Meryl Streep Wants Congress to Resurrect the Equal Rights Amendment

Meryl Streep just dumped a bunch of letters on Congress, calling for the revival of the Equal Rights Amendment.

That’s according to the Associated Press. Everybody in the House and Senate just got a letter signed by Meryl herself, which read: “I am writing to ask you to stand up for equality — for your mother, your daughter, your sister, your wife or yourself – by actively supporting the Equal Rights Amendment,” and noted that “A whole new generation of women and girls are talking about equality — equal pay, equal protection from sexual assault, equal rights.” They all got copies of Equal Means Equal, a book by ERA Coalition president Jessica Neuwirth, as well.

Streep also has a movie about British suffragettes coming out in October.

Back in the 1970s, the amendment came within three states’ ratification of being adopted into the Constitution. Phyllis Schlafly and her pals managed to sink it with arguments about things like the draft. Every so often there’s an effort pump life back into the amendment, with the most recent push being the ERA Coalition, but none of them have stuck—yet, anyway.