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Doc of the Day: The Equal Rights Amendment
03/22/10
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)—a proposed addition to the U.S. Constitution that would make it illegal for the United States or any state to discriminate on the basis of sex—passed Congress on March 22, 1972. Although 22 states ratified the ERA within a year, it ran into opposition from religious and conservative groups and failed to reach the threshold of 38 states required for ratification.
The fight for passage of the ERA was part of the long struggle for women’s rights that included the women’s suffrage movement. Although American women gained the right to vote in 1920 with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, many activists felt that another amendment was needed to guarantee women’s equality in the workplace and in society. An early version of the ERA was first introduced in 1923 by suffragist leader Alice Paul, but it failed to pass Congress.
The women’s rights movement gained momentum during the social protest era of the 1960s and early 1970s. A reworded ERA finally passed U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in 1972 as the proposed 27th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Although the ERA initially appeared likely to achieve ratification, support gradually withered as the nation’s social and political climate grew more conservative. Opponents of the ERA claimed that its passage would force American women to support families and be sent into military combat. The proposed amendment only gained approval in 35 states before the ten-year deadline for passage expired, so it failed to achieve ratification.