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The Equal Rights Amendment Reconsidered: Politics, Policy, and Social Mobilization in a Democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2009

Donald T. Critchlow  and
Cynthia L. Stachecki
Donald T. Critchlow
Affiliation:
Saint Louis University
Cynthia L. Stachecki
Affiliation:
Saint Louis University
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Extract

In the early 1970s, fifty years after its first appearance in the U.S. Congress, the Equal Rights Amendment came the closest it ever would to ratification. The ERA declared: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” After sailing through Congress in 1972 with bipartisan support, the amendment went to the states for ratification. The response was positive and immediate: Hawaii approved the ERA the same day, twenty-one other states approved it before the end of the year, and eight more states the following year. Yet, by 1982 the amendment lay dead, having fallen three states short of the thirty-eight states needed for ratification.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 157 - 176
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 2008

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References

Notes

1. In his 1996 prize-winning Explicit and Authentic Acts: Amending the U.S. Constitution, 1776–1995, historian David Kyvig challenges the view that the constitutional process failed in the case of the ERA. While Kyvig judges the ratification process a success in that it achieved what the Founding Fathers envisioned in drafting Article V, he believes that the ERA might have won ratification had supporters pursued different strategies. He declares, “The process for achieving constitutional change demanded a consensus beyond what the proponents of reformed gender relationships could fashion” in a contentious political environment. Placing the ERA ratification debate in a larger historical perspective, he defends the importance of constitutional amendment as a means of ensuring “the durability of fundamental reforms in governmental structure and obligation.” Kyvig, David, Explicit and Authentic Acts: Amending the U.S. Constitution, 1776–1995 (Lawrence, Kans., 1996), 418, xiiGoogle Scholar.

2. For an interactive approach considering these factors, see Soule, Sarah A. and Olzak, Susan, “When Do Movements Matter? The Politics of Contingency and the Equal Rights Amendment,” American Sociological Review 69 (08 2004): 473–497CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. The importance of social mobilization within a favorable political environment in positively influencing social policy is argued by Amenta, Edwin, Dunleavy, Kathleen, and Bernstein, Mary, in “Stolen Thunder? Huey Long's ‘Share Our Wealth,’ Political Mediation, and the Second New Deal,” American Sociological Review 59 (10 1994): 678–702Google Scholar; Amenta, Edwin and Young, Michael P., “Making an Impact: Conceptual and Methodological Implications of the Collective Goods Criterion,” in Giugni, Marc, McAdam, Doug, and Tilly, Charles, eds., How Social Movements Matter (Minneapolis, 1999), 22–41Google Scholar; Kriesi, Hanspeter et al. , New Social Movements in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis, Vol. 5, Social Movements, Protest, and Contention (Minneapolis, 1995)Google Scholar; and to some extent in Amenta, , Bold Relief (Princeton, 2000)Google Scholar. For political mobilization and countermobilization, see Meyer, David S. and Staggenborg, Suzanne, “Movements, Countermovements, and the Structure of Political Opportunity,” American Journal of Sociology 101 (05 1996): 1628–1660Google Scholar. For an interesting slant on the importance of political climate for understanding successful feminist campaigns, see McCammon, Holly et al. , “How Movements Win: Gendered Opportunity Structures and U.S. Women's Suffrage Movements, 1866–1919,” American Sociological Review 66 (02 2001): 49–70Google Scholar.

4. For a useful study of ERA that integrates structural problems inherent in the amendment process as well as the failure of ERA activists to win over state legislators, see Mansbridge, Jane J., Why We Lost the ERA (Chicago, 1986)Google Scholar. The emergence of the New Right and ERA is explored in Mathews, and De Hart, , Sex, Gender and the Politics of ERA A State and the Nation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Burris, Val, “Who Opposed the ERA? An Analysis of the Social Bases of Antifeminism,” Social Science Quarterly 64 (06 1983): 305–317Google Scholar; and Conover, Pamela Johnston and Gray, Virginia, Feminism and the New Right: Conflict Over the American Family (New York, 1983)Google Scholar.

5. Mansbridge, Why We Lost the ERA; and Berry, Mary Frances, Why ERA Failed: Politics, Women's Rights, and the Amending Process of the Constitution (Bloomington, 1986)Google Scholar.

6. Critchlow, Donald T., Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism: A Woman's Crusade (Princeton, 2005)Google Scholar.

