialty, you know totally. Okay, Well,
(45:25):
thanks for letting me stand on the soapbox for a second.
And since I'm getting off of my soapbox and Chuck
is putting it up in the soapbox caddy that we
keep here in the studio, UM, that means it's time
for listener mail. I'm gonna call this a ninja in
the Connecticut for us. Nice? Did you read this one? No?
(45:47):
I haven't. This is kind of crazy. It's long, but
it's worth it. Hey, guys. When I was about seven,
my mom married the man I called dad, and we
promptly moved from Texas to Connecticut, where we used to
go camping a lot. On one trip or I'll out
in the woods midnight, rolls around and go to bed.
About an hour later, I heard my tent on zipping
and my dad started shaking my foot, saying, come out here,
(46:07):
there's an effing ninja. So I throw on some slippers
in my jacket, but grudgingly trudge out to see a kid,
you not a ninja sitting next to the fire pit.
I remember actually shaking my head in disbelief to reaffirm
this wasn't some very strange dream. And now when I
say there was a ninja, I mean full black garb
with a slit to see through. This dude had twin
(46:27):
swords on his back, throwing stars, tiger claws for climbing,
grapple hooks, all the tools. Apparently, my dad saw him
rolling out of a bush and I had to see
what was going on. The story behind this guy was
he was a national a National guardsman and also ran
a jew kindo and ninajut So do jo and Rhode
(46:48):
Island as his main gig. We sit for the next
couple of hours and this guy is just showing a
stuff like how fast you can climb a tree or
how to throw a star. The night progresses and he
asked if we were familiar with Bruce Lee, as an
average fan of Enter the Dragon from around eight. I
said yes, and he asked if I'd ever seen his
one inch punch. Excitedly, I said sure, I have. And
(47:09):
then his name is Brian Ninsha, he said Brian then
asked if he could demonstrate it on me, a pudgy
twelve year old. I said no, thanks, I'm good and
I explicitly did not want to fly backwards with any
force uh. And he said no, no, I'll do it
with an open palm so it doesn't hurt. I give in.
He positions me safely away from the fire pit with
(47:29):
my back facing the tent, about seven ft away from anything. Uh.
Never trust anyone by the way whose instruction is okay,
Now just stand there while I hit you. Uh. He
inhales deeply does the flath hand against my stern um,
just like can kill Bill. Then in an instant, I
saw his muscles tense up as he audibly exhaled sharply
and hit my chest open handed. I go airborne and
(47:52):
hit my tailbone next on a tent steak seven ft
behind me, and can't really walk without crutches for a
couple of weeks. Kids at school never believe me when
prodding about why I was on crutches, because who would
believe a kid that says I had to run in
with a ninja in the middle of the woods. Uh.
That is from Drew Carroll and shaying Cheyenne Wyoming, Shyenne, Wyoming.
(48:19):
That is a great, great story. That was a magnificent
listener mail. I mean, hats off for that one. Thank you.
And if you're Brian and you're out there, I want
to hear what happened to you. Yeah, Uh, he's probably
He's like, I've been doing a ten year bid for
beating a kid up in the woods, but the kids
said I could hit him. Oh boy. Well, if you
(48:40):
want to get in touch with this like Drew and
try to top Drew zie a listener mail. Drew, by
the way, is the current listener male Champion. UM, we
want to see if you can do it. You can
send us an email, wrap it up spanking on the bottom,
and send it off to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio
dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
(49:01):
I heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. H
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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