The Promise of the Equal Rights Amendment Is More Urgent than Ever
Originally published by Carmen Rios for Ms. Magazine
“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” Those are the 24 words that make up the Equal Rights Amendment—and they’ve been a rallying cry for feminists for over a century.
The Equal Rights Amendment was sent to the states for ratification the same year Ms. made its newsstand debut. It took nearly 50 years to bring the ERA to a successful vote in the Senate and House; and today, more than 50 years since, the fight to enshrine it in the Constitution goes on.
“As soon as we get this in the Constitution,” former Nevada state Sen. Pat Spearman says, “people are going to look at this the same way my generation looks at, ‘You couldn’t sit where on the bus?’ ‘What do you mean you couldn’t go in through the front door in Dairy Queen? What do you mean that you had to have a court order to integrate schools?’”