University of Virginia Library

Government inequality

Government, whose
employees make up 20 per cent
of the labor force, is a major
target of sex bias charges as
well. Women occupy 62 per
cent of the four lowest job
classification grades and only
2.5 per cent of the four highest
grades.

The state figures are just as
damning in Virginia. 12,983
employees earn less than $5000
a year; of these 8,055 are
women. Of 948 state
employees earning over
$20,000, only 58 are women.

The Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission
found that "such laws and
regulations do not take into
account the capacities,
preferences and abilities of
individual females and tend to
discriminate rather than
protect."

Citing such conditions, a
broad coalition of some 60
organizations ranging from the
American Bar Association to
the American Nurses
Association have joined in
support of ERA nationally.

With this kind of support,
ERA seemed assured of
passage. But equal rights
advocates had not counted on
the vocal opposition of a
housewife from Illinois.

Spearheaded by Phyllis
Schlafly, a former Republican
national committeewoman
from Alton, Illinois, the
well-funded and well-organized
STOP ERA campaign has

begun to make its influence
felt.

Mrs. Schlafly is a crusader
with a cause, dashing back and
forth across the country,
entering each state capital
where the amendment is being
considered like a whirlwind
and stuffing legislators'
mailboxes with phamplets and
newsletters against ratification.

"If there ever were an
example," she says, sounding
her clarion call, "of how a tiny
minority can cram its views
down the throat of the
majority, it is ERA. A noisy
claque of women's lib agitators
rammed ERA through
Congress, intimidating the men
into voting for it so they
wouldn't be labeled
"anti-woman."