Description

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution that would explicitly prohibit sex discrimination. It is not currently a part of the Constitution, though its ratification status has long been debated. It was written by Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman and first introduced in Congress in December 1923. With the rise of the women's movement in the United States during the 1960s, the ERA garnered increasing support, and, after being reintroduced by Representative Martha Griffiths in 1971, it was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives that year, and by the U.S. Senate in 1972, thus submitting the ERA to the state legislatures for ratification, as provided by Article Five of the United States Constitution. A seven-year, 1979, deadline was included with the legislation by Congress. A simple majority of Congress later extended the deadline to 1982. Both deadlines passed with the ERA three short of the necessary 38 states for ratification. Even so, there are ongoing efforts to ratify the amendment.