A Century Is Enough: Let’s Pass the Equal Rights Amendment

Hundreds of women’s rights advocates gathered in nearby Seneca Falls two weeks ago to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the first women’s rights convention—and to mark July 21 as the 100-year anniversary of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).

A simple, 23-word statement, the ERA would provide constitutional protection for women’s rights, ensuring equality in areas like employment and health care. And yet, a century after it was first introduced, the ERA has yet to be added to the Constitution. 

“Right now, we’re not protected from discrimination,” former New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney told New York City-based Fox 5 News. “My entire life I’ve worked on and passed bills for equal pay for equal work, but none of them are enforceable. If you had equal rights in the constitution, you could enforce equal pay for equal work. It’s that simple.”

President Biden has pledged to sign the ERA if it reaches his desk, but it won’t get there without unwavering political will from Congress.

The will was there in the early 1970s, when the U.S. House and Senate passed an ERA and sent it on to the states to be ratified. But the measure was still three states short of the required 38 when the 1979 deadline passed, and no additional states signed on during a subsequent three-year extension.

Then, starting in 2017, Illinois, Nevada and Virginia approved the ERA, bringing the total to 38. 

Opponents argued that because the original deadline passed 40 years earlier the issue is moot. An appeals court in Washington, DC, rejected a request to add the ERA to the Constitution just last February.

The current opposition has thus far remained relatively drama-free, a departure from the culture wars sparked by the ERA in the 1970s. The language of the amendment is simple and straightforward: “Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.” But detractors spun nightmare scenarios, claiming it would undermine the family, cost American women the protection of fathers and husbands and leave women vulnerable to the military draft. They also claimed the ERA would lead to coed bathrooms and the promotion of homosexual marriage

Forty years later the draft has been abolished, coed bathrooms and gay marriage came into being even without the ERA and a great many women have found they are fully capable of supporting and protecting themselves. We’ve made enormous strides toward elevating the status of women and people across the gender spectrum.

At the same time, here we are in the 21st Century, facing attacks on our rights at the federal, state and local levels. Our right to abortion was struck down by six unelected justices with lifelong appointments, in spite of overwhelming public sentiment in favor of leaving that decision to a woman and her doctor. That same Supreme Court majority is now eying past decisions on gay marriage and birth control with the same bad intent. 

Clearly, there is still work to be done. The distinct absence of an explicit prohibition against sex discrimination in the Constitution remains the key impediment to attaining gender equality and women’s progress overall. The ERA is an important tool that will help us accomplish real progress, now and in the future.

Ratifying the amendment would likely provide additional support for new and existing protections against sex discrimination in the workplace, in access to reproductive health care and in areas like gender-based violence. Broader, more in-depth understanding of the ERA would signal protections for groups outside the ERA sphere; rally public support for the Violence Against Women Act and Title IX, and raise resistance to Pay Discrimination and Pregnancy Discrimination. 

Now is the time to hold politicians accountable for ratifying the ERA and fulfilling its promise of gender equality. We all stand to benefit, and we can all help:

• Read more about the ERA’s history, and the reasons why its passage is so important right now.

• Sign the petition calling on Congress to validate the federal ERA as the 28th Amendment to the Constitution. 

• Vote for the New York State ERA, which will be on the ballot in 2024.

Linda Hoffmann is Chair of the Tompkins County Democratic Committee. The Democratic View appears the first week of each month in Tompkins Weekly. Email editorial@vizellamedia.com with questions.