A group of women in the area played a role in a process that will likely end in the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) being added to the U.S. Constitution.

The Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors and the Farmville Town Council recently unanimously adopted resolutions recommending Virginia ratify the ERA so it can become part of the Constitution. An area group called Women2Women helped pave the way for those adoptions.

“There’s a loose group of women that meets just to discuss pertinent issues that impact women and everyday life, and so we felt like this was one of the major things that we could do was to lead the effort to get the petition signed by citizens that would encourage the board of supervisors and town council to pass these resolutions, and we were really pleased with their response and their support,” Women2Women organizer Patsy Watson said Thursday.

During the public participation portion of the board of supervisors’ regular meeting Tuesday, Dec. 11, Watson addressed the board, giving some background on the ERA and the major national significance attached to a Virginia ratification of it.

“We have over 165 million women who live, work and contribute to American society, and their rights have never been secured in the most important of our U.S. governing documents,” she said. “So, we have a chance to be part of a history making opportunity. In 2019, the bill will go before the Virginia General Assembly, and Virginia has a chance to be the 38th state to ratify …

(That’s) 75 percent of the 50 states, and it’s what is needed to allow this to become part of our Constitution.”

She added that “the ERA amendment 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.’”

Amid her comments to the board, Watson shared some striking statistics.

“In 2015, there was a study, and 94 percent of Americans feel and support that gender equality should be in the U.S. Constitution, and over 80 percent believe that it’s already there,” she said. “It is not. In fact, I bet you’d be surprised to learn that every constitution written for (world) nations since 1950 affirms gender equality, but still 16 percent of the world’s nations do not, and the United States is one of those, along with the Sudan and Iran.”

In a Thursday interview, Watson qualified why she indicated that 80 percent of people who believe gender equality is already in the Constitution are incorrect: “I think the major point is there have been laws that have been passed basically in the last 30 to 40 years by Congress and by the state legislatures to assist women in gathering their rights in terms of equal pay and harassment in the workplace and discriminatory practices by banks and all of that. But those are laws, and basically, they can be changed according to different political climates, different leaders that are elected, and so the Equal Rights Amendment would codify it in the Constitution, and it makes it more difficult for basically companies and governments and anyone to practice discrimination.”

“There’s only one women’s right that’s codified in the Constitution, and that’s the right to vote, and that took over 100 years of activism to get that passed,” she said to the board. “And we know that rights that are affirmed in the Constitution truly define our country’s principles, those of democracy along with our country’s values.”

Women2Women has aided a larger ERA campaign effort that Watson described Thursday.

“The state effort has been going on probably for about eight months with their planning and developing a strategy, and then they pulled in local, basically, activists that have been willing to work on this,” she said. “There was even a bus tour of the state of Virginia that was held in localities, and the big ERA bus came in, it had been painted, and people got to sign the bus, and they gave out information to localities. But what they really were working on is the grassroots effort to get constituents to contact and also have the support of local elected officials to encourage your senators and your delegates to vote for this when it comes as a bill in January in the General Assembly.”

One of the local elected officials offering her support was Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors Chair Pattie Cooper-Jones.

“Pattie Cooper-Jones is who we initially talked to for the board of supervisors, and she talked with her fellow supervisors, and we talked with supervisors, and they were all on board,” Watson said. “And then Pattie also made the contact with the town …”

A recent press release from the VAratifyERA campaign highlighted polling results for the upcoming General Assembly session in 2019 that were released Dec. 5 by the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University.

“Consistent with national polling, the Equal Rights Amendment enjoyed exceptionally strong support amongst Virginians,” officials said in the release. “More Virginians (81 percent) favor Virginia’s ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment than favor a tax cut (75 percent) or the relocation of Amazon’s HQ2 (68 percent). The citizens of the commonwealth have spoken loudly in favor of constitutional gender equality.”

Watson noted that the ERA has struggled previously in the General Assembly.

“I think there’s been a lack of knowledge on the part of some of the legislators that Virginians want this, and so it’s been assigned to a committee, and then it has died for no one taking it up and carrying it forward,” she said. “So there’s a bipartisan effort with Jennifer Carroll Foy, who is the delegate out of Woodbridge, and Glen Sturtevant, who is the senator out of Chesterfield — (they) have led the effort within the General Assembly. So they are working, and they have bipartisan support. They feel like they have the votes if it’s brought to the floor, so this is an effort to make sure that it’s not stymied in a committee.”

Nevada ratified the ERA in November 2017, Watson said, and Illinois ratified it in May 2018, putting the tally of states on the brink of the two-thirds majority needed.

“So they were the 36th and the 37th, and we would be the 38th state, so it would be history making,” she said.