Take my Voice to Rio+20, Sustainable and Equitable

The USA has a big problem. It refuses to add female Americans and their human rights to the US Constitution, the nation's contract with its people. If we are not in that contract,it stands to reason that we females have no guaranteed rights therein.

An Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was created in 1923 to fix that, to codify American female's equal rights with males, who are mentioned in the US Constitution, unlike females, 39 times.

Right now, there is a Republican Party legislative War on Women with 916 anti-woman, anti-family bills filed in just a three-month period! There seems to be no stopping this cruel juggernaut that says No to women's self-determination about their own bodies AND is closing down of all support services to women, their children and families! Does the world know?

Americans have worked hard and lobbied for passage into the Constitution of the Equal Rights Amendment for more than 160 years. ERA barely missed passing by just three of the United States in 1982. We of National Equal Rights Amendment Alliance have struggled endlessly, long hours, for twelve years to get the attention and votes of just three more states so ERA passes.

I am spearheading the ERA passage in one state and helping mentor six other states, while partnering with ERA leaders in three other states to create and get filed a brandnew ERA bill before the US Congress to speed its passage.

Elected leaders ignore us women and girls' plight, treating us as invibible, unworthy, nagging, or despicable.

I know this is not unusual around the globe, but we are talking about the sometimes revered USA, the nation once thought to set the pace for the world. But, now USA's image is defaced and smeared with corruption by corporations in collaboration with legislators and even top Administration against us females and our birthrights for gender-equal treatment.

America has sunk to new lows, but the lowest is to consign more than half its nation's population in subjugation in every sphere of society.

Can someone please help American girls and women to freedom and rights to full personhood by helping us pass the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)? It benefits males, too, just that their gender-inequalities are few and not as damaging. To learn more about gender repression in America, please go to www.2PassERA.org. That's our ERA site. And write me at SandyO@PassERA.org.

I feel desperate when I see my American sisters being treated like objects, possessions by men.
I feel shamed when I remember my father refusing to pay for my college education because I was "not a boy". Yet I had earned excellent grades in school and actually had real promise.
I feel degraded when my own senator tells me he has "to think about it" when I ask whether he believes all Americans should be treated equally.
I cry when I see my hard-earned paycheck that averages only 72% of what a male is paid for the same job.
I feel betrayed by an American schooll system that lied to me all my life with platitudes about "anyone can make good in America"!...unless you are female.

The long-proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) states simply that it is focussed on preventing sex discrimination in America:
"Equality under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."/gender

I am founder and president of America's National Equal Rights Amendment Alliance with 300 000 members, a 12 year life of endless daily speaking, writing and lobbying for American females' freedom from unequal treatment. I am 78 years old and determined that ERA passage is the Right Thing, but am increasingly repressed,insulted and ignored by those who could vote the ERA into the US Constitution. sandy oestreich, sandyo@PassERA.org www.2passERA.org PLEASE PLEASE HELP

In partnership with the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), World Pulse is collecting personal stories outlining women’s experiences and recommendations on sustainable and equitable development for presentation at the Rio +20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development.

All stories submitted on our community platform between now and June 3, 2012 will be presented at the Rio+20 Conference. Additionally, selected entries will be published in World Pulse’s digital magazine and distributed widely to international media partners.