7. Donald G. Mathews and Jane Sherron DeHart, Sex, Gender, and the Politics of ERA; Berry, Why ERA Failed; and Boles, Janet K., The Politics of the Equal Rights Amendment: Conflict and the Decision Process (New York, 1979)Google Scholar. See also Conover and Gray, Feminism and the New Right.

8. Madison, James, “Federalist No. 39,” in The Federalist, ed. Cooke, Jacob E. (Middletown, Conn., 1961), 255Google Scholar. Bolce, Louis, De Maio, Gerald, and Muzzio, Douglas, “The Equal Rights Amendment, Public Opinion, and American Constitutionalism,” Polity 19 (Summer 1987): 551–569, esp. 552Google Scholar.

9. Bolce, De Maio, and Muzzio, “The Equal Rights Amendment, Public Opinion, and American Constitutionalism,” 551–69, esp. 554.

10. Soule and Olzak, “When Do Movements Matter?” 492.

11. States controlled by Democrats that voted against the

12. Mansbridge, Why We Lost the ERA, 162; see also Critchlow, Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism, 250–52.

13. Mansbridge, Why We Lost the ERA, 20–28. Opponents of the ERA questioned the accuracy of these polls. Mansbridge's study revealed variations in levels of support based on the wording of the questions asked. Mansbridge determined that survey questions regarding generalized notions of rights generated greater support than questions describing possible consequences of ERA passage, even in surveys performed during the same calendar year. Approval declined when there existed the perception that traditional gender roles would change as a direct result of the ERA. Because a majority of those taking a traditional position on gender roles still favored the ERA, Mansbridge concluded that people could simultaneously support abstract principles (equality) while opposing changes in practice (gender roles).

14. Huber, Joan et al. , “A Crucible of Opinion on Women's Status: ERA in Illinois,” Social Forces 57 (12 1978): 549–565Google Scholar; Spitze, Glenna and Huber, Joan, “Effects of Anticipated Consequences on ERA Opinion,” Social Science Quarterly 63 (06 1982): 323–332Google Scholar, quote on 324. Also, for declining support of ERA over time, see Daniels, Mark and Darcy, Robert E., “As Time Goes By: The Arrested Diffusion of the Equal Rights Amendment,” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 15 (Autumn 1985): 51–60Google Scholar.

15. Spitze and Huber, “Effects of Anticipated Consequences,” 326.

16. Ibid., 326–27 and 329–30.

17. Brady, David W. and Tedin, Kent L., “Ladies in Pink: Religion and Political Ideology in the Anti-ERA Movement,” Social Science Quarterly 56 (03 1976): 564–575Google Scholar; Arrington, Theodore S. and Kyle, Patricia A., “Equal Rights Amendment Activists in North Carolina,” Signs 3 (Spring 1978): 666–680Google Scholar; Mueller, Carol and Dimieri, Thomas, “The Structure of Belief Systems among Contending ERA Activists,” Social Forces 60 (03 1982): 657–675Google Scholar. Also important for understanding the social composition of ERA and anti-ERA activists, are Deutchman, Iva E. and Prince-Embury, Sandra, “Political Ideology of Pro- and Anti-ERA Women,” Women and Politics 2 (Spring—Summer 1982): 39–55Google Scholar.

18. Spitze and Huber, “Effects of Anticipated Consequences,” 326. A 1983 study of the effects of public opinion on policy change maintained that the level of “don't know” or “no opinion” responses is a somewhat accurate, even if not perfect, measure of salience. A lower number of persons answering “don't know” indicates that there is more interest and knowledge about the issue, “and perhaps also stronger, more intensely held opinions.” A 73 percent congruence rate between opinion and policy with “don't know” responses between 1 and 5 percent dropped to a 56 percent congruence rate when the proportion of “don't know” responses was greater than 15 percent. Page, Benjamin I. and Shapiro, Robert Y., “Effects of Public Opinion on Policy,” American Political Science Review 77 (03 1983): 175–190CrossRefGoogle Scholar, quote on 181.

19. Wolhenberg included in his study Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and Virginia. Wohlenberg, Ernest H., “Correlates of Equal Rights Amendment Ratification,” Social Science Quarterly 60 (03 1980): 676–684Google Scholar, quoted on 681.

