Equal Rights Amendment

In 1923, at Seneca Falls, New York, she revised the proposed amendment to read: Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.

These feminists argued that legislation including mandated minimum wages, safety regulations, restricted daily and weekly hours, lunch breaks, and maternity provisions would be more beneficial to the majority of women who were forced to work out of economic necessity, not personal fulfillment.

The Hayden rider added a sentence to the ERA to keep special protections for women: "The provisions of this article shall not be construed to impair any rights, benefits, or exemptions now or hereafter conferred by law upon persons of the female sex."

The League of Women Voters, formerly the National American Woman Suffrage Association, opposed the Equal Rights Amendment until 1972, fearing the loss of protective labor legislation.

In the early 1960s, Eleanor Roosevelt announced that, due to unionization, she believed the ERA was no longer a threat to women as it once may have been and told supporters that, as far as she was concerned, they could have the amendment if they wanted it.

The commission that she chaired reported (after her death) that no ERA was needed, believing that the Supreme Court could give sex the same "suspect" test as race and national origin, through interpretation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution.

[citation needed][40] The decision caused some union Democrats and social conservatives to leave the organization and form the Women's Equity Action League (within a few years WEAL also endorsed the ERA), but the move to support the amendment benefited NOW, bolstering its membership.

[54] The ERA has been supported by several Republican women including Florence Dwyer, Jill Ruckelshaus, Mary Dent Crisp, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, First Lady Betty Ford and Senator Margaret Chase Smith.

They argued that the amendment would guarantee the possibility that women would be subject to conscription and be required to have military combat roles in future wars if it were passed.

"[62] They appealed to married women by stressing that the amendment would invalidate protective laws such as alimony and eliminate the tendency for mothers to obtain custody over their children in divorce cases.

Leading the Stop ERA campaign, Schlafly defended traditional gender roles and would often attempt to incite feminists by opening her speeches with lines such as, "I'd like to thank my husband for letting me be here tonight—I always like to say that, because it makes the libs so mad.

[73] Mansbridge concluded, "Many people who followed the struggle over the ERA believed—rightly in my view—that the Amendment would have been ratified by 1975 or 1976 had it not been for Phyllis Schlafly's early and effective effort to organize potential opponents.

"[74] Legal scholar Joan C. Williams maintained, "ERA was defeated when Schlafly turned it into a war among women over gender roles.

"[75] Historian Judith Glazer-Raymo asserted: As moderates, we thought we represented the forces of reason and goodwill but failed to take seriously the power of the family values argument and the single-mindedness of Schlafly and her followers.

Eventually, this resulted in feminist dissatisfaction with the Republican Party, giving the Democrats a new source of strength that when combined with overwhelming minority support, helped elect Bill Clinton to the presidency in 1992 and again in 1996.

[77] Many ERA supporters blamed their defeat on special interest forces, especially the insurance industry and conservative organizations, suggesting that they had funded an opposition that subverted the democratic process and the will of the pro-ERA majority.

[78] Such supporters argued that while the public face of the anti-ERA movement was Phyllis Schlafly and her STOP ERA organization, there were other important groups in the opposition as well, such as the powerful National Council of Catholic Women, labor feminists[citation needed] and (until 1973) the AFL–CIO.

[80][81] Critchlow and Stachecki say the anti-ERA movement was based on strong backing among Southern whites, Evangelical Christians, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Orthodox Jews, and Roman Catholics, including both men and women.

[114] Among those rejecting Congress's claim to even hold authority to extend a previously established ratification deadline, the South Dakota Legislature adopted Senate Joint Resolution No.

[117] The action on the part of South Dakota lawmakers—occurring 21 days prior to originally agreed-upon deadline of March 22, 1979—could be viewed as slightly different from a rescission.

In 1982, seven female ERA supporters, known as the Grassroots Group of Second Class Citizens, went on a fast known as Women Hunger for Justice and seventeen chained themselves to the entrance of the Illinois Senate chamber.

[130] According to research by Jules B. Gerard, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, of the 35 legislatures that passed ratification resolutions, 24 of them explicitly referred to the original 1979 deadline.

The Supreme Court declared these controversies moot based on the memorandum of the appellant Gerald P. Carmen, the then-Administrator of General Services, that the ERA had not received the required number of ratifications (38) and so "the Amendment has failed of adoption no matter what the resolution of the legal issues presented here".

If Congress wants to pass an updated version of the ERA, taking into consideration all the changes in the law since 1972, I have no doubt the South Dakota Legislature would debate the merits in a new ratification process.

The plaintiff argued that he was "subject to criminal prosecution, fines and imprisonment" under "unconstitutional registration and reporting requirements" and denied "valuable educational and job opportunities" due to failure to register.

The report goes on to say:Revivification opponents caution ERA supporters against an overly broad interpretation of Coleman v. Miller, which, they argue, may have been be [sic] a politically influenced decision.

[192] On December 15, 2024, a group of over 120 Democrats in the House of Representatives, led by Representatives Cori Bush (D-Missouri) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachusetts), sent a letter to outgoing President Joe Biden, arguing that both the deadlines and the revocations were illegitimate, meaning the ERA had been successfully ratified by 38 states, and urging Biden to direct the Archivist of the United States to certify the amendment as part of the Constitution immediately.

[196] At the start of the 112th Congress on January 6, 2011, Senator Menendez, along with representatives Maloney, Jerrold Nadler (D-New York) and Gwen Moore (D-Wisconsin), held a press conference advocating for the Equal Rights Amendment's adoption.

[198] The "New ERA" introduced in 2013, sponsored by Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, adds an additional sentence to the original text: "Women shall have equal rights in the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.

[215] On January 17, 2025, President Biden declared that, in his opinion, the Equal Rights Amendment was the law of the land, stating: "It is long past time to recognize the will of the American people.