A Century Later, Equal Rights For Women Remains Elusive

Nobody in Congress could fairly object to enactment of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) which would guarantee the “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
But now, a century after the ERA was first proposed, it has been again blocked by Republicans. The latest defeat in the proposal’s tortuous history was spearheaded by the Senate Pro-Life Caucus, including its chair, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., and a number of other right wing conservatives.
The latest vote seemed so politically predictable that it did not even merit a front page story on either the N.Y. Times or the Washington Post digital editions.
Supporters of the ERA, overwhelmingly Democrats, say the amendment would guarantee that women get equal pay and secure their rights in legal areas of divorce, property, employment, and other matters. Proponents also said the ERA is needed now more than ever as the conservative Supreme Court moves to deny women the power over their own bodies, evident in the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Through the years, Republicans have opposed the ERA for all kinds of reasons, but at its core the resistance does not want to grant women the same rights as men. GOP opponents now say the amendment isn’t necessary while others say it raises legal questions about Congress’ authority to remove ratification deadlines. And the underlying fear by Republicans is that by creating an equal playing field for men and women, the ERA would be a back door to invalidating the Supreme Court ruling banning abortion.
Opponents have claimed the ERA would lead to everything from common locker rooms for men and women to a loss of employment protections for women to women to a military draft if it were reinstated.
The ERA was first proposed in 1923. It passed both Houses of Congress in 1972, but Constitutional amendments must be ratified by three-quarters of all state legislatures, meaning 38 states. The states were required to vote on ratification within seven years.
The deadline was later extended to 1982, but only 35 states approved it by then. Three states, Nevada, Illinois and Virginia, approved it after 1982.
Predictably, upon his election, trump opposed the ERA. He ordered the Justice Department to argue that the time period had elapsed and Congress would need to pass it again and it would again need to be ratified by three-fourths of the states.
The Democratic-controlled House in 2021 voted to extend the deadline by a vote of 232 to 183, with five Republicans joining all Democrats in voting in favor.
On Thursday a Senate bill to advance the deadline failed to pass, in a 51–47 vote. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., changed his vote at the last minute to keep it open for debate. The bill had two GOP sponsors, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, but it failed to win the support of any other Republicans.
Schumer said that “anyone who thinks the [Equal Rights Amendment] isn’t necessary at a time like this is not paying attention to the terrible things happening in this country.”
Schumer pointed to the end of Roe v. Wade, and efforts to outlaw sale of abortion-inducing drugs like mifepristone.
“And we’ve seen over a dozen hard-right states enact near-total bans on abortions,” Schumer said.
John McCormack of the conservative, National Review, said the ERA is “a Trojan horse to eliminate single-sex spaces, enroll women in the draft, and, most importantly for progressives, legalize abortion. Since men can’t get pregnant, the argument goes — or, at least, how the argument used to go — ‘equality’ demands that women be able to end a pregnancy whenever, however, and for whatever reason they wish.”
The Senate bill to remove the deadline for ratification of the ERA has 51 co-sponsors. That included a total of three Republicans, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Sen. Kisa Murkowski, R-Alaska and Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del. Also co-sponsoring the bill was Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt.
The House bill passed in March with a vote of 222–204. There were 214 co-sponsors with the lead sponsor Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif. There was one Republican co-sponsor, Rep.Tom Reed, R-N.Y.
Equalrightsamendment.org noted that without the ERA “the Constitution does not explicitly guarantee that the rights it protects are held equally by all citizens without regard to sex. The first — and still the only — right specifically affirmed as equal for women and men is the right to vote.”
“The ERA would provide a strong legal defense against a rollback of the significant advances in women’s rights that have been achieved since the mid–20th century,” Equalrightsamendment.org said. “Without the ERA, women regularly and men occasionally have to fight long, expensive, and difficult legal battles in an effort to prove that their rights are equal to those of the other sex.”
Hyde-Smith, who voted against extending the ERA ratification deadline, said the ERA “would undo many of the rights won by women over the last 50 years. The painful side effects for religious liberties, pro-life protections, and other issues would be far-reaching as well.”
The first version of an ERA was written by two leaders in the fight for women’s voting rights, Alice Paul, a Quaker, suffragist, feminist, and women’s rights activist, and Crystal Eastman, a lawyer, anti-militarist, feminist, socialist, and journalist.
