In 1943, Alice Paul again revised the amendment to reflect the wording of the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments. This text became Section 1 of the version adopted by Congress in 1972. [19] The original Joint Resolution (H.J.Res. 208), by which the 92nd Congress proposed the amendment to the States, introduced the following solution clause: The change of equality would consecrate the nation as a whole to a new vision of the rights and duties of men and women. It firmly rejects clear legislative lines between the sexes as constitutionally tolerable. Instead, it examines a legal system in which each person is judged on the basis of individual merit rather than on the basis of an immutable characteristic of birth that does not necessarily relate to needs or abilities. [107] A new women`s movement gained traction in the late 1960s due to a variety of factors: Betty Friedan`s bestseller, The Feminine Mystique; the network of women`s rights commissions formed by the Kennedy National Commission; frustration with women`s social and economic status; and anger at the failure of the government and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. In June 1966, at the Third National Conference on the Status of Women in Washington, D.C., Betty Friedan and a group of activists frustrated by the government`s lack of action to enforce Title VII of the Civil Rights Act formed the National Organization for Women (NOW) to act as the “NAACP for Women” and demand full equality for American women and men. [44] In 1967, at the urging of Alice Paul, NOW approved the Equal Rights Amendment. [ref. needed] The decision prompted some union democrats and social conservatives to leave the organisation and form the Women`s Equity Action League (within a few years, WEAL also supported the ERA), but the decision to support change benefited NOW and strengthened its membership. [ref.

needed] By the late 1960s, NOW had won important political and legislative victories and gained enough power to become a major lobbying force. In 1969, newly elected Representative Shirley Chisholm of New York delivered her famous “Equal Rights for Women” speech in the U.S. House of Representatives. [45] In Coleman v. 1939. Miller, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress has ultimate authority to determine whether a proposed constitutional amendment has lost vitality over time before it has been ratified by a sufficient number of states, and whether state ratifications are effective in the face of subsequent withdrawal attempts. The court stated, “We believe that, consistent with this historical precedent, the question of the effectiveness of ratifications by state legislators in light of previous rejection or attempted withdrawal should be considered a political matter involving political departments, with the ultimate authority of Congress exercising control over enacting acceptance of the amendment.” [89] In this case, however, Congress did not explicitly set a deadline, unlike the ERA`s proposal, which explicitly included a seven-year time limit. Adopted by the United States Senate and House of Representatives in Congress (two-thirds of each House agree) that the following article be proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, valid in all respects within the framework of the Constitution, if approved by the legislators of three-fourths of the various states within seven years of its submission by Congress: And in 1876, a citizen named Augustus Wilson wrote to Congress asking for a change after the disputed Hayes-Tilden presidential election to abolish the office of president and replace it with a three-person Roman-style triumvirate. Both houses of Congress finally ratified the amendment in 1972.

And the 22nd. In March 1972, it was submitted to the state legislatures for ratification (before being sent to the states for ratification, a constitutional amendment must be adopted as a joint resolution). In 1950 and 1953, the ERA passed the Senate with a provision known as “The Hayden rider,” introduced by Arizona Senator Carl Hayden. Trooper Hayden added a sentence to the ERA to maintain special protection for women: “Nothing in this section shall be construed as affecting any rights, benefits or immunities now or hereafter accorded by law to females.” By allowing women to retain their current and future special protections, it was expected that the ERA would be more attractive to its opponents. Although opponents were slightly more pro-ERA with pilot Hayden, supporters of the original ERA felt that it nullified the original purpose of the change — resulting in the amendment not passing in the House of Representatives. [30] [31] [32] Since the 1920s, the Equal Rights Amendment has been accompanied by discussions among feminists about the importance of equal rights for women. [21] Alice Paul and her National Women`s Party argued that women should be equal to men in all respects, even if it means sacrificing the benefits afforded to women through protective laws, such as shorter working hours and no night work or heavy lifting. [22] Opponents of the amendment, such as the Women`s Joint Congressional Committee, argued that the loss of these benefits to women would not be worth the supposed gain in equality.