Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)

DATE Ratification attempted from 1972 to 1982

The Equal Rights Amendment needed ratification by three-fourths (thirty-eight) of the states before it could become part of the Constitution. Although a majority of Americans supported equality in principle, many feared changing traditional roles of men and women, especially in families and within society as a whole. These fears were serious enough to generate opposition in the conservative southern states that had not ratified the ERA, ultimately causing its defeat.

The Equal Rights Amendment read in pertinent part as follows: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” Congress first considered an equal rights amendment in 1923, and the proposal was raised regularly after that time. However, social reformers and labor unions were concerned about the effect of the ERA on labor legislation protecting women and children. Historical denial of equal rights for women was justified in a policy of special protection for a presumably weaker sex. Organized labor, among other organizations, deterred Congress from proposing an equal rights amendment to the Constitution. A resolution with a protection provision passed the Senate in 1950, but it was not until 1970 that the United Automobile Workers formally adopted a resolution favoring the ERA.

The constitutional amendment passed the House in 1971 and the Senate in 1972. In March of that year, Congress passed the ERA. Its sponsors felt certain that the amendment would be ratified in less than two years. The only contentious issue was whether the amendment explicitly should exclude women from the military draft. ERA proponents objected to any special treatment and defeated the provision.

Many states were eager to ratify the amendment. Hawaii’s legislature voted unanimously in favor of the amendment twenty-five minutes after it passed Congress. By early 1973, twenty-five states also had ratified it. Ten more states ratified the amendment by the end of 1977, leaving only three more states to secure adoption. Congress extended the original deadline for ratification from 1979 to 1982, but in 1982, the amendment failed. Brought to the floor of the House of Representatives again seventeen months later, the ERA failed by six votes to secure the required two-thirds majority.

Anti-ERA Organizations

Groups such as the National Organization for Women (NOW) worked to guarantee women equal rights through legislation, but one of its most important goals was to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex. Opposition to the ERA came mainly from conservative religious and political organizations, such as the John Birch Society, the Mormon Church, and George Wallace’s American Party. Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative political activist, organized a group called Stop ERA, contending that the ERA was unnecessary because American women had special privileges and status. She also warned Roman Catholics that the ERA would require the Church to admit women to the priesthood and to abandon single-sex schools or lose tax-exempt status. Anti-ERA groups used scare tactics to claim that mothers could be forced into combat and denied alimony and child support.

When pro-ERA groups failed to refute the opposition quickly, confusion and misunderstanding began to surround the amendment. During the National Women’s Conference in Houston in November, 1977, planned by feminist activist Gloria Steinem and held to develop a National Plan of Action, internal divisions and controversy became apparent. As the plan supported controversial ideas such as gay rights and guaranteed access to legal abortion, some women walked out, and anti-ERA groups seized on the issues as indications of a radical agenda. As the date for ratification neared, a campaign to counter the misinformation was launched, and NOW organized boycotts of states that had not ratified the amendment, but their actions were too late. Accidental timing made abortion policy a national issue during those years, and the Watergate break-in and related Senate hearings in 1973 and 1974 served as distractions that diverted the nation’s attention away from the ERA.

Impact

In 1971 and 1972, most federal and state legislators viewed the ERA as an opportunity to show support for a proposal that was long overdue. The ERA reminded Americans that the struggle for women’s rights, one that began decades earlier with the women's suffrage movement, was ongoing, and it helped galvanize the modern women’s movement.

Subsequent Events

By the 1980s, many members of Congress saw a vote to limit the ERA as an opportunity to register antiabortion views. When the requisite thirty-eight states failed to ratify the amendment by June 30, 1982, the ERA became the first proposed amendment in post–Civil War constitutional history to expire after congressional passage.

Pro-ERA senators and representatives speculated about why ratification of the ERA failed. All agreed that they underestimated the difficulty with which the Constitution can be amended. They agreed that discrimination against women and national economic injustice exist in the absence of the amendment and that women must continue to fight for their rights. Others, however, expressed the widespread belief that the amendment was superfluous.

Over the subsequent years, ERA advocates continued to work toward ratifying the amendment. A new plan, known as the "three-state strategy," was formed with the aim of achieving this goal by getting three more states to ratify and getting Congress to pass a bill to repeal or extend the previous deadline. In 2017, the movement experienced a success when the Nevada legislature voted to ratify the ERA, and in 2018, the Illinois legislature did the same. In 2019, the first congressional hearing on the ERA in over thirty-five years was held.

Supporters of the ERA rallied for its ratification after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on May 3, 2022. Among the reasons they would like the amendment ratified are that restrictions on abortion perpetuate harmful discriminatory gender stereotypes and reduce the chances of women gaining equality in the workplace and in public life.

Bibliography

Boles, Janet K. The Politics of the Equal Rights Amendment: Conflict and the Decision Process. Longman, 1979.

Epps, Garrett. "The Equal Rights Amendment Strikes Again." The Atlantic, 20 Jan. 2019, www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/will-congress-ever-ratify-equal-rights-amendment/580849/. Accessed 6 Sept. 2019.

Karni, Annie. "Democrats Try a Novel Tactic to Revive the Equal Rights Amendment." The New York Times, 13 July 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/07/13/us/politics/democrats-equal-rights-amendment.html. Accessed 20 May 2024.

Lee, Rex E. A Lawyer Looks at the Equal Rights Amendment. Brigham Young UP, 1980.

Mansbridge, Jane J. Why We Lost the ERA. U of Chicago P, 1986.

Steiner, Gilbert Y. Constitutional Inequality: The Political Fortunes of the Equal Rights Amendment. Brookings Institution, 1985.