The Importance Of The Equal Rights Amendment In The United States

The constitution's 14th amendment is to protect the right of all citizens, but that does not guarantee the discrimination of the sex. The equal rights movement would make a better standard for deciding on cases of sex discrimination. The 14th amendment does not protect anyone from sex discrimination. The ERA would provide legal defense to women's rights. This amendment would help all humanity, not just women.

After more than 200 years of living under the United States Constitution and despite all of the progress women have made, they still to this day continue to suffer discrimination in employment, insurance, health care, education, the criminal justice system, social security and pensions, and just about any other area you can name.

In 1921, women were granted suffrage, but suffragists were still hungry for more. Knowing that the right to vote would not eliminate sex discrimination in America, Alice Paul wrote the Equal Rights Amendment to step closer to equality. After half a century of struggle, women in America are still fighting for rights that men were given to when they were born. Even though women are just as intelligent, capable and hardworking as men, if not more, they are not considered an equal under the U.S. Constitution. Can you believe that today, in the 21st century, we still degrade women and treat them as inferiors to men? Can you believe that just because you are a woman, you are less than equal to the male population? Look around you, all those boys and girls are not equal to each other under our “just” country’s laws. As it is long overdue, the Equal Rights Amendment should be ratified because there is no other amendment that talks about sex discrimination, it would eliminate any inequality in regards to sex, and it would make the judicial stance on sex discrimination cases much clearer.

The Equal Protection Clause derives from the Fourteenth Amendment, which specifies “no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws…” As a part of the Reconstruction Amendments, the aforementioned clause was meant to ensure racial equality in the Reconstruction Period and has been applied successfully against the affirmative action. Introduced in United States v. Carolene Products Co., the strict scrutiny has been applied to the cases, in which a fundamental constitutional rights have been infringed or a government action applies to a suspect classification (i.e. race, religion, national background). Specifically, in regards to Bakke v. Regents of University of California, the Supreme Court (“the Court”) concluded that, considering that the University of California, Davis received several Caucasian applicants for its special admission program in 1973 and 1974 and that none of the applicants received the admission to the program since the start, the program unfairly administered in favor of minority races and, therefore, violated the rights of the white applicants under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Furthermore, from Hopwood v. State of Texas, the Fifth Circuit Court ruled under strict scrutiny that, the affirmative action imposed by the University of Texas School of Law (“the law school”) violates the Fourteenth Amendment since neither the law school nor the University of Texas system has proved a proof of

Women’s rights have improved drastically since that time but there still is a stigma that men are better than women. This type of view is wrong and shouldn’t even be thought about in the world we live into today. Woman server a great purpose in the world we live in and should be considered equal in all aspects of life. If one were to ponder this idea seriously we can see without out women no children are born. The sad truth is that women still have to fight for their rights in every aspect of their daily lives. The typical women in society makes only .70 cents for every dollar that a man would make doing the same job. One would think that one hundred and fifty years later women would be considered equal counterparts to men. “There has been progress toward greater workplace equality, but we still have a long ways to

Since the 1920’s, women have been fighting for equal rights. Women’s groups spent decades working to pass laws that would ban gender discrimination. Finally, in 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment was passed by Congress even though

still lag behind men, we need an Equal Rights Amendment more than ever (Hennessey 3). The real issue, claim some supporters, is the "right to bodily integrity, and without this basic right, women can have no true freedom" (NOW 2). Legal sex discrimination is not a thing of the past, and the progress of the last forty years is not irreversible without the protection of an amendment (Francis 1).Feminist claim that "The ERA's most valuable effect would be the psychological victory it would provide women" (Steiner 35). Women are underpaid in the workforce, required to pay higher insurance premiums and are half as likely as men to get pensions (NOW 4). Supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment remind us of a traditional assumption, ‘Men hold rights and women must prove that they hold them" (Francis 2). Supporter claim amazement that, "Even in the twenty first century, the United States Constitution does not explicitly guarantee that all the rights it protects are held equally by all citizens" (Francis 4). Supporters of the Equal Rights Amendment believe that "unless we put into the Constitution the bedrock principle that equality of rights cannot be denied or abridged on account of sex, the political and judicial victories women have achieved with their blood, sweat and tears for the past two

