At my age, I’m in a fairly distinctive place in that I’ve younger folks truly wanting to speak to me.
Not my 4 youngsters, after all—they solely appear to speak to me at midnight once I’m already in mattress—however full strangers speak to me on a regular basis. Because I performed a beloved character in Disney’s The Parent Trap and now seem in one other beloved tv present, the youngs write to me fairly a bit. They come to my comedy exhibits. I speak to them and write them again. I give recommendation on the place to begin the journey of a performer, or what’s the most effective eye cream or how one can come out to their grandma. Important stuff.
Lisa Ann Walter speaks on stage throughout Era Coalition Forward Women’s Equality Trailblazer Awards, May 2024, Los Angeles, California.Amy Sussman/Getty Images
You know what’s bizarre? They typically don’t know the Equal Rights Act by no means handed. Some don’t know what it’s, aside from “that factor I noticed on posters in previous footage of marches again once I acquired into feminism courtesy of post-Trump trauma”. Some simply assume that girls benefit from the assure of equal rights beneath our structure. They are uniformly outraged to study that this isn’t true—that though the required 38 states ratified the modification to ensure that girls are equal residents with equal rights in America, they did so after a timeline imposed by Congress to attain it expired. So it by no means handed. It’s a giant drawback, the Not Being Equal Citizens. But additionally the unbelievable proven fact that these educated, engaged, concerned younger folks don’t know. Let me stress this: They DO NOT KNOW WOMEN DO NOT CURRENTLY HAVE EQUAL CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS.
I do know, after all, as a result of I was there for the fight. When I used to be 8, I attended my first Women’s Equality march. I grew up in a suburb of D.C. the place marches for equality, civil rights, anti-war and extra had been what we did on the weekends like some households did little league.
We had a implausible, hippie music instructor in kindergarten who taught us the chants and songs. “All we’re saying is Give Peace a Chance”, “We’re Here, We’re Queer – get used to it”! “What do we would like? ERA! When do we would like it? NOW”! ERA Now! buttons adorned my jean jacket subsequent to the flower energy patches. I sat beneath my ‘Shirley Chisholm for President’ poster in my bed room and co-wrote letters to my hometown paper, The Washington Post, together with my sister, Laura, and our subsequent door bffs, Elinor & Deedee. At the time we had been all aged between 10 and 11, and we had been an simple drive.
