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How Did Alice Paul Ratize The Ratification Of The Equal Rights Movement

1213 Words5 Pages

Dakota Hitchcock
HIS 200: Applied History
Southern New Hampshire University
March 5th, 2023

The ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment is a significant historical event due to its battle to end legal and social discrimination against women. During the time period, women did not have the same privileges as men regarding employment, divorce rights, property rights, and the many social privileges men had. This amendment was drafted by suffragist Alice Paul in 1923 and was fought for by women and supporters across America shortly after women gained the right to vote after the 19th Amendment was passed on August 20th, 1920. Despite ERA fighting for equality by being a “proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed …show more content…

Her leadership and ERA draft would become a key part of the battle for women’s rights as her work would be revised and modified many times during the women’s rights and suffrage movement of the 1960s to better address the social norms and gain more support. On the opposing end of the battle, Phyllis Schlafly was a conservative activist who founded the STOP ERA organization to fight against the ratification of the ERA. “Under Schlafly’s guidance, conservative era opponents seized a moral high ground by claiming that while ERA backers wanted to topple traditional values, they—the amendment opponents—were the true supporters of the American family” (Dewolf, pg. 228, 2021). Schlafly believed the ratification of the ERA would remove traditional gender roles which would harm the American family structure and the entire movement was “opposing Mother Nature herself”(Schlafy, 1981). This opinion was led by the belief that under the ERA, women would pursue careers of their own which would increase divorce rates, leave children home alone, and disrupt traditional family life. Organizations such as STOP ERA and the National Federation of Women's Clubs (NFWC) also claimed that the ERA was just another way for the government to interfere with more people's lives as the ERA would mandate that women could be drafted into the military, abolish alimony and child support, and revoke unique safeguards for women in both the workplace and society. These organizations and figures that led against the ERA movement gained a massive following, mostly of older, more conservative, and traditional women and

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