20. Bolce, De Maio, and Muzzio, “The Equal Rights Amendment, Public Opinion, and American Constitutionalism,” 558.

21. Ibid., 559.

22. Ibid., 563.

23. Ibid., 564–65.

24. Ibid., 563–64, 569.

25. Felsenthal, Carol, The Sweetheart of the Silent Majority: The Biography of Phyllis Schlafly (Garden City, N.Y., 1981)Google Scholar; and Critchlow, Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism.

26. Critchlow, Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism.

27. Detailed arguments against ERA are found in the Phyllis Schlafly Report from 1972 to 1982. Also of importance in understanding the legal opposition to ERA is Freund, Paul A., “The Equal Rights Amendment Is Not the Way,” Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 6 (03 1971): 234–242Google Scholar.

28. David Kyvig maintains that Ervin and Schlafly raised the issue of unisex bathrooms as a way of fostering racial fears of blacks and whites having to share bathrooms at a time when Jim Crow was being challenged in the South by the civil rights movement. Kyvig correctly points out that Ervin was no friend of racial desegregation, but Schlafly had supported racial integration in her hometown of St. Louis and supported desegregation in the South. It is worth noting that she campaigned against George Wallace in his presidential bid in 1968. Critchlow, Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism, 28–29, 185, 188–94; Kyvig, Amending the Constitution, 410–11.

29. Critchlow, Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism, 225.

30. A good study of conservative women in this period is found in McGirr, Lisa, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton, 2001)Google Scholar. See also Klatch, Rebecca, Women of the New Right (Philadelphia, 1987)Google Scholar; Diamond, Sara, Road to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States (New York, 1995)Google Scholar; and Burkett, Elinor, The Right Women: A Journey Through the Heart of Conservative America (New York, 1998)Google Scholar.

The tradition of women as moral reformers is found in an extensive literature on the subject. For the purpose of this essay, especially useful are Dehart, Jane Sherron, “Gender on the Right: Meanings behind the Existential Scream,” Gender and History 3 (Autumn 1991): 246–267Google Scholar; Eisenstein, Zillah R., “The Sexual Politics of the New Right,” Feminist Theory 7 (Spring 1982)Google Scholar; Blee, Kathleen M., Women of the Klan: Racism and Gender in the 1920s (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1991)Google Scholar; and Moore, Leonard J., Citizen Klansmen: The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, 1921–1928 (Chapel Hill, 1991)Google Scholar. Of particular value for understanding the role of women in public life in the nineteenth century are Ryan, Mary P., Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790–1865 (Cambridge, 1981)Google Scholar; Ryan, Mary P., “The Power of Women's Networks: A Case Study of Female Moral Reform in Antebellum America,” Feminist Studies 5 (Spring 1979): 66–85Google Scholar; Epstein, Barbara Leslie, The Politics of Domesticity: Women, Evangelism, and Temperance in Nineteenth-Century America (Middletown, Conn., 1981)Google Scholar; Bordin, Ruth, Women and Temperance: The Quest for Power and Liberty, 1873–1900 (Philadelphia, 1981)Google Scholar; Ginzberg, Lori D., “‘Moral Suasion is Moral Balderdash’: Women, Politics, and Social Activism in the 1850s,” Journal of American History 73 (12 1986): 601–622Google Scholar; Blair, Karen J., The Clubwoman as Feminist: True Womanhood Redefined, 1868–1914 (New York, 1980)Google Scholar; Sklar, Kathyrn Kish, “Hull House in the 1890s: A Community of Women Reformers,” Signs 10 (Summer 1985): 658–677Google Scholar; Baker, Paula, “Domestication of Politics: Women and American Political Society, 1780–1920,” American Historical Review 89 (06 1984): 620–647Google Scholar; DuBois, Ellen Carol, Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent Women's Movement in America, 1848–1869 (Ithaca, 1978)Google Scholar; and Lebsock, Susan, “Women and American Politics, 1880–1920,” in Tilly, Louise and Gurin, Patricia, eds., Women, Politics, and Change in Twentieth-Century America (New York, 1992)Google Scholar.

31. The view that women's groups had failed to connect with “homemakers” is found in Bonnie Cowan to Jane Wells (National Coordinator ERAmerica), 19 March 1976, ERAmerica, Box 1, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

32. Jane Mansbridge, Why We Lost the ERA, 135–38 and 173–78.

33. Brady and Tedin, “Ladies in Pink,” 564–75.

34. Mathews, Donald G., “‘Spiritual Warfare’: Cultural Fundamentalism and the Equal Rights Amendment,” Religion and American Culture 3 (Summer 1993): 129–154CrossRefGoogle Scholar, quoted at 133–34. Mathews might have added that pro-ERA feminists in framing the ERA as a “rights” issue also brought an equal passion to their cause.

