The "Equal Rights Amendment" 35 years later.

[pampango]

The thread "Male/Female Only Classrooms" here at GD got me thinking about the ERA.

I am certainly no constitutional expert, but I am wondering if the ERA had passed, what would its impact be on the debate about one gender classes or schools?

Though the ERA didn't pass, did it generate the discussion and momentum that has led to progress for women in the succeeding 35 years? Would it pass today, if reintroduced? The RW would still oppose it, but would there be enough support on the left? Would the middle consider the amendment to be superfluous now, with its objectives largely achieved in the last three decades?

[BayCityProgressive]

1. What are all of it's objectives?

is it a constitutional ammendment??

[bluethruandthru]

2. Here it is

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 has not been ratified. Only 35 states have ratified it out of the necessary 38.

[Totallybushed]

4. And didn't time run out on it.

If I remember correctly, it wouldn't do any good for 3 states to ratify it now, the time for ratification has come and gone, and it would have to be re-introduced by Congress.

Besides that, didn't several states rescind their ratification? I remember a big stink about it at the time.

[bluethruandthru]

5. Yes.

Well, I guess technically, there has been some debate about that. I think most people would agree that in order to be revived, it would have to be ratified again.

[CTyankee]

6. There is a push for the remaining 3 states. Here's why:

After the "time ran out"on the ERA, another proposed amendment to the Constitution (which had nothing to do with the ERA), which had been ratified only a few states short of full ratification, was passed by the necessary states and added to the Constitution. It had lain dormant since the early 1800s. Based on this precedent a group of feminists have formed a campaign to get ratification in the 3 states needed for the ERA. They are at work in several states to get ratification. Here is their latest newsletter:

THE ERA CAMPAIGNER Issue #23, January 29, 2007



The Email Newsletter of the ERA Campaign Network



We are a nationwide network of organizations and activists working to complete the ratification and addition to the US Constitution of the Equal Rights Amendment: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." This amendment, once achieved, will finally guarantee to the women of America the fully equal rights that should have been their birthright many years ago.



ARKANSAS: Looking good for ratification in 2007!

Leaders and members of ERA Arkansas, Arkansas units of BPW, AAUW, League of Women Voters and NOW; the Arkansas Education Association; all the Arkansas constitutional officers from governor and lieutenant governor on down; many members of the Arkansas legislature; and many other Arkansans passionate to have their state be the next one to ratify the ERA, have been hard at work. They filled the rotunda of the State House in Little Rock for an enthusiastic ERA rally on January 24, with many prominent speakers. Their hopes (and the hopes of ERA supporters all over the country) are now high that the Arkansas legislature WILL ratify the ERA within the next few weeks.

The ratification bills were filed in both houses of the legislature on January 24, by Rep. Lindsley Smith and Sen. Sue Madison. As of today, there are 68 cosponsors of the ratification resolution in the House, with only 51 votes required to pass. In the Senate, there are 11 cosponsors (plus three more pledged votes) thus far, with more expected soon; 18 votes will be needed to pass.



HOW YOU CAN HELP:

If you know equal rights minded Arkansas residents, please ask them to contact their legislators and urge them to support, cosponsor, and vote for the ERA resolutions!
Contact the national headquarters and/or your local unit of organizations such as those listed above, and urge them to help the Arkansas effort. (To reach ERA Arkansas, contact Berta Seitz, our ERA Campaign Network Arkansas coordinator, e-mail [e-mail], telephone [phone].)
Contribute funds (any amount is welcome), to help cover the out-of-pocket expenses of our volunteers all around the country. Checks, made out to the ERA Campaign Network, can be mailed to our treasurer, Esther Gelbard, 9A Betsy Ross Drive, Monroe Township, NJ 08831, email [e-mail].
For more information on the ERA and the 3-state strategy to achieve it, visit our website, www.ERACampaign.net.

NOTE: Please email the [e-mail] (or telephone [phone]) if:

Your email address is changing (please give us both your old and new address)
You prefer not to receive any more issues of this newsletter.
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[Totallybushed]

8. Interesting.

I used to live in Arkansas, and could have had some input, if I still did.

Thanks for the info.

[Hosnon]

13. Unless the Amendment specifically indicates a time limit, the Court has indicated

that the time must be "reasonable".

Another poster pointed out the compensation amendment. That thing was very old. The Equal Rights Amendment is not dead yet...

[Solo_in_MD]

7. Hasn't at least one tried to withdraw its ratification?

And IIRC there is supposed to be a time limit on ratification. I assume it has expired.

[niyad]

10. the ERA is one of the very few amendments that actually had a time limit for ratification attached

to it, which many people at the time thought was unfair--and sexist.

it will be interesting to see if the democratic congress does any better on the re-introduced bill, than the repuke majority these last years.

[CTyankee]

11. Also the parameters of the debate have changed dramatically

Phyllis Shafly made a big deal about unisex bathrooms and jungle warfare. That seems quaint given the coed dorms and modern warfare of today. But the ERA debate was back in 1980. Women were fighting to get into WEst Point and Annapolis and today nobody has an issue with that. Women are an integral part of our armed services today and they are dying and coming back with terrible wounds the same as men (altho not in the same numbers).

I don't know what the fuss would be today about quietly passing the ERA in the remaining 3 states and allowing it to takes its place as a Constitutional amendment. It might give Shafly a heart attack, of course, but that wouldbe her own problem.

[CTyankee]

12. That would appear not to be true because of what I discussed

regarding the amendment that was just lying dormant until revived and passed a few years ago, thus giving rise to the current push for the ERA. If nothing more, it established a precedent.

[hfojvt]

3. In 1980, Governor Wild Bill Janklow gave a talk at my school

He said that the ERA was superfluous, since women already had equal rights under the law. I mentioned that to some women in a discussion and they said, 'then why not pass it?'

I get the feeling that it may have caused more lawsuits, more of the time. I am not sure if Title IX came out of it, or the discussion.

But what is 'progress' for women, or for society?

[CTyankee]

9. I was working for the League of Women Voters in DC at the time of theERA

campaign. The ERA was defeated for 2 major reasons: The emotional reason was "Your daughter will be drafted and sent off to a bloody war in the jungle" . Remember, our last war at that time had been Vietnam and it was fresh in everyone's memory. The non-emotional reason was the 14th amendment, which had been successfully used by feminist attorneys such as Ruth Bader Ginsberg to topple many discriminatory laws against women. So it was argued as you pointed out, that it wasn't "needed." But the 14th amendment doesn't do everything. The suffragists tried it in their fight to get women the vote. When they were thwarted in that attempt they went the route of constitutional amendment.

I think the ERA must be in the Constitution, in order for female citizens to be truly equal. As a society, we can figure out what to do from there.

[Katherine Brengle]

15. I wouldn't hold your breath...

I agree with you, but people just don't care (the majority of people anyway) about the ERA, and never did.

[Katherine Brengle]

14. The ERA would never pass in this country.

We live in a way more fucked up society than we like to admit most of the time.