Widespread Support
Organized labor and an increasingly large number of mainstream groups joined the call for the ERA behind leaders like Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinam.
|
excerpt from "Workers: Women