Crickets! Meryl Streep Whines Only 5 of 535 Congresspeople Noticed My Rant for the ERA

September 9th, 2015 10:57 PM

The Hollywood Reporter relayed actress Meryl Streep whined at the Telluride (Colorado) Film Festival that almost no one in Congress replied to her letter urging that they revisit passing the “Equal Rights Amendment,” that old feminist proposal from the 1970s.

"I sent them each a book called Equal Means Equal by Jessica Neuwirth [foreword by Gloria Steinem]. It's about the revival of the attempt to get an ERA that would codify in law that you can't discriminate against women," she said. "I got five answers."

Out of 535 members of Congress (and some nonvoting delegates to boot).

This result is a little embarrassing, since liberal publicists like the Associated Press thought Streep might bring some power to this effort back in June:

WASHINGTON — No actor or actress can match Meryl Streep's 19 Academy Award nominations, and only Katharine Hepburn has bested her three Oscars for acting. So maybe it's conceivable that Streep's letter Tuesday to each member of Congress can somehow revive the Equal Rights Amendment, politically dormant since its high-water mark four decades ago.

Or maybe the effort would vanish without much of a trace!

Back to the Hollywood Reporter account:

...When one woman audience member — a former pro-ERA campaigner — asked Streep why she believed the ERA would make a difference today, the actress argued: "It needs to be set down in law. … For the rest of the world, it's important that this is set down in law."

Streep recalled her resolve as a child, listening to her parents — who "had a fairly equal marriage (though) a contentious one" — squabble over money:  

Even though her mother worked as a commercial artist, Streep said, she had to ask her husband for cash. "I remember those conversations, hearing them upstairs, the back and forth. … I remember thinking, 'I will never have to ask anybody for money,'" the actress noted to applause. "'I will have my own money.'"

In Streep’s house, it’s probably the husband who’s asking for a little pocket change. Streep has a net worth estimated at $45 million and drew $7 or $8 million for the 2009 romantic comedy It’s Complicated, for example.