ERA Past and Present
March is women’s history month, so it’s a good time to focus on the importance of equal rights. This past January, Congress put forth a bipartisan resolution to extend the deadline to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which was introduced in 1972. Most young people have never heard of the ERA, so it’s worth describing its main points, why some Americans have opposed it, and where things stand now.
The ERA proposes to make illegal any federal or state law that discriminates on the basis of sex. This means that women must be paid as much as men, and they must generally have the same rights and protections as men. This is largely an economic issue, since even today women make on average 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man. Even the US tax code is written to privilege men and make women economically dependent on their male spouses. In the early 1970s. the women’s movement and their allies sought to do away with these injustices through a constitutional amendment.
While there was broad bipartisan support for the ERA, conservative Christian groups were mostly opposed to it. One woman in particular, Phyllis Schlafly, argued that the ERA undermined traditional values and benefits afforded women. She argued that the ERA would force women to serve in combat during wars and that alimony laws that supported divorced women would disappear. She would often begin her speeches by thanking her husband for allowing her to leave the house, a nod to her traditional, Christian values. As the opposition movement gained steam, the ratification process for the ERA began to stall. 35 states ratified the ERA in the 1970s, but then things began to unravel. Five states, Idaho, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kentucky, and Tennessee, ratified the ERA but then rescinded their ratification. The congressional deadline to ratify the ERA passed in 1982, and at that time, only 30 states (if one accepts Idaho, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kentucky, and Tennessee’s right to rescind) have ratified the ERA.
Over the past five years, Nevada, Illinois, and Virginia voted to ratify the ERA. If we deny the right of Idaho, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kentucky, and Tennessee to rescind their ratification, and we allow Nevada, Illinois, and Virginia to ratify the ERA after the deadline, then the ERA is set for passage. As with most things in the US, the courts will ultimately decide. In a DC federal court on March 7, 2021, a judge ruled that Nevada’s, Illinois’s, and Virginia’s ratifications were not valid. Congress has the legal power to remove its deadline retroactively, but this would have to be passed in the House and the Senate. It will likely pass in the House, but it’s doubtful that it will pass in the Senate, where conservative senators see the ERA as a direct threat to anti-abortion legislation in their home states.
All of this signals an uphill battle for equal rights in the US. The US Senate remains an issue (where small, rural states like Wyoming have just as much representation as California, and the filibuster requires most bills to pass by a two-thirds majority), and it’s doubtful that the courts will side with ERA proponents. All that is needed is a retroactive extension of the deadline and an exclusion of five states’ decision to revoke their previous ratification. This is a tall order, and even the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg felt that it may be best simply to start over with a fresh amendment. True equal rights for women remains a viable goal, but it won’t happen without a lot of work and sacrifice.
