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Equal Rights Amendment: Phyllis Schlafly And The STOP ERA Campaign

3628 Words15 Pages

Grace Dykeman
Mrs. Nimmer
AP United States History
7 June 2023
The Demise of the Equal Rights Amendment: Phyllis Schlafly and the STOP ERA Campaign
"Why should we trade in our special privileges and honored status for the alleged advantage of working in an office or assembly line? Most women would rather cuddle a baby than a typewriter or factory machine.” (Schlafly “What's Wrong”). Conservative Phyllis Schlafly uttered these striking words in a 1972 speech against equality for women, a small part of a larger movement that Schlafly initiated in response to a contentious possible constitutional amendment: the Equal Rights Amendment. While feminists championed equality by breaking gender norms and fighting for legislation, Schlafly and her supporters …show more content…

In February of 1963, Friedan, a feminist author, published The Feminine Mystique, a novel that challenged traditional gender norms and inspired women to fight for the eradication of these stereotypical positions (Miller 279). Friedan’s novel became instrumental in the feminist movement. Her novel “helped shape feminism in the 1960s through its discussion of how the domestic sphere of motherhood, for educated women like herself, was akin to a ‘cultural concentration camp’” (Schneider). After the incredible success of her novel in creating conversation about women’s rights, in 1964, Friedan helped form NOW, a group that focused on resolving equity issues such as equal pay and equal work opportunities in male-dominated fields like medicine, higher education, and law (Schneider). Despite the efforts of the women’s liberation movement and NOW, females still struggled to achieve complete equality. Women could not escape their stereotypical domestic and inferior roles in society. As a result of this continued discrimination, women initiated discussions about these issues, and a new consciousness of the inequality women faced arose; soon, these women demanded control over their own reproductive choices and sexuality, equality in the workplace, and the freedom to make their own choices in society (Schneider). These demands for equality eventually manifested themselves in a groundbreaking proposal that would create complete equality for women under the law: the Equal Rights

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