ERA: Letter to the Editor, Asheville Citizen-Times

On Friday, May 10, the Asheville Citizen-Times published a Letter to the Editor from Robin Lively Summers, a member of Indivisible AVL’s Steering Committee. Here it is:

Honor Mothers with Legal Equality

When I was a little girl, while visiting my uncle, he, my aunt and my mom took me to an ERA rally. We made posters and chanted, people walking around with clip boards. We marched through the streets. Through the day, I began to understand what was at stake. I remember asking “Don’t women already have equal rights?”

I was told while society acknowledges women as citizens, because it is not specifically stated in our constitution, women’s rights are subject to ‘interpretation’. This made my young idealistic heart boil with injustice. My mother was a single parent. I understood how my mother was held back and dismissed in business. Recently with the #MeToo Movement, my mom and I have shared stories, but even back then I knew it was not right. Now 40 years later, we are still going to rallies, writing our MoC, singing songs. We are still fighting to ratify the ERA; my mother and I and we will persist. This Mother’s Day is a chance to share with the next generation: Women are equal.

It is time to honor mothers and make the ERA the law of the land, not something in a greeting card.

Robin M. Lively Summers, Asheville