Their ERA plan was introduced in Congress in December 1923. Of particular concern were disparate working conditions and employment hours. The women’s movement of the 1960s lent the ERA increasing support and by 1971, it was reintroduced by Rep. Martha Griffiths, D-Mich. The House of Representatives approved the ERA on Oct. 12, 1971, and by the Senate voted in favor on March 22, 1972. The road was cleared for it to be considered by the states.
Through 1977, the amendment had wide, bipartisan support of both major political parties, both houses of Congress, and presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter. But the major roadblock came when Phyllis Schlafly, an Illinois conservative, began to mobilize conservative women in opposition.
Schlafly said the ERA would disadvantage housewives, cause women to be drafted into the military and to lose protections such as alimony, and eliminate the tendency for mothers to obtain custody over their children in divorce cases.
In a portent of the future, Schlafly also suggested that single-sex bathrooms would be eliminated and same-sex couples would be able to get married if the amendment were passed. Schlafly said passage of the amendment would threaten Social Security benefits for housewives. At the 1980 Republican National Convention, largely because of the opposition by Schlafly, the Republican Party platform was amended to end its support for the ERA.
Five state legislatures soon voted to revoke their ERA ratifications, including Idaho, Kentucky, Nebraska, Tennessee, and South Dakota.
A few quotes from Schlafly are enlightening about her values. In 1978, she told Time magazine, “I have cancelled speeches whenever my husband thought that I had been away from home too much.”
In March 2007, Schlafly spoke against the concept of marital rape in a speech at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine and said, “By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don’t think you can call it rape.”
In an interview on March 30, 2006, she attributed improvement in women’s lives during the last decades of the 20th century to labor-saving devices such as the indoor clothes dryer and disposable diapers.
She called Roe v. Wade “the worst decision in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court” and said that it “is responsible for the killing of millions of unborn babies.”
Schlafly died in 2016.
Hyde-Smith, 63, has been a senator from Mississippi since 2018. She attended Lawrence County Academy in Monticello, Miss., a segregation academy established in response to Supreme Court rulings ordering the desegregation of public schools. The school’s team nickname was the Rebels; the mascot was a “Col. Reb” who carried a Confederate flag. In 2007, Hyde-Smith voted for a resolution that praised a Confederate States Army soldier for his efforts to “defend his homeland.”
Hyde-Smith opposes abortion and called Planned Parenthood, “one of the worst things that has ever happened to us.”
She has sponsored a bill to counter the proposal that the ERA deadline be extended. The bill is co-sponsored by 11 of the most conservative members of Congress, including Sen. James Lankford R-Okla., Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., Sen. John Kennedy, R-La. and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.
In October 2021, Ricketts ordered Nebraska state agencies not to comply with the federal government’s vaccine requirements for employees. Ricketts supports a total ban of abortion, with no exceptions for rape or incest.
Lankford worked for the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma. From 1996 to 2005, he was the program director of Falls Creek, the largest Christian camp in the U.S. He believes Congress should recognize life at the moment of fertilization.
Lankford opposes same-sex marriage and told an interviewer that homosexuality is a choice and that employers should be allowed to terminate workers for their sexual orientation.
Mullin wants to bar abortion in all circumstances, even in cases of rape, incest, or if the mother’s life is at risk. During the 2022 Republican runoff debate, he claimed that if his wife’s life were at risk during a pregnancy, neither he nor his wife would want to get an abortion.
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Boozman said the “Supreme Court’s decision to affirm there is no constitutional right to indiscriminately sacrifice the lives of children in their mothers’ wombs is the culmination of decades of work to correct the tragic, deadly lie that unborn babies are expendable and undeserving of protection.”
The New York Times ranked Lee as the Senate’s most conservative member. In 2015, Lee condemned the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which held that same-sex marriage bans violated the constitution.
On Oct. 28, 2020, Lee compared trump to Captain Moroni, a heroic figure in the Book of Mormon. Lee told a crowd at an Arizona rally, “To my Mormon friends, my Latter-day Saint friends, think of him as Captain Moroni.” He said that trump “seeks not the praise of the world” and wants only “the well-being and peace of the American people.” Text messages gathered by the January 6 Committee have revealed Lee’s close coordination with trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in plans to overturn the 2020 presidential election.