The Equal Rights Amendment, or at least the proposed ERA, has been around for almost 100 years. But at this juncture, the question of where it goes from here is very much alive.
The ERA got its start in 1923, when the first Congressional hearing on the proposed amendment was held.
Its purpose is simple: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”
However, the push for the ERA stalled until the 1960s, when a revived women’s movement thrust it again into the national consciousness. This time, Congress passed the bill and sent it back to the states for ratification on March 22, 1972. A deadline for ratification was set for 1979.
However, the amendment failed, falling three states short of the required three-fourths (38) needed for ratification.
Visible leaders sprung up on both sides.
Author and journalist Gloria Steinem argued that the opposition was rooted in outmoded ideas about gender. In an essay she wrote in 1970, Steinem argued against the premise that “women are biologically inferior to men.
“In fact, an equally good case can be made for the reverse.” she wrote. “However, I don’t want to prove the superiority of one sex to another. That would only be repeating a male mistake.”
Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative advocate, led the opposition, and argued that the ERA would take away gender-specific roles that women enjoyed, including “dependent wife” benefits under Social Security, separate bedrooms for males and females, and exemption from the draft.
Although she met with vehement opposition from groups such as the National Organization for Women (NOW), her opposition was enough to keep 15 states from ratifying the ERA.
However, in 2017, Nevada affirmed, and a year later so did Illinois. The final state, Virginia, ratified it in January 2020.
But the legality of the final three states has been thrown into question, and as recently as last Friday a federal judge in Washington, D.C. ruled that the votes of the last three states are not valid as they were well past the established deadline. In all likelihood, the ERA will end up being argued before the U.S. Supreme Court.
There’s no doubt from two of the area’s female state legislators about what the court should decide.
“It has to be in the Constitution,” said state Rep. Sally Kerans, who represents parts of Peabody and Middleton as well as Danvers. “You need those standards to be in writing.”
State Rep. Lori Ehrlich of Marblehead agrees.
“Women still fight discrimination,” she said. “Things have changed for the better in the 13 years I’ve served (in the state legislature). We have made progress, but there’s still a long way to go … especially in the rest of the country.”
Kerans alluded to the fact that it’s difficult for people in Massachusetts to sometimes understand what goes on in other parts of the country with respect to women’s rights.
“I think in Massachusetts we found another way to primarily get women elected,” she said. “But the ERA faded a little bit into the background, maybe nationally. But the battles continue. The battle for abortion rights continues, right up until now. We are not yet in the post-misogynist period. We’re not past the point where (the ERA) would not be helpful. The anti-feminist voices are very active.”
Peabody City Councilor Anne Manning-Martin points out another reason she believes the ERA is still essential: many cities, Peabody included, have antiquated language in their city charters.
Peabody’s charter, said Manning-Martin, “limits women to serving only on the School Committee, prohibits women from seeking a seat on the City Council and refers to the mayor as ‘he,'” she said. “To say that Peabody’s charter screams for more contemporary language to include women would be an understatement. We need to get with the times, however late.”
Ehrlich feels that there’s still a place for the celebration of events such as Women’s History Month.
“Until women reach parity in the halls of power, I think there’s still a good purpose to designating a time to recognize the women’s movement over the years,” she said. “Even in Massachusetts, even if we’re doing better than in many other states in terms of politics, we’re still in the legislature, at about 30 percent women when women are actually a majority in the population.”
