In the end, anti-black, anti-female, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing: anti-humanism,” said Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress in 1963, serving New York’s 12th Congressional district. Achieving this milestone took 42 years from when women first won the right to vote in 1920, and yet was still three years prior to the passage of Voting Rights Act, which finally prohibited state and local governments from implementing racist election laws barring black and brown women from the franchise around the country. Today, in the year 2020, we should indeed celebrate the progress the country has made over the past 100 years. However, in this “Year of the Woman,” movements like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter are but two clear indicators there is so much more work to be done.
We probably would prefer to believe that there could not possibly be a connection between the issues our foremothers faced 100 years ago and those faced now. Ignoring this uncomfortable truth, however, further entrenches systemic barriers to equal access and treatment under the law in America. Inequities still pervade our society and are causing it to crack at the seams.
Suffragist and head of the National Women’s Party, Alice Paul, recognized early on that while women had succeeded in equal access to the vote, under the law they were not explicitly guaranteed any other equal rights. In 1923, this realization inspired Paul to pursue the addition of an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the Constitution. The amendment as it reads today states, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” Such an amendment in a country which proclaims to be a bastion of “freedom, liberty, and justice for all” should be an easy lift. Nevertheless, 97 years later the battle for equal rights goes on.
In 1972, the ERA finally made its way through Congress. Paul, however, who was 87 that year would not live to see the amendment fully ratified by the states. Indeed, it was not until this year that Virginia became the 38th state to ratify. Don’t pop the centennial champagne yet, though. This is not the final hurdle champions of the ERA must overcome. When the amendment passed Congress, it passed on the condition that the amendment must be ratified within seven years, or the process must start again—from scratch. While activists in the women’s liberation movement in the 1970s were able to obtain a three-year extension to this deadline, it appears nearly five decades were needed before 76 percent of these United States were ready to grant equal protections of the law regardless of sex. Meaning there are still 12 states who have refused to authorize such protections: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah.
Today, with 38 states secured but the expiration date of equality long passed, the ball is back in Congress’ court. On February 13, 2020, the U.S. House of Representatives passed House Joint Resolution 79 calling for the removal of the ERA deadline. The resolution is now with the Senate waiting to be called for a vote in the Judiciary committee. A companion resolution introduced to the Senate by Maryland’s own Senator, Ben Cardin, has been stagnating in that same committee since January 25, 2019. So, the march to women’s equality goes on, with advocates once again imploring Congress to declare all genders are equal in the eyes of the law.
While we take cheer this year in the great though uneven strides that women have made since the 19th amendment was ratified, we are faced with the urgent need to remedy another shortcoming of our country’s slog toward equal rights. It is a lesser known fact that the 19th did not actually lead to universal suffrage for all women. Despite the pivotal role Black suffragists played in the movement, racism within the country, and yes, also the movement, guaranteed the right to vote would be accessible primarily to educated white women only. State laws of the time continued to stifle the voices of black and brown people in America on election day until the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act prohibited discriminatory practices.
Access to the franchise is widely believed to have been afforded by the 15th amendment in 1870 which states, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” However, throughout the country, subversive laws and policies were enacted which deliberately targeted Black Americans and suppressed their votes. Jim Crow laws prohibited access, poll taxes were employed to exploit the lack of resources of the formerly enslaved, and literacy tests were required, often demanding information most white Americans would not likely have been able to produce. Just as often, Black citizens who attempted to lawfully cast their ballots were met with threats and violence.
Maryland’s Congressional Districts have been in place since 2013. Maryland is generally considered to be one of the most gerrymandered states in the country.
Today, assumptions that our society has now advanced beyond racism have started the nation on a backward slide. In 2013, the Supreme Court rolled back a critical section of the Voting Rights Act, which had been successfully deterring racist election practices for decades. In the case of Shelby v. Holder, the Court decided that the protections within the VRA, which required state and local governments to obtain preclearance before implementing certain voting laws or practices and the formula which helped to determine which areas would be subject to such preclearance based on their voter discrimination history, were no longer necessary. The Chief Justice stated in the Court’s opinion,
Coverage today is based on decades-old data and eradicated practices. The formula captures States by reference to literacy tests and low voter registration and turnout in the 1960s and early 1970s. But such tests have been banned nationwide for over 40 years. And voter registration and turnout numbers in the covered States have risen dramatically in the years since. Racial disparity in those numbers was compelling evidence justifying the preclearance remedy and the coverage formula. There is no longer such a disparity.
“The First Vote” shows first vote cast by ex-slaves in Reconstruction in US, 1867.
