If that question seems ridiculous, it’s only because of the passage of time. Women won voting rights in 1920 with ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But that was the culmination of a decades-long struggle. Before that, the answer had been a resounding “no.”

During those years, women were jailed and prosecuted for the crime of voting. As late as 1917, some were arrested and beaten merely for picketing in favor of voting rights. Even afterward, the question wasn’t necessarily academic: The Virginia General Assembly didn’t approve the 19th Amendment until 1952, more than three decades after it became law of the land.

Such shameful history seems worth pondering today because of another amendment to the U.S. Constitution on which the commonwealth steadfastly has dragged its feet. Virginia is one of a minority of states that since 1972 has failed to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. It would give women equal rights with men under the U.S. Constitution.

That’s the reasoning behind a statewide bus tour, VA ratify ERA, that’ll make stops in Roanoke, Lexington and other parts of western Virginia later this week. Proponents are promising to make the amendment a key issue before the 2019 Virginia General Assembly.

If it passes, Virginia would be the 38th (and perhaps final) state to approve the amendment since 1972. Though 38 states is the minimum number necessary for ratification of a constitutional amendment, the asterisk refers to certain legal and procedural hiccups that could derail the amendment’s immediate enshrinement in the U.S. Constitution. Those are outlined below.

“Even [the late] conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia noted the U.S. Constitution doesn’t provide for equal rights for women,” said Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke. He’s one of two area lawmakers pushing for Virginia to ratify the ERA. The other is Del. Chris Hurst, D-Blacksburg.

The bus tour launched Friday in Williamsburg and already has made stops in 10 Virginia localities. Tuesday it’ll be in Ashland and Richmond. Wednesday, it hits Charlottesville, Harrisonburg and Staunton.

Thursday night, the tour lands in Lexington and Friday, in Blacksburg and Radford. One of the final stops will be at the Virginia Women’s Conference on Saturday afternoon at the Hotel Roanoke.

Hurst told me he awoke to the issue of women’s rights as a young boy. His mother — he described her as “an old Gloria Steinem feminist” — worked as a television news producer in Philadelphia before his birth.

After spending a stretch as a stay-at-home mom to raise him, she went back to work but suffered workplace discrimination, Hurst said. He also observed that later in his own TV news career, he added.

“I was making more than some of my female co-anchors, and that wasn’t a good thing,” Hurst told me. “There should be equal pay for equal work.”

Both the House of Delegates and state Senate failed to pass ERA resolutions in the 2018 legislative session. The House Privileges and Elections Committee squashed it when its chairman refused to schedule a hearing on the matter. When the Senate Rules Committee shot it down 9-5, all the lawmakers who voted against it were male.

“I can’t tell you what the hell the objection is,” Hurst said. “For some reason, this gets passed over year after year in the General Assembly. ... That’s why we need public awareness.”

The U.S. House of Representatives approved the ERA in 1971, and the U.S. Senate approved it in 1972. Those resolutions set a deadline of March 22, 1979, for ratification by the states. By 1977, 35 of the necessary 38 states had ratified the amendment. And that year, Congress extended the deadline until 1982.

But as the number of ratifications approached 38, conservatives — notably, the late Phyllis Schlafly — launched a campaign against the ERA. They raised fears it would lead to women being drafted into combat by the U.S. military, and cautioned about potential far-reaching changes to alimony and child custody for divorced couples. It would spawn same-sex public bathrooms and same-sex marriage, they warned.

Before Congress’ original deadline, state legislatures in Idaho, Kentucky, Tennessee and Nebraska revoked their ERA ratifications. And the South Dakota legislature sunset its ratification to the original deadline.

For those reasons, much of the steam behind the amendment evaporated after 1982. But questions remain as to whether the revocations of the ratifications — or the sunset in South Dakota — are themselves binding.

In 2017, Nevada became the 36th state to ratify the amendment, and this year, Illinois became the 37th. And even if Virginia does ratify the amendment next year, the ERA probably won’t become part of the Constitution immediately. First, there will be a fight.

Rasoul said the Virginia General Assembly ought to disregard such “footnotes” as those revocations and consider the ERA on its merits. Congress could always re-extend the deadline if that’s necessary, he said.

“This is a statement about what Virginia wants to say,” Rasoul told me. “Virginia should pass the ERA and let the courts worry about the legitimacy.”

If you have any doubts about how that will play out in the long run, just look back.

American history is replete with examples of progressives clamoring for change with just cause, and conservatives fighting against it tooth and nail. Consider: Slavery, workers’ rights, child labor, segregation, interracial marriage and same-sex marriage.

All those were progressive victories. And they stuck, just like the 70-plus years’ battle to get women the right to vote. Today, no sane person questions its rightness or wrongness.

Thus, the question isn’t whether our nation will add the Equal Rights Amendment to its constitution. It’s more like, when?