Calyx has just published my essay “Ratification,” about growing up during the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment (click the link to purchase a copy). So here is the third-grader who was spooked by her anti-ERA teacher. She doesn’t look scared, but already she knows that girls aren’t supposed to be too smart. In a few years she’ll replace dresses with Oshkosh B’gosh overalls, partly for comfort, partly to hide her unmistakably female body. Of the time she spent in third grade, only a few moments will be memorable: winning a spelling bee, reading laminated SRA cards, and listening to Mrs. Peerenboom’s threats about the dire consequences of women’s equality.