Over the past seven years the country has witnessed a startling increase in policies which suppress votes in predominantly black and brown communities. Polling places have been closed or moved, limiting access during early voting and on Election Day; restrictive voter identification laws implemented; and limitations to rules around who can provide assistance to voters at the polls have been put in place. These measures more often adversely affect non-white people, those with lower incomes, the elderly, and those who are living with disabilities—voices that are usually not otherwise represented in rooms where policies are made throughout our local, state, or federal governments.
Gerrymandering is yet another instrument in the voter suppression toolkit commonly utilized to diminish the impact of votes in communities of color. Malicious map drawers have used this tactic for decades to “pack” non-white voters into a minimum number of districts to mitigate their influence on elections. At other times they see fit to “crack” these communities, dispersing votes across many districts guaranteeing they will have little to no effect on the outcome. Rigging voting districts to achieve a preferred political outcome is almost as old as our country, but the advent of advanced mapping technology and data analytics has enabled self-interested political players to fine tune this tactic beyond the imagination of our forefathers.
Original cartoon of “The Gerry-Mander” is the political cartoon that led to the coining of the term “Gerrymander.” The district depicted in the cartoon was created by the Massachusetts legislature to favor the incumbent Democratic-Republican party candidates of Governor Elbridge Gerry over the Federalists in 1812.
When drawing election districts, it is a federal mandate that the protections against racial discrimination contained in the Voting Rights Act are adhered to. However, as recently as 2019, the court in neighboring Virginia had to strike down state legislative maps as illegal racial gerrymanders. So, while the VRA still provides the guidance and protections necessary to strike down gerrymanders that are racially motivated, challenges to illegally drawn electoral districts often take years to resolve. Meanwhile, election cycles pass under those maps, and policies are made with a portion of the electorate unfairly represented. Furthermore, advocates are increasingly concerned that if the Shelby decision is any indication of the opinion of the Court on the VRA’s overall value in society, we could see this monumental piece of civil rights legislation completely rolled back one day. Until then, politicians truly intent on producing racist maps are sometimes able to subvert the law and hide their gerrymanders within partisan intent. Distorting election districts based on partisan interests has not yet been deemed legally unjust in many states, including Maryland.
Each of these barriers to equal representation and protection of the law perpetuate great societal divides and lack of diverse leadership and policies in our country. According to the Center of American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, while women make up nearly 51 percent of the population in 2020, they hold just under 24 percent of the seats in Congress and only 29 percent of state legislative seats nationwide. Of those sparce delegations, women of color occupy 37 percent of the women-held seats in Congress and just 25 percent of the country’s legislative seats. The percentage of seats held by women in Maryland’s General Assembly is slightly higher than the national average at nearly 40 percent, with 37 percent of those owned by women of color. Meanwhile, none of Maryland’s 10 Congressional seats are held by women.
Though women have not yet achieved parity in elective office, women continue to turn out to the polls at higher rates than men. The data seems to indicate that women know and appreciate the strength of their vote, and they are determined to use it. This has been especially true among Black women in recent years. As their energy and determination to harness the power of their vote increases, so do their numbers. The population of Black voting age women increased 31 percent as a voting block between 2000 and 2017. Black women are channeling this collective power not only by showing up at the polls, but organizing and empowering others to do the same through truly inspiring leadership.
One might ask, however, “If women are such a large portion of the active electorate, why do they suffer from underrepresentation in government?” There are a few reasons, and they all point back to inequal access. Among them are financial access. According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, the average winner of a Congressional seat in 2018 spent $2,056,494 in the House and $15,753,167 in the Senate. Given the disadvantage women are faced with in terms of job opportunities, personal income, and wealth, the financial burden of running for office is an incredible obstacle to overcome.
Propaganda posters urging citizens to register to vote and vote, circa 1951. From the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
Additionally, the visible lack of women in leadership affects the perceptions of voters and potential candidates, leading to an assumption that men are better leaders. Throughout history, however, there have been distinct groundswell moments that have resulted in more women candidates and more voters inspired to cast their ballots for them. We saw this in the 1992 “Year of the Woman” at a time when the public gained an increasing awareness of the underrepresentation of women in Congress, and again in 2018 in the wake of the #MeToo movement and other consciousness raising events between 2016 and 2018.
Women in 2018 capitalized on this moment, producing the largest class of female legislators the House of Representatives had ever seen. Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids became the first Native American women ever elected to Congress and Rashida Tlaib became the first Muslim woman elected to Congress. Maryland claimed a historic moment as well, electing its first woman and first Black Speaker of the House, Adrienne Jones. With all of this momentum building, surely women can complete the work necessary to claim true gender and racial equality as we enter this next century of women powering the vote. Women could seize their moment in history by fully restoring the Voting Rights Act and finally adding the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.
