As someone who was too young at the time to fully appreciate the complexities of the political process at the time, I never understood why the Equal Rights Amendment was never passed. On the one hand, it seems a no-brainer, a basic statement of obvious human rights. However, trying to research online the reasons why it wasn’t passed produces a whole bunch of feminist fruitcakery, including some who insist the amendment technically passed and is in effect. The Wikipedia entry states that the original support for the amendment was among conservative women, while labor unions and “New Deal” types virulently opposed it–an exact flip-flop of the typical cliches and stereotypes of the political left and right.
My idle speculation is that the trouble stems from the second clause of the amendment as proposed: “The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” That seems, in an era when people are arguing the constitutionality of mandating health insurance coverage, a loophole big enough through which to ram all sorts of trouble.
Well, a clause allowing for congressional enforcement is par for the course for most constitutional amendments.
Really, the reason it was not ratified is twofold:
After approval by Congress, it had a deadline for state ratification of seven years, and was considered a low priority amongst the turmoil of the 1970s.
It was largely pointless. Every state already has some recognition of equal rights for the both sexes in its constitution or statutes, and a body of caselaw supporting the same. (Obviously the term “equal rights” is very broad and open to a great deal of interpretation; the ERA would not have changed that in any respect.) Many state legislatures were wary of ratifying an amendment that would expand federal power without really accomplishing anything.
By the time the ERA began to reach the level of popularity that would make ratification politcally feasible, its perceived necessity had begun to diminish. Many of the traditional gender inequities had already begun to dissolve. At the same time, the new conservative movement allied itself with the traditional anti-ERA forces to stop the process, symbolizing the end of liberal ideas. Stories were spread that the ERA would force the end of seperate bathrooms for men and women and force young women to serve in the military. So it didn’t pass, and it’s turned out to be unnecessary anyway.
There was also concern that it would somehow negatively affect things like child support, alimony, and maternity benifits. IANAL, but if passed the ETA would raise the standard of review for sex discrimination from “intermediate scrutiny” to “strict scrutiny” (on par with racial discrimination). I’m not sure what the actual effect would be in practice.
What are/were the “traditional anti-ERA forces”? What, aside from pure misogyny, is the justification for opposing equality for all?
What were Schlafly’s grounds for opposing the ERA?
Why did some states ratify it and then rescind their ratification? The various websites and histories are eager to explain the what and how, but not the why.
The anti-ERA forces got their passion from traditionalists who had never accepted the idea, and were still unsettled by women’s suffrage. Besides the draft and bathrooms, there was the job situation. Women had been excluded from many jobs that were considered dangerous or too physically taxing. Women were also still considered to emotional for positions of authority, and if given jobs they would just get pregnant and quit, or even worse, not quit and leave their children to be raised by strangers.
Added to that were the anti-liberal forces who opposed anything liberals were for, and they didn’t need further justification. Among the others were some who simply felt the Constitution already granted women equal rights and considered the ERA unnecessary.
ETA: I couldn’t tell you why any individual made their decision, but at that level, it was probably just the politics of the moment.
We have had Great Debates on the ERA a few times over the years free for the searching if you want some more info from here. My basic take is that there is symbolic equality made as a statement and pure legal equality.
The basic problem is that many people, both male and female, are concerned what the ERA would actually DO and it isn’t up to the people that drafted it to get to pick after the fact. That depends on the court cases brought before the Supreme Court and the decisions based on those decide its effects. You can’t add symbolic amendments into the U.S. Constitution without expecting literal interpretations of them at some point no matter what any one group wants. We haven’t had a draft for a long time but it seems obvious to many that any future draft or anything to do with the U.S. military would have to be sex blind and few people truly want that. Likewise, many people dismiss the idea of same sex bathrooms as being an issue with the ERA but it would have to be on federal property at least because the idea that things can be separate and equal at the same time was shot down a long time ago.
The list goes on and on and it isn’t always dependent on misogyny. The fact that you say that indicates a bias as well. You are making the assumption that it would tend to benefit females when that isn’t known. It could be the opposite in many contexts. Listing things physical job requirements by sex could be forbidden and hurt female candidates and federally sex based affirmative action initiatives could all be struck down in one fell swoop. Divorce and child custody arrangements may have to change from their present defaults although that could be a good thing from the male perspective. No one knows the end result so that is a big reason to let things be handled by specific circumstances rather than by a sweeping constitutional amendment.
Shagnasty, it seems pretty clear to me that the idea of same sex bathrooms can be dismissed as being an issue, because otherwise all those states that have recognition of equal rights for both sexes in their constitution or statues would have same sex bathrooms.
On a related note, it’s important not to leave out the Religious Right as a force that eventually stopped passage of the ERA dead in its tracks when it sought approval in the Bible Belt states. In fact, opposition to the ERA was one of the issues that Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and others used to organize Christian conservatives into a political bloc whose influence is still important more than 30 years later (esepcially in the Republican Party).
One of the arguments used by ERA opponents was homophobia. The proposed amendment said “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” While this was written to mean that there could be no discrimination based on gender, some opponents argued it could be interpreted to cover sexual orientation.
Quite right. I just lumped them in with the other traditionalist forces. But at that time their strength was growing, and they were becoming a more dominant force than the old ‘country club’ and ‘good old days’ types.
As others have said, a lot of the equality issues had been addressed at the state level and a majority of people felt that a new, overlapping federal mandate was neither necessary or desirable. I also recall a perception that the ERA as written would dictate not equality but special rights and privileges for a certain segment of the populace. I don’t recall enough of the particulars to know whether that was actually the case or just conservative scare-mongering, but a lot of people thought that way.
SS
I know that in the US, there was an Equal Pay Act (1963) to guarantee that women would get paid the same as men for the same job and the Civil Rights Act (1964) prevented discrimination against women by companies. So even after the 19th Amendment there was need of laws to guarantee women equal rights.
I’m asking for the exact wording of the prohibition that currently bars various establishments from maintaining separate restrooms for, um, “whites” and “coloreds”.
Calling it a women’s rights initiative today shows bias in and of itself and is not referenced anywhere in the actual amendment. That is an actual GQ answer.
The ERA text:
"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."
It is an extremely vague amendment calling for equality among all people regardless of sex and presuming it would have benefits for one sex more than another or possibly even undesirable outcomes for females is not known based on the amendment itself.