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“…I sit in my Manhattan apartment feeling elated and full, perhaps because a woman has been nominated as the VP candidate and it feels as though anything is possible. How odd that real, tangible evidence of a woman doing something as established as being a candidate should prompt such a feeling.”
Earlier…
“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” (Title IX: 1972).
Okay, so in 1972 I can now leave the high school boys track team and join the newly formed girls track team thanks to this legislation.
The ERA – does anyone even know what that acronym stands for? It's the Equal Rights Amendment, first introduced in 1923 and then reintroduced with great hope in 1972.
Here is the first section of the proposed constitutional amendment:
Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
This constitutional amendment – simple and straightforward in its assertion of equal rights for women – was only 3 states shy of ratification by 1977, but Phyllis Schlafly mobilized conservative women and no additional states ratified the amendment – in fact 3 states reversed their ratification. Quite a crushing defeat.