The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution to make it unconstitutional to deny equal rights because of a person's sex. Although it has not been added to the U.S. Constitution, the ERA has a long history in U.S. politics. Following closely on the heels of women gaining voting rights in 1920 with the Nineteenth Amendment, the Equal Rights Amendment was introduced to Congress in 1923 by Alice Paul to address other sources of discrimination against women. Although the ERA was introduced in every session of Congress between 1923 and 1972, it was not until 1972 that Congress voted in favor of the amendment and sent it to the states for ratification. By 1982, 35 states had ratified the amendment, falling 3 short of the 38 necessary for ratification. There have been numerous explanations offered for the downfall of the ERA. However, there are two related explanations that provide particularly useful lessons about the nature of power and change in the U.S. political system. First is the general difficulty of amending the U.S. Constitution, and second is the concerted and organized effort by opponents to prevent the ratification of this particular amendment.

Challenges of Amending the Constitution

The process for amending the Constitution is difficult and requires two steps. First, Congress must vote to approve an amendment by a 2/3 vote of the House and Senate. Second, the proposed amendment is sent to the states to be ratified. This step requires 3/4 of state legislatures (or state conventions) to vote for ratification. Therefore, supporters of any constitutional amendment will find it difficult to achieve their goal. The process for adding a constitutional amendment was designed to be difficult so that changes to the Constitution would need overwhelming support to pass. As a consequence of this difficult process, the Constitution has only been amended fewer than 20 times since the addition of the Bill of Rights in 1791. As such, even with relatively widespread support for an Equal Rights Amendment at the time of its proposal, the amending process itself created barriers to its approval.

Obtaining such broad support for an amendment at both the national and state levels is difficult to achieve. When the issue is controversial, ratification becomes even more unlikely; supporters of the status quo are almost always at an advantage because they hold the most political power in states. If the goal is to prevent a proposed amendment from being ratified, opponents of the amendment can simply target their opposition in enough states to prevent ratification. In fact, opponents need an amendment to fail in a mere 13 states for ratification to be blocked which makes blocking an amendment much easier that gaining the 38 states needed for ratification. This was the strategy of opponents to the Equal Rights Amendment: build enough opposition in traditionally conservative states to prevent ratification. A total of 15 states failed to ratify the ERA before the 1982 deadline. Therefore, even though 35 states supported the amendment, the ERA was prevented from passing and guaranteeing equality for women.

Opposition Shapes the Debate

A second explanation for the ERA's failure was the targeted and organized effort by opponents of the amendment. Such groups as Stop ERA, led by Phyllis Schlafly, and Concerned Women for America, led by Beverly LaHaye, employed several strategies to defeat ERA. First, as mentioned above, opponents targeted state legislatures in more conservative states to prevent ratification. Second, those opposed to the ERA effectively redefined the amendment and its supporters in the minds of many people. While ERA's supporters argued the amendment would simply provide equality between women and men in such areas as job opportunities and wages, opponents played on fears that the amendment would change the culture of the American family. Opponents were able to make many people believe that the ERA would lead to the breakdown of traditional roles, harming women who were housewives and mothers. Opponents claimed that the amendment would result in political and legal changes, such as advances for gay and lesbian rights, more liberal abortion policies, and women being drafted and serving in military combat, all of which were opposed in conservative states. Supporters of the ERA were also tagged with such labels as "women's libbers" and "man-haters."

These tactics received enough media attention that support in more conservative states started to wane during the ratification period. Organizations against ERA also encouraged their members to write personal letters of opposition to their state legislators, arguing that ERA was harmful to women. Opponents focused on raising fears about the changes the ERA would bring, while ERA's supporters relied on more abstract arguments about the value of equality between men and women. In such situations, it is more difficult to rally people to political action around abstract principles than it is to rally people around fears. In each of these strategies, opponents had the upper hand, despite the fact that the majority of people in the United States support the Equal Rights Amendment.

Despite its failure in 1982, there are still organizations attempting to get the Equal Rights Amendment ratified. However, some support for the ERA may have waned because many women do not necessarily see a need for an Equal Rights Amendment, due to such factors as the passage of laws that protect against discrimination in education and the workplace as well as the interpretation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which covers many aspects of sexual discrimination. A commentary by members of the National Organization for Women, however, argues that the "Equal Rights Amendment is essential because, without clear acknowledgment of women's rights to equal protection of the law, sex discrimination is not unconstitutional." Similarly, an American Civil Liberties Union statement on their support for the Equal Rights Amendment explains that without the amendment, women's rights concerning sex discrimination are based primarily on laws, and laws can be changed much more easily than constitutional amendments can be.