Equal Rights Amendment
For new female voters or future female voters, it is important to understand how voting rights and equal rights for women have progressed. At the age of 27, In 92 [Alice Paul] promptly joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association (Baron, 995). Suffrage means the right to vote; therefore, the NAWSA was formed to gain voting rights for women. After several years of fighting, womens voting rights were ratified and became the Nineteenth Amendment in 99. Although this was a huge step for women, Alice Paul wanted and proposed an additional constitutional amendment that would guarantee equal rights for both men and women, called the Equal Rights Amendment (Baron, 995; Law, 209). It was in 943 that Alice Paul changed this to the currently worded version that states, Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex (Kyvig, 996). This means that men and women would be equal and have equal rights under all laws. However, t
here was a lack of progression in ratifying this Amendment, so it was pushed back until the 970s when the womens movement was established (Equal Rights Amendment Overview, 209). Finally, Congress passed this in 972 with a stipulation that 38 states ratify or pass this within seven years. During the first year, 30 states ratified this and another five states in the next four years. (Kyvig, 996). Image attached, from Jocelyn Elise Crowley. (2006) illustrates the states support of ERA. Ratification of the ERA is important for Americans because it would provide legal protection against sex in employment, fair and equal pay, the right to choose abortion, reproductive freedom, child care expenses tax deduction, among other things (Law, 209). Nonetheless, there were many opponents of the ratification of the ERA from both men and women. Despite the importance of the ERA and that it had a lot of support for change, its downfall was because it took too long to ratify which had allowed the opposition amble time to cast doubt.