The Original Fight for the Equal Rights Amendment

After the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, enfranchising (some) women, lots of questions remained. If women could vote, could they serve on juries? Could they hold public office? What about the array of state-laws that still privileged husbands and fathers over wives and daughters in regard to property and earnings rights? In February 1921, Alice Paul, head of the National Woman’s Party declared: “Now that political freedom has been won, we hope to wipe out sex discrimination in law, so that the legal status of women will be self-respecting.” Their strategy to accomplish this, on the advice of legal scholar Professor Albert Levitt of George Washington University was to push for a new constitutional amendment, which became known as the Equal Rights Amendment. Between 1923 and 1932, Congress held six hearings on the ERA, but it faced fierce opposition until the mid-1930s. By the mid-1930s, support for the ERA began to increase dramatically, as congressional subcommittees started to report the amendment favorably nearly every year after 1936. In 1940 the Republican Party added the ERA to its party platform. Four years later the Democratic party did the same. On October 12, 1971, t…