Women and the Consitution Part One

The struggle for equal rights in the United States has historically not been limited to issues of race as they pertain to interpretations and modifications of the nation's constitution. Rather, just as with race, the struggle for equal rights by women in the United States reveals a protracted battle and a great deal of far-reaching legal precedent. Though many may argue that once women received the right to vote in the early 20^th century, the question of equality was fully addressed for women in this country, there remain many controversial issues that have yet to be settled today because women do not enjoy Constitutional protection of their rights as guaranteed under the Equal Rights Amendment. Numerous aspects of gender-related protectionism persist today that are revealed in such controversial issues as wage discrimination and comparable worth, gender equality in military service, and women's reproductive rights. Only ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment will resolve many of these controversies. Background: The Path of the ERA

To understand the need today for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, one must first grasp the terrain from which it has emerged. The Equal Rights Amendment, or ERA was originally introduced to the U.S. Congress in 1923, just three years after women in the United States won a 100-year-long battle for the right to vote. Though that right, established by ratification of the 19^th amendment to the U.S. Constitution addressed perhaps the most glaring grievance of women, it failed to win equal status for women in American society. To accomplish this, early 20^th century suffragists established the need for passage of a Constitutional amendment proclaiming that, "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex" (Edwards et al 145). What civil rights remained to be granted, one might ask? Actually, the litany of violations was quite long, even after women won the right to vote: