OPINION:
Meryl Streep has finally weighed in on the Equal Rights Amendment: She’s for it, and thinks Congress should return its focus to the measure that passed in 1972.
“I am writing to ask you to stand up for equality - for your mother, your daughter, your sister, your wife or yourself - by actively supporting the Equal Rights Amendment,” Streep wrote in a letter to Congress on Tuesday.
The actress, who has 19 Academy Award nominations, thinks it’s high time for Congress to finish its work. After the constitutional amendment was passed, 35 states ratified it over the next decade — leaving it three short. As women found greater equality in the workplace, the amendment was deemed unnecessary by many and forgotten.
The amendment says simply: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” And Streep says that’s still happening (not for her, of course, but for the little people).
“A whole new generation of women and girls are talking about equality - equal pay, equal protection from sexual assault, equal rights,” Streep wrote.
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