Advocates of civil rights celebrate August 26th as Women’s Equality Day … the anniversary of women’s suffrage with the 19th amendment ratification in 1920. But where does the Equal Rights Amendment now sit, which would offer a much broader protection of civil rights for people of all genders?
The ERA was first suggested back just a few years after women got the right to vote. Equal rights advocates of the time realized voting rights alone wouldn’t guarantee equality in other areas.
“Just giving someone the right to vote, does not enshrine all the other rights that they were trying to get. You have to hope that you can get enough people to show up to vote to make a difference,” said Ciarrai Eaton, Executive Director, Matilda Joslyn Gage Center.
Eaton explained the ERA was originally called the Lucretia Mott Amendment and was written in 1923. Mott was a local New York abolitionist and suffragist. “And then it didn’t pass through Congress,” added Eaton. “And it was proposed every year until 1972 when it was then, passed through congress and it was sent to the states to ratify.”
But the foundations of the ERA go back even further, to 1872. You might remember from history that Susan B. Anthony challenged the constitution by trying to vote, when women were not allowed – even though the 14th amendment granted all people citizenship and enshrined all rights thereof – but not voting. That action caused Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage to write the declaration of rights of women that later became the basis for the ERA.
“It was at that time, Matilda Joslyn Gage said ‘we don’t do this for the women of 1876; we do this for the women of 1976,'” said Eaton. So it is fascinating to me that 100 years after Susan B. Anthony walks in to vote in 1872, the ERA amendment is passed through congress in 1972.”
After the 1972 Congressional vote, the ERA went to the states for ratification, needing 38 to be added to the constitution. Congress placed a 1979 deadline for states to ratify. That was extended to 1982 and after legal challenges, the 38th state finally ratified in 2020. Margaret Susan Thompson, Syracuse University Professor of History and Political Science, said the path was unusual.
“Most constitutional amendments when they’re approved by the Congress and sent out to the states do not have a time limit on them. The don’t say it must be approved in seven years or whatever.”
Debate over the merits – and necessity – for the ERA continued throughout the process, including some states revoking their ratifications. Those moves were challenged in court, leading advocates to claim the amendment has been adopted.
“and some of the things that were raised in the 70’s by those who opposed an ERA have actually happened, for example the idea of women in combat roles in the military. That has happened; it happened without an ERA,” noted Thompson. “Something like bathroom access. First of all there are genderless bathrooms, and then other people would say what do you do about trans people.”
The history has left questions open about the status of what would be the 28th amendment, President Joe Biden earlier this year notably declared in the “law of the land.” It is not currently written into the constitution at the National Archives or the US Constitution Center. It has also left open whether rights beyond voting are guaranteed.
Eaton said the authors of the ERA saw the discrepancies. “There were rights for women to own property, to be in charge of their own bodies, to be able to get divorced. All of those things were part of what they saw as the Women’s Right Movement.”
Thompson noted if universally accepted, the constitutional protections would be significant.
“(the amendment would be) an important symbolic gain. Secondly, I think it would provide a constitutional foundation for cases on equality and equity where this would be a much stronger or certainly a reinforcement of the equal protection clause int eh 14th amendment.”
Tomorrow, the different interpretations of the ERA’s status, possible paths to acceptance as the 28th amendment, and reflections on the contemporary relevance of the issues addressed more than 100 years ago when the ERA was first proposed.