Politics

Women’s History Month may end today, but the opportunity still exists for women to make a significant impact on history. In these challenging times, when Washington is playing politics with women’s health and rights, women need to be engaged in the political process.

Jen Deaderick, a writer and creator of the Equal Rights Amendment Facebook page, understands this.  At the beginning of the month, she started the #UseThe19th social media campaign along with journalists Dahlia Lithwick, Lizzie Skurnick, and Rebecca Traister, to encourage women to use one of the most powerful tools we possess – the ability to vote. We recently spoke with Deaderick about #UseThe19th.

HL: Why the #UseThe19th campaign?

JD: A lot of women were struggling to come up with an action  – something they could do — to channel this frustration. The simplest thing to do isn’t to march or boycott or do any of those things, but just vote.  That’s it.  Use the hard fought right to make change.

I wanted something that would remind women to vote, and also evoke our history of activism. And I wanted it to be easy, and visual. So, that’s why it’s a hashtag.

The concept had been brewing in my mind for a little while. I had already scheduled tweets evoking the 19th amendment to go out on election from both my personal feed and my ERAnews feed.

Then I went to see Baratunde Thurston at his Cambridge book launch. He had his book’s hashtag — #HowToBeBlack — in huge letters on a screen behind him, and splashed across the black hoodie he was wearing. And that’s when the whole concept gelled for me.

But I knew I couldn’t just start using it and expect everyone to understand. So, first I enlisted Dahlia Lithwick, Lizzie Skurnick, and Rebecca Traister to help out. They were all already virtual friends of mine, and writers I adored. Plus, Rebecca had just tweeted about women needing to vote, Dahlia was writing about the ultrasound law in Virginia, and Lizzie was posting a lot about this stuff.

We plotted for a little while via Facebook, and decided on a launch date of March 1, to mark the beginning of Women’s History month. I started getting in touch with all the women’s organizations that followed my ERAnews feed, including yours, and all my female friends on my personal Twitter feed. Dahlia, Rebecca, and Lizzie reached out to their contacts, too, and we started hitting critical mass.

Then, a day or so before, the Ms. Magazine Twitter person told me about HERvotes, which was also launching March 1. Over 50 women’s groups were pulling together their resources to get out the women’s vote in November. I got in touch with some of the organizers, and they offered to mention us during their press conference. It was thrilling.

HL: How did it go?

JD: It was amazing. I had prescheduled my tweets, because I had a 9 a.m. flight to Disney World that day, oddly enough. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get them out in the scramble to get to the airport. So they went out around 7:30 a.m., and I would check in periodically as we drove down the Mass Pike, padded our way through security, and sat waiting at the gate.

At first there were dribs and drabs. Lizzie, Rebecca, and Dahlia sent out theirs, and got a good response. Blair LM Kelley, the civil rights historian and Twitter ninja, sent out some great, popular tweets. The fab Margo Howard, advice queen and smart alleck, sent off some great ones.

Then the magnificent Susan Orlean sent hers out. She has approximately eight zillion followers on Twitter. She blew the lid off the place.

Susan sent her tweet at 8:58 a.m., and was immediately followed by the HERvotes press conference at 9 a.m. Our hashtag was announced, and all of the women’s organizations started using it on their Twitter feeds. It was glorious.

Then, Lizz Winstead, who also has about eight zillion followers, sent out her own #UseThe19th tweet, and then Alice Bradley, aka finslippy, and things got crazy.

I was, by that point, on a plane bound for Detroit, where we had a layover, but I’ve heard that #UseThe19th was a trending topic for a while.

When we finally landed in Detroit, I got to check in on what what happening. It was unbelievable. Andy Borowitz! Rob Delaney! Martha Plimpton, for goodness sake! She was the #UseThe19th queen!

And so, so many other people. Friends, people we didn’t know at all, everyone in between.

Needless to say, we were thrilled, and by the time I got to Disney World, I was already in the happiest place on earth.

HL: What is important for women to know about this year’s election?

JD: I think women are already catching on to what they need to know about this year’s election. That’s why our hashtag got such a response. All this anti-contraception activity has really freaked women out. I was born in 1970, and grew up with a large degree of freedom, but my mother could tell me about her first-hand experiences with life before contraception and abortion were legal, along with what it had been like to live as a woman in the Mad Men days. Women younger had less and less touch with how things had been. The idea that women had had so little freedom and control didn’t seem quite real to them — it barely did to me — and it seemed unimaginable to most of us born after 1970 that things could actually go backwards. Now it’s becoming very real.

There have been hundreds of abortion/contraception regulations proposed and almost 100 passed in a year. Because its all happened under the radar women often missed it. But the aggregate effect is that in many states its almost impossible to terminate a pregnancy and that it gets harder each month.

Also that the Congress almost passed a bill that would allow any employer to prevent an employee from access to contraception if it violated his own religious scruples and it was defeated by a mere clutch of votes.

Part of the idea behind #UseThe19th was to let women, and men, know that they weren’t alone, that other people were worried about this stuff, too.

HL: What should women know about the ERA?

After I started the page, I began contacting some of the women who’ve continued the fight for ratification. They explained to me that the most widely held misconception about the ERA is that it is already part of the Constitution, or that equivalent equal rights are already accorded to the sexes through some other apparatus. Time and again, they would try to get an ERA bill through a local legislature, and be told that the ERA was unnecessary, that they were wasting their time.

The greatest gift to the movement was Justice Scalia’s confirmation of what we’d been saying all along: that equal rights for women are in no way guaranteed by the laws in our country, because the Constitution doesn’t back them up.

Another misconception is that those of us working for the passage of the ERA believe that it will magically bring equality to the sexes. Over on my Equal Rights Amendment page, we get the occasional commenter that feels the need to point out other countries with gender equality enshrined in their Constitutions, that don’t have actual gender equality in day to day life.

The ERA is really just a legal tool. It would give a solid basis on which to decide cases involving gender.

Although, as the mother of seven-year-old girl, I would also appreciate the symbolism of the actual inclusion of women in the document upon which our country is based.

HL: What action do you want women to take and why?

I want women to keep doing what they’re doing, and men, too: talking about this stuff, tweeting about it, posting about it on Facebook. Keep the wave going.

And there are marches they can be part of, like the nationwide marches happening on April 28 and the march in DC on Sept 16.

And vote, and get other people to vote.

But I have a feeling women will be voting in droves in November anyway.

HL: I do too.

Ladies, we are under attack. Stay informed. Stay vocal. Run for office.

Follow the discussion on Twitter: @jendeaderick @Dahlialithwick @rtraister @lizzieskurnick @Hello_Ladies #usethe19th