From Susan Platt’s “It’s Just Good Business,” which argues that “supporting equality for women is just good business.”
Rachel Martin, owner and vintner of San Luis Obispo’s Oceano Wines, has announced her partnership with Virginia’s It’s Just Good Business, a volunteer-led organization, to support the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). As the final state needed to pass the ratification of the ERA, Virginia’s legislature will vote on this issue in January 2020. Oceano Wines will launch the first “wine for women’s equality,” to which proceeds will support this movement, just in time for Women’s Equality Day on August 26, 2019.
“We’re very excited to be the first ‘wine for women’s equality’ in the U.S. to support women in this way, toward efforts that will hopefully lead to the passage of the ERA,” Rachel Martin said. “Since 83 percent of all spending decisions are influenced by women, businesses should care about committing to equal pay, stopping sexual discrimination and adding more women in boardrooms and government.”
Currently, the Constitution does not guarantee that all citizens, without regard to sex, hold all the rights it protects equally. With the Centennial of the 19th Amendment in 2020, and only one more state needed to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, the focus is on Virginia.
In addition to donating profits from the venture to aid the effort, Martin has planned for an advocacy tour in October throughout Virginia to engage more businesses in this effort.
Susan S. Platt, founder of It’s Just Good Business adds, “We are delighted to have found a strategic partner with Oceano Wines and appreciate the energy that comes with that. We know it will help us promote and advocate for the passage of the ERA in Virginia and then the United States.”
About Oceano Wines http://www.oceanowines.com.
A Women’s Business Enterprise (certified by WBENC), Oceano Wines is a joint venture between Rachel Martin and husband Kurt Deutsch to produce unique wines of elegance, balance and freshness. Rachel has been growing grapes and producing wine for over 15 years at her family’s winery and vineyard, Boxwood Estate Winery, in Middleburg, Virginia. Together they decided to make wine from a very specific place, Spanish Springs Vineyard, on the coast of San Luis Obispo, California. The 2017 Oceano Chardonnay is a Platinum Award Winner, “Wine of the Year.” Martin is a member of Les Dames d’Escoffier International New York and Washington Chapters and was the first woman to be inducted into the District of Columbia chapter of the International Wine and Food Society.
About It’s Just Good Business http://www.itsjustgoodbusiness.org
It’s Just Good Business is a volunteer-led organization based in Leesburg, VA., dedicated to raising awareness to the business community that equal rights for women is just good business.
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