You may be hearing some buzz about a bipartisan piece of legislation from the 1970's called the Equal Rights Amendment or the ERA. The ERA was designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex – simply put, it seeks to end the legal distinctions between men and women in terms of divorce, property, employment, and other matters.

For something so basic and fundamental to American ideals, the road for the ERA has been bumpy – missed deadlines, anti-women arguments echoing through statehouses, and decades of dragging feet.

However this year, thanks to the empowered women in Virginia's General Assembly, their allies, and movements like #MeToo and fourth-wave feminism: Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the ERA – the majority needed to add it to the Constitution.

I was proud to vote in favor of recent legislation to remove an old arbitrary deadline for ratifying the ERA and thus taking it one (big) step closer to officially becoming the 28th Amendment to the Constitution.