I thought I would write about something different than COVID- 19 this week. It is hard to focus on anything else, but I guess there is more then the pandemic. Still thinking about you all and hoping you are all OK. It hard to imagine how tough it is for you all. With FX’s miniseries coming out about the ERA I thought I would give a bit of history first. Stay safe and good luck.
Equal Rights Amendment
If you are watching more TV than normal, then you may be seeing ads for FX’s upcoming miniseries called “Mrs. America.” The show is about Phyllis Schlafly’s successful lobbying against the Equal Rights Amendment. Knowing that Hollywood struggles with showing the truth and also believing that women’s history is often one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented, I thought I would give a bit about the history before the show airs.
The ERA as we know it today was put forward in 1971. It reads as follows: Section 1: Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Section 2: The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. Section 3: This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.
One large misunderstanding comes from who did and who did not vote for the ERA. There is often the misconception that the old men sitting in Congress were against women’s equality, especially conservative men. However, there was overwhelming support for women by both parties in Congress. The House voted in favor 354 to 24, while the Senate voted yea 84 to 8. The President has no role in the amendment process, but Nixon put his support behind the measure anyway. What tripped up the ERA was the next part of the process: three-fourths of the states must also ratify the new amendment.
So if the old men of Congress approved of the ERA, who fought against it? The answer was women. It was women who were part of the silent majority that suddenly became vocal. Advocates for the ERA were suddenly put into a bind – how to fight against the very people they were claiming to support. One of the failures of the ERA came from the feminist movement itself, as seen from a line in The Feminist Mystique: “It was ...
