Thursday, April 28, 2016

This is the usual process for advancing women's rights in the U.S.

Duncan Hunter proposed an amendment that would require women to register for the draft as a "gotcha" amendment, assuming it would be voted down. Instead it passed and, assuming the final bill makes it through, young women and men will be subject to the same draft registration requirements.

This type of thing has happened before. When Congress debated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was originally written to outlaw employment discrimination based on race, color, national origin or religion, a pro-segregation congressmen proposed an amendment to add the word "sex" to that list, assuming that would be a poison pill and the whole bill would go down. Instead, the bill passed and federal law now prohibits sex discrimination in employment.