It’s Women’s History Month, a history that includes significant contributions from Hawaii that have advanced gender equality. In March 1972, Hawaii was the first state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) on the very day that the U.S. Senate voted to send it to the states.

It is also the birthplace of Patsy Mink, the first woman of color elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. There, Congresswoman Mink worked to make sure others would not suffer the same discrimination she had in earning her degrees and becoming a lawyer. Among her greatest accomplishments was the 1972 Title IX legislation she co-authored, ensuring equal access to athletic and academic opportunities in higher education regardless of sex.

Reflecting on her role as a trailblazer for women, Mink left us with this advice: “It is more often more important to be ahead of the majority and this means being willing to cut the first furrow in the ground and stand alone for a while if necessary.”

Now Hawaii has another opportunity to “cut a furrow” for equality by supporting the U.S. Senate Joint Resolution to remove the arbitrary deadline Congress attached to the Equal Rights Amendment decades ago.

Last year, the 38th and final state needed to amend the Constitution ratified the ERA. With such constitutional protection, legislation like the Violence Against Women Act, the Equal Pay Act, and Title IX would never need reauthorization or face partisan revision again. The only step left to take is to remove that deadline and all people would be equal under the law of our land.

To this day, statistics show women in Hawaii still earn 83 cents to every dollar a man makes, and at the current rate, women will not receive equal pay until 2051. They hold only 32% of the state’s elected offices; and women of color, such as Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders, suffer some of the state’s highest rates of infant mortality, the lowest wages (62 cents to the dollar), and are disproportionally represented in the statistics on domestic violence.

Most tragically, Native Hawaiian women comprise 77% of Hawaii’s sex-trafficking survivors “directly linked to the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawai’i — that is land dispossession, exposure to sexual violence, hyper sexualization, incarceration, cultural dislocation, intergenerational trauma, mental and emotional distress, racism and poverty,” as stated by the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women.

By co-sponsoring and working to pass the resolution to remove the deadline attached to the ERA, Hawaii’s U.S. Sens. Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono would honor the legacy of Patsy Mink and the countless unsung advocates who have struggled for half a century to gain justice and equality for all.

Wendi White is an equality advocate who recently relocated to Honolulu from Virginia, where she served on the steering committee of the VAratifyERA campaign; Mary Hattori, Ed.D., is acting director of Pacific Islands Development Program at the East-West Center.