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Perla Juarez HIS 200: Applied History Southern New Hampshire University October 24th, 2020 Historical Analysis Essay The constitution reads that “All men are created equal”, does this include women? To put it simply, no (William & Mary, n.d.). An extraordinary quantity of sex discrimination grievances and suits established the argument that protective labor laws operated as a restriction on women's employment opportunities (see "Civil Rights" in the Law Library American Women guide). The fate of the Equal Rights Amendment is far from decided. From 1972 until 2020 thirty-seven states have ratified the ERA. The reality is, that regardless of the great achievements of women over the years, under the constitution women and men do not have the same rights. The ERA must be ratified in order for women to officially have the same rights and benefits as men. Although the Equal Rights Amendment process has advanced, the amendment needed has not made its official way as part of the constitution. Representative Barbara Jordan made a statement back in 1979 requesting an extension for the ratification deadline ( https://dp.la/primary-sourcesets/the-equal-rights-amendment/sources/1206). Ms. Jordan’s statement is an example of the importance of equal rights. The representative argues that is no “contemporaneous census” on the ERA issues. When this statement was made, it had already taken 50 years for the equal rights progress to have come as far as it had. While analyzing history, we must not ignore that we cannot trust our national legislators to do comprehensive work without the ERA being ratified. In other words, the Supreme Court practices the Constitution in its understanding of biased law,

women will continue to be deprived without an Equal Rights Amendment (William & Mary, n.d.). The Equal Rights Amendment goes far back as 1923. The ERA was passed in congress in 1972 and went to the states for approval. (Equal Rights Amendment, 2019). The amendment stands for equal rights among men and women. This issue was brought to the forefront by Alice Paul, a citizen, who wanted more for women and didn’t just want to rally about it, she wanted to make a real lasting change. If the ERA Amendment gets rectified it would prohibit rejecting equal rights in the United States due to your sexual orientation. From 1972 to 2020 three states have ratified the ERA, these include; Nevada, Illinois, and Virginia. It is unquestionable that many states have already ratified the ERA, nevertheless, a homerun has not been set on the issue. For a better understating of this issue we must read the wording of the amendment, it reads as follows (Equal Rights Amendment, 2014): Section 1: Women shall have equal rights in the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction. 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: Congress and the several States 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. This monumental amendment is not just a simple issue, as you can see, section one mentions women for the first time. This means, that women will now be part of a conversation, part of the same rights as men. Sexual discrimination has been heavily highlighted the past few years and getting this amendment past would bring clarity to this issue. There are groups that take interest in women’s equal rights movement. In the current world, we live in many

companies and political groups are looking to make a change with representation and equality. This means historians, politicians, and voters are shifting their stance and thoughts on the issue of equality in gender. Indeed, there is an argument that we can see explained by Ginsburg, explained as one of the “horrible” of the amendment. This first horrible explains women will lose the benefits of protective labor (Ginsburg, 1973). To further explain opposition on this issue, some also believed that if the amendment was ratified men would no longer have to provide for their wives, that women could be drafted, and that bathrooms would be made unisex. I would argue that this is a small price to pay to be treated equally. Despite the pros and cons of this ratification, as the constitution stands now it does not specify that men and women have equal rights, this is why this issue continues to be stressed and shared. Approving the ERA does not present distinct privileges. What it does, is forbid the United States or any state from rejecting or reducing equality of rights under the law on the justification of sex. The need for The Equal Rights Amendment would offer the country a fresh perspective on the rights and duties of men and women. This amendment discards legislative gray area among the sexes as constitutionally acceptable (Ginsburg, 1973). In its place, it looks toward a legal system in which people will be judged on the basis of singular quality and not on the core of an unchangeable attribute of birth that bears no essential relationship in the matter. An argument can be made that The Equal rights Amendment can teach us to be wiser in terms of past failures, especially when it comes to political issues like equal rights (Kyvig, 1996). It should be noted, that after the ERA was presented, a trickle effect on the women’s rights movement has happened. John F. Kennedy's selected the first President's Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW), chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1960s (Long Road to Equality, 2019). This era was referred to as the second women's rights movement. Despite it

being years after JFK’s presidency, equal rights continue to be a serious and large topic today. Historian Kyvig’s analyses the divisions brought forth by this movement, there has been a substantial separation among suffragists. On one hand, we see people that concentrated on the security of women and children by supporting restraint and opposing child labor. The opposing side of this issue has been a slighter subject that insisted on legal equivalence for women (Kyvig, 1996). As its leader was suffragist Alice Paul. She suggested the Equal Rights Amendment, which was first presented in Congress in 1923. Sadly, the ERA has yet to be ratified. Nevertheless, there has been a rebirth of women’s activism (159 & 139, 2020). We saw it in the Women’s March on Washington to the #MeToo Movement, and also in the number of women elected to Congress and state legislatures in 2018. Along with the issues of gender equality, politicians like the ERA Coalition have put the amendment back in the spotlight. Researching this topic has brought me to a clearer understanding of the women’s rights movement. It is impactful to see how long it has taken to acknowledge that women deserve to have the same rights as men do. This process has enabled me to understand the way I analyze past and present events. Although the slow progression seems to be painful; I am hopeful that in my lifetime I would get to see this change. I It is my hope that this research can enable others to understand the complexity of the Equal Rights Amendment, as well as continue to follow the women's rights movement into success. I would urge future researches to analyze the delays in ratification and how the women’s rights movement today can help gear this issue in a positive direction. The ERA remains essential and important achieving sexual equality.

References A statement by Representative Barbara Jordan on May 18, 1978, requesting an extension of the 1979 deadline for ERA ratification. | DPLA. (n.d.). Dp.La. Retrieved September 23, 2020, from https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-equal-rights-amendment/sources/1206 Equal Rights Amendment. (2014). Equal Rights Amendment. https://www.equalrightsamendment.org/faq Ginsburg, R. B. (1973). The Need for the Equal Rights Amendment. American Bar Association Journal, 59(9), 1013–1019. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25726416? seq=7#metadata_info_tab_contents Kyvig, D. E. (1996). Historical Misunderstandings and the Defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment. The Public Historian, 18(1), 45–63. https://doi.org/10.2307/3377881 159, & 139. (2020). The Equal Rights Amendment Explained. Brennan Center for Justice. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/equal-rights-amendmentexplained Research Guides: American Women: Topical Essays: The Long Road to Equality: What Women Won from the ERA Ratification Effort. (2019). Loc.Gov. https://guides.loc.gov/americanwomen-essays/era-ratification-effort William, amp;, & Mary. (n.d.). The Equal Rights Amendment: Why the Era Remains Legally Viable and Properly Before the States Repository Citation. Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice, 3. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi? article=1271&context=wmjowl...