35. Thomson, Rosemary, “A Christian View of the Equal Rights Amendment” (1975)Google Scholar. For an understanding of evangelical Christian mobilization in this period, see Wilcox, Clyde, God's Warriors: The Christian Right in Twentieth-Century America (Baltimore, 1992)Google Scholar; Wilcox, , Onward Christian Soldiers? The Religious Right in American Politics (Boulder, 1996)Google Scholar; Bruce, Steve, The Rise and Fall of the New Christian Right: Conservative Protestant Politics in America, 1978–1988 (New York, 1998)Google Scholar; and Smith, Oran P., The Rise of Baptist Republicanism (New York, 1997)Google Scholar. See also Bruce, Steve et al. , The Rapture of Politics: The Christian Right as the United States Approaches the Year 2000 (New Brunswick, N.J., 1995)Google Scholar; Moen, Matthew, The Christian Right and Congress (Tuscaloosa, 1989)Google Scholar; Liebman, Robert and Wuthnow, Robert, eds., The New Christian Right: Mobilization and Legitimation (Hawthorne, N.Y., 1993)Google Scholar; and Bromley, David and Shupe, Anson, eds., New Christian Politics (Macon, Ga., 1984)Google Scholar.

36. Although Wohlenberg and others maintained that the level of religious conservatism within a state has a direct correlation to the likelihood of ERA passage, Soule and Olzak “found no effect of religious fundamentalism on ratification.” Soule and Olzak, “When Do Movements Matter?” 484.

37. Brady and Tedin, “Ladies in Pink”; Tedin, Kent L. et al. , “Social Background and Political Differences Between Pro- and Anti-ERA Activists,” American Politics Quarterly 5 (07 1977): 395–404Google Scholar; Mueler and Dimieri, “The Structure of Belief Systems among Contending ERA Activists”; and Conover, Pamela Johnston, “The Mobilization of the New Right: A Test of Various Explanations,” Western Political Quarterly 36 (12 1983): 632–649Google Scholar. For an argument in favor of status politics, see Scott, Wilbur J., “The Equal Rights Amendment as Status Politics,” Social Forces 64 (12 1985): 499–506Google Scholar.

38. Especially useful is Rosen, Ruth, The World Split Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America (New York, 2000)Google Scholar, and Horowitz, Daniel, Betty Friedan and the Making of the Feminine Mystique: The American Left, the Cold War, and Modern Feminism (Amherst, Mass., 1998)Google Scholar.

39. This point is developed in Critchlow, Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism, 224–25, and in Mansbridge, Why We Lost the ERA.

40. Skocpol, Theda et al. , “Women's Associations and the Enactment of Mothers’ Pensions in the United States,” American Political Science Review 87 (09 1993): 686–701Google Scholar. This argument is developed at length in Skocpol, , Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Cambridge, Mass., 1995)Google Scholar.

41. Differences between ERA and NOW are evident in the archives of ERAmerica located in the Library of Congress. For an outline of these differences, see Critchlow, Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism, 227–32.

42. Keller, Morton, “The Politics of State Constitutional Revision, 1820–1930,” in Hall, Kermit L., Hyman, Harold M., and Sigal, Leon V., eds., The Constitutional Convention as an Amending Device (Washington, D.C., 1981), 67–86, quote on 68Google Scholar.

43. Quoted in Cole, Carolyn, “Bella Abzug, a Dedicated Activist,” Waterloo Courier, 17 09 1978Google Scholar. See also Bennetts, Leslie, “The New Bella Abzug: She's Down but Not Out,” Chicago Tribune, 10 12 1978Google Scholar, and “Bella: An Old-Fashioned Woman Removes Her Political Kid Gloves for ERA,” Everett Herald, 24 March 1978.

44. The five states that rescinded their previous votes included Nebraska (15 March 1973), Tennessee (23 April 1974), Idaho (8 February 1977), South Dakota (1 March 1979), and Kentucky (16 March 1979). The fifteen states that never ratified ERA were Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and Virginia.

45. Alexander Hamilton, “The Federalist No. 85,” The Federalist, ed. Jacob E. Cook, 587–95, quotation, 591, 594.