James Taranto reports that South Florida Democrats are trying to resurrect the 30 year old Equal Rights Amendment. For those of you that don't remember, it was a 1970s movement to add text to the Constitution that would say that women were just as good as men. The Amendment failed, but somehow women were still able to overcome the bigotry of the late 1970s. Well, almost.

In enlightened Canada, lawmakers are gravely concerned over cruel human rights violations that women face on a daily basis.

Lorenzo Berardinetti wants to brand so-called gender-based pricing a human rights violation and he has introduced a bill in the Ontario legislature to make the practice illegal.

Berardinetti said on Tuesday he was shocked when he and his wife took clothes to a dry cleaners and she ended up paying more for similar items.

Women also pay more for haircuts, clothes, and car repairs. But if this legislation gets legs, it will be interesting to see what the law of unintended consequences digs up.

When Title IX was passed in the United States, schools and colleges were supposed to increase athletics funding for women to match that of men. Instead, they cut men's programs to give them parity with women. Sports like wrestling became instant endangered species, because it was easier to cut out the men's program then start a women's. Expect the free market to have even more disastrous results.

Prices for men will certainly rise. They cannot rise too much because of the elasticity of demand, but Canada would probably reach a point where men are subsidizing women's haircuts by paying a few extra dollars. Expect to see the same normalization with dry cleaning and clothing prices. So, with slimmer profit margins on women's goods and services, what impact will that really have?

Well for starters, price cuts in women's services will make them much less profitable. That means the quality of service will get much worse. Haircuts are priced differently for obvious reasons. First and foremost, women care more about their hair. They also require a lot more time at the beauty parlor than men do at the barber shop. Canadian women should get used to receiving the men's treatment which is a bit like sheering sheep. Don't come crying to me when you sit down in the chair and they reach for the sheers instead of the scissors.

Is this the most serious problem facing Western women today? In the Middle East, women are fighting for the right to vote. In Africa they suffer from brutal mutilation of their genatalia. In some parts of the world they can be stoned to death for being seen with another man. But in Canada, the most serious problem they face is having to pay more for professional dry cleaning.