You may have noticed that our list of MN CAFE Coalition partners includes quite a number of campaigns for Minnesota Governor.  We’re thrilled that they’re here, but we want more.

We want the support of candidates from every political party. The Green Party of Minnesota is itself a Coalition partner, but the campaigns in our Coalition are solely those of DFLers.   Equality is a non-partisan issue!   The Republican Party added support for a federal ERA to its platform in 1944, nearly thirty years before the Democrats.  Below is a 1975 photo of First Lady Betty Ford, an ardent supporter.

Equality: it makes everyone smile!

We want passage of an Equal Rights Amendment to be a campaign issue. When we ask individuals, activist organizations, unions, faith groups, and campaigns to join our coalition, we expect our partners to walk the walk AND talk the talk.  Many of our supporters brought MN CAFE resolutions to their caucuses on February 2.  Others wear our T-shirts and buttons in public, where they can answer the age-old question “but haven’t we passed the ERA already?!”  Still others are making calls to their legislators to ask that they support an ERA bill during the 2010 Minnesota Legislative session.  Now is the time to contact your top candidates to ask their position on constitutional equality–do they support an ERA?  If so, will they help us lobby the legislature to give the bill a committee hearing?  If not, WHY NOT?

Politics in Minnesota has a handy chart to the remaining candidates of all parties.  Use it and take action NOW, while these 27 folks are eager to hear from you!

No candidate, whatever their gender or party affiliation, should take equality (or the equality vote!) for granted!

Every suffragist will hope for a memorial dedicated to the memory of our brave departed leaders, to the sacrifices they made for our cause, to the scores of victories won…I venture to propose one whose benefits will bless our entire nation and bring happiness to the humblest of our citizens–the most natural, the most appropriate, and the most patriotic memorial that could be suggested–a League of Women Voters to “finish the fight” and to aid in the reconstruction of the nation.

Catt’s fellow suffragist Alice Paul was the author of the federal Equal Rights Amendment, first proposed in Congress in 1923.  We of the MN CAFE Coalition are acutely aware that our work is just one part of an historic campaign to win legal equality for all of America’s citizens.

Together we will FINISH THE FIGHT!

January’s tour will take us from Duluth to the Iron Range to the frozen lake country.  We’re finalizing locations and times, but our general itinerary looks like this:

Thursday, January 28
Duluth
Eveleth
Virginia
Hibbing

Friday January 29
Grand Rapids
Bemidji

Saturday, January 30
Park Rapids
Detroit Lakes (rumor has it that there will be a party at Zorbaz that no one will want to miss er, mizz)

Sunday, January 31
Fergus Falls

If you’re a MN CAFE fan living in or around any of these areas, we want to talk to you!  Contact us at mncafecoalition@gmail.com to find out how you can be a part of our movement for EQUALITY!

And check this space for updated locations and times for the tour!

Changemaker2009: Kathleen Murphy

Got women’s equality?

by Tami Mohamed Brown

The presumed answer might be an incredulous: Of course! Followed up by the tentative question: But wasn’t the campaign for women’s rights fought a long time ago?

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was written and introduced into Congress in 1923. It was reintroduced each session until 1972 when it finally passed the Senate and the House, and was then sent to the states for ratification. A seven-year time limit was extended by U.S. Congress to June of 1982, but was left short with 35 of the necessary 38 states ratifying the amendment. It is not yet included in the U.S. Constitution.

Kathleen Murphy encountered this piece of women’s history while working on a college paper, realizing that she had mistakenly taken equality for granted but that the work was not done.

A longtime professional in the public-policy arena, Murphy works on the ERA campaign without fanfare, or even without pay in most instances; she’s in it for the bigger picture.

“Although Minnesota did its part nationally by ratifying the federal effort, our own state has never been able to get an amendment on the ballot,” Murphy explained.

For nearly 10 years, Murphy has been working on a Minnesota Equal Rights Amendment campaign, to get an amendment to our state constitution put on the ballot.

When the Federal Equal Rights Amendment was reintroduced in the U.S. House in July 2009, Murphy was one of the uniting forces behind the formation of the Minnesota Constitutional Amendment for Equality (MN C.A.F.E.) Coalition, a group that held its kickoff event, quite aptly, on Aug. 26, Women’s Equality Day. Spearheaded initially by members of the Minnesota Chapter of the National Organization for Women, the Coalition is working to build a grassroots lobbying effort and develop a plan of action to place the Minnesota ERA on the ballot statewide in November 2010.

“We’re keeping it focused,” Murphy said. “This is not linked to other issues. We’re talking, very simply, about women being equal to men under our constitution, so that it would finally read:
Equality of rights under the law shall not be abridged or denied by the state of Minnesota or any of its political subdivision on account of gender.

“It’s not enough to assume equality. This is truly about cementing the rights of half of our population into our state law,” Murphy said.

“We’ve been told in the past that until people were knocking on the doors about this initiative, it just wouldn’t get a lot of attention,” Murphy said. “We need to be able to knock down their doors.”

When we talk about how important an Equal Rights Amendment will be in our fight for women to gain wage equality, we hear a familiar figure.

In 2007, on average, women in Minnesota earned 77 cents to each dollar earned by a Minnesota male.

Source: National Women’s Law Center

This statistic is pretty upsetting, but it’s not the whole story.  The wage gap is even more pronounced for Minnesota women of color.

• African-American women in Minnesota, working full-time, year-round, earn only 59 cents on the dollar earned by white Minnesota men.
• Hispanic women in Minnesota, working full-time, year-round, earn only 47 cents for every dollar earned by white, non-Hispanic Minnesota men.

The study also shows that the wage gap remains consistent across professions and levels of education.

This photo illustration makes us laugh because if we didn’t, we’d cry.  But notice the small print on the bottom:

IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, HELP US RIGHT IT.

Minnesota’s Equal Rights Amendment will not pass itself.  We need you!

Sojourner Truth, a girl gone wild?

“In 1858, at a meeting in Silver Lake, Indiana, someone in the audience accused her of being a man (she was very tall, towering around six feet) so she opened her blouse to reveal her breasts.”

(from Women in History’s Sojourner Truth biography)

Ain’t she a woman?  Yeah.  But in 1858 she still didn’t have constitutional equality, in Indiana or anywhere else.

We want to change that.

In honor of this feminist pioneer’s 212th birthday, we’re going to celebrate with cocktails and conversation at the W Bar on the first floor of the historic Foshay Tower in Minneapolis.

WHEN: 5-8 pm, Wednesday, November 18, 2009

WHO: the scintillating women and men of the MN CAFE Coalition, including some special guests

WHY: to discuss the progess we’re making to pass a state Equal Rights Amendment ballot initiative in the 2010 legislative session

Why 2010?  Why not 2012? 2014? 2016?

That’s a good question.  But here’s another.

Why NOT now?  Consider this:

The latest Census statistics show that the gap between men’s and women’s earnings widened slightly between 2007 and 2008. (National Committee on Pay Equity)

Women are more likely than men to feel the pinch of rising health costs and eroding health benefits, with about half (52%) of working-age women reporting problems accessing needed care because of costs, compared to 39 percent of men.  (Commonwealth Fund)

“I would say 80% (of colleges) have compliance problems, enough problems that they would technically be in violation of Title IX,” says Valerie Bonnette, a San Diego-based Title IX consultant.  (USA Today)

The MN CAFE Coalition is committed to amending our state Constitution to reflect gender equality NOW, not later.

We have waited long enough.

Fundraising Team

Have grantwriting experience?  Do you know secret sources of corporate funding that aren’t in the Minnesota Council of Non-Profits’ orbit?  Do you have the verve and gusto necessary to head up an individual donor campaign?  Do you like to throw elaborate fundraising parties?  We need you.  Equality costs a lot of money.

Coalition Recruitment Team

We have a great list of people, political parties, women’s groups, schools, businesses, unions, religious groups, social justice non-profits, corporations, etc. etc. that we want to join the MN CAFE Coalition.  We need you and your friends to help us reach out to them, one and all.

Communications Team

Currently, our communications team consists of li’l old me, alerting you of happenings via this blog and Facebook, and Kathleen, crack designer of MN CAFE printed literature.  As our Coalition grows, and when the Legislature reconvenes in Feburary 2010, we’ll need to step up our game.  Press releases, public research polling, targeted advertising: we will need it all.

Education & Outreach Team

If you are a feminist Toastmaster, we have a job for you.  We want a great team of speakers who are willing and able to talk to small groups in neighborhoods and to large groups at conferences.  We also need a team of extroverts to staff MN CAFE information tables at community events around the state.

Legislative Strategy Team

This team gets to storm the halls of power in St. Paul in 2010 with an effective plan to win passage of an ERA bill in both the House and the Senate.  Smart, friendly, feminist schmoozers wanted.

Please drop us a line at mncafecoalition@gmail.com to let us know where we can put your skills to work!