During the 20th century, male and females were not being treated equally a lot of women started getting mad because they weren’t getting jobs or the right to vote as men, so it led to the Civil Rights Movement, the Equal Rights Amendment was involved, because women weren’t treated equally or given the same rights as males. The Civil RIghts Movement was when there was a lot of racism and black and white people weren’t given the same rights, it was unfair to the black because they couldn’t do so many things like vote and also there was sex discrimination. In 1923, Alice Paul, leader and founder of the National Woman’s Party, considered that ERA should be the next step in the 19th Amendment in granting equal justice under the law to both sexes, male and female, in the U.S. Alice Paul said “ We women of America tell you that America is not a democracy. Twenty million women are denied the right to vote.” A text from the amendment said “Equal of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

The Equal Rights Amendment proposition to the United States Constitution was sent down to the state level in 1972, but was met by an organized opposition of religious conservative women trying to save the country and the family home from the secularizing transition to modernity. The ERA embodied all the fears of the conservative woman.

The history of the Equal Rights Amendment can be closely related to women’s rights advocacy, that started toward the very beginning of the history of the United States dating back to the days of Abigail Adams. The United States constitution had been first interpreted as rights granted to certain white males, leaving other majority groups suppressed and working for equal rights.

In September 1972, I started STOP ERA, which is a nationwide organization dedicated to prevent ratification of the amendment. I also published a monthly newsletter. Most people believe that these efforts were responsible for preventing ratification of the equal rights amendment. My supporters and I were successful in convincing women that the ERA was the front

The Equal Rights Amendment was first proposed in 1923 by The National Women's Party, but it was originally written in 1921 by suffragist, Alice Paul. It first stated that, "Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction." Alice Paul first intorduced the amendment as the "Lucretia Mott Amendment." The ERA's biggest success waa being passed by both houses of Congress in 1972, but quickly fell short when it received only 22 of the 38 needed state ratifications. As time passed, the passing of the ERA was slowed with only 8 ratfications in 1973, 3 in 1974, 1 in 1975, and none in 1976. In 1977, Indiana became the 35th, and the last, state to ratify the ERA. In this year, Alice Paul

Decades after the National Women’s Party pushed for the passage of their proposed Equal Rights Amendment, feminists of the 1960s and 70s rallied once again for this change in the Constitution. The amendment, simply stating that, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex,” quickly gained popularity among activists in the 1970s. This support was not surprising, as this decade was a time of great change and protest. Feminist felt that just as African Americans were gaining civil rights, women, too, should be considered as equals to their counterparts. Women Right’s leaders such as Alice Paul and Gloria Steinem pushed for the passage of such major legislation. With support from Women’s Right’s groups such as the National Organization of Women, the amendment quickly made its’ way to Congress.

In 1960 only 22% of women were employed but now almost 70% percent are employed. While women's equality isn’t quite where it should be, equality has progressed significantly. Awarding women a minority group status will speed up the process. When women get more chances they can show their ability to take on any task a man can and would positively affect every women. However passing an ERA would provide little help to some women but also leave women like Phyllis Schlafly forced to participate in activities they have no intention of

Females gained total equality with men upon the passage of the 19th amendment. I disagree with this statement. Women still are not equal with men. Men are allowed to do jobs such as welding and fire fighting, women are told its going to be too hard or not given the opportunity to prove that they can do that particular job. Females earn less than a man in the same career. According to a recent CareerBuilder survey, your gender may affect what you expect to get out of your career. Men and women tend to hold widely different views on what level of job and annual salary they will reach during their lifetime.Men are more likely than women to expect higher job levels during their career. Feb 24, 2017