Women Fasting for ERA and Hungering for Justice
Religious Zeal Sustains Illinois Demonstrators
By Kathleen Hendrix, Times Staff Writer
Springfield, Ill – So finally, it has come down to this – a handful of women, most of them mothers, fasting on water, sitting in the rotunda of the Illinois Statehouse, growing visibly weaker by the day, hoping somehow to move the legislators and the people of America to make the equal-rights amendment part of the Constitution before the time to ratify runs out June 30.
Five of the women are mothers, and to the concerned, sometimes righteous-sounding questions raised about their responsibilities to their children – leaving them, endangering their own health, maybe risking death, they answer sharply, “Who do you think we are doing this for?”
Dina Bachelor, who reared four children on her own, sees the ERA in economic terms, and she smarts when she talks about the necessity for it, and for her action, using her own life as an example. Working since she was 13 and nothing to show for it; earning half as much as men doing the same job; seeing herself replaced by two men once, both hired at higher salaries than hers. She does not want her three daughters to have to repeat that.
Complete article in The Hungry Heart ~ A Woman's Fast for Justice
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