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Women's Rights, And The Amending Process Of The Constitution By Mary Frances Berry

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Review of Why ERA Failed: Politics, Women’s Rights, and the Amending Process of the Constitution By Mary Frances Berry
The struggle for women’s rights has been a long, hard fought battle in American history. The fight for even the most basic of rights, such as the right to vote or control property, often takes decades for a victory to be had. One such initiative that sought a widening of women’s rights was the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) of the 1970s. The ERA sought to put women on equal legal footing as men, and to no ones surprise the movement failed. Many say that the movement failed because of the fear that gender roles and family values would be infringed upon by the passage of this amendment. Other’s felt that there was no need for it due to the recent Supreme Court cases, i.e. Roe v. Wade, which made way for a broadened spectrum of women’s rights. It is on this topic of why exactly the ERA failed that Mary Frances Berry focuses her attention, by examining why the movement failed and how future reformers can learn from the mistakes of the ERA. Berry analyzes the failure of the ERA in both legal and historical terms. She claims that due to the difficulty of amending the Constitution, in order for any amendment to be ratified there needs to be a sweeping consensus and a sense of urgency among Americans that this is an issue …show more content…

This is where the ERA ultimately failed. She discusses how the leaders of the movement worked through congress and got the required two-thirds majority, but failed in the states because they did not recognize the power of their opposition as well as the fact that they only needed thirteen states to reject their amendment for it to be shot down. Ultimately, Berry contends that the bill is essential, but more education needs to be carried out in order to change the rationale that equal rights for women will threaten traditional gender roles and family

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