On March 22nd, 1972, the U.S. Senate passed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), sending it to states for ratification. This amendment, guaranteeing equal legal rights regardless of sex, was a pivotal moment in the fight for gender equality. Proposed in 1923, the ERA faced strong opposition for nearly five decades before gaining momentum in the 1960s and 70s. Despite falling short of ratification, the ERA's passage significantly impacted the conversation on gender equality, and its influence continues today. The ERA served as a powerful reminder that the fight for women's rights, ignited by the suffrage movement decades earlier, was far from over. It helped fuel the rise of the modern women's movement.
Test your knowledge of the ERA with this quiz: The Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Interested in learning more? Check out these resources from the library databases:
Books
By engaging deeply with American legal and political history as well as the increasingly rich material on gender history, Gendered Citizenship: The Original Conflict over the Equal Rights Amendment, 1920-1963 illuminates the ideological contours of the original struggle over the ERA from 1920 to 1963.
Political Women: The Women's Movement, Political Institutions, the Battle for Women's Suffrage and the ERA explores this question regarding the women's movement in the U.S., asking under what conditions are Congress and the presidency responsive to the women's movement, and when will the women's movement gain access to Congress and the presidency?
In Constructive Feminism: Women's Spaces and Women's Rights in the American City, Daphne Spain examines the deliberate and unintended spatial consequences of feminism's second wave, a social movement dedicated to reconfiguring power relations between women and men.
Videos
Think the U.S. Constitution protects equal rights for women? Think again!
The Equal Rights Amendment: A Woman’s Prerogative is the untold story of the ERA. In Shirley Chisholm - Equal Rights For Women, Shirley Chisholm, the first African American Woman elected to Congress, addresses the U.S. House of Representatives to argue in support of a controversial women’s rights bill: the Equal Rights Amendment.
Equal Means Equal is an unflinching look at how women are treated in the United States today. By following both real-life stories and precedent-setting legal cases, director Kamala Lopez discovers how outdated and discriminatory attitudes inform and influence seemingly disparate issues, from workplace matters to domestic violence, rape & sexual assault to the foster care system, the healthcare system, and the legal system.
Carrie Woodhouse is the library's project manager and oversees many of the library's day-to-day processes. She enjoys taking walks and regularly visits a murder of crows in her neighborhood, who now recognize her when she's out and about.