The Issue Spotter

(Source)   The only way to tell photographs of Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) advocates from the 1970s apart from the advocates of the 2010s is by the quality of the photo. Recently, women have taken to the streets, the legislatures, and the courts, coming together to change the Constitution. Their advocacy has paid off. This year, the Virginia legislature became the thirty-eighth state of the thirty-eight states necessary to ratify the ERA. Unfortunately, the ratification may be almost forty years too late. The 1982 deadline for state ratification has long passed. Why has the amendment recently resurged in popularity, and what will happen next? The History of the ERA The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was first introduced in 1923 in Seneca Falls, New York, the birthplace of the women’s suffrage movement. There, celebrating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the 1848 Women’s Rights Convention, Alice Paul introduced the original ERA. The original amendment stated, “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place in its jurisdiction.” The amendment was introduced to Congress the year it was first proposed, but due to resistance from the labor movement, which called for protective laws treating women differently from men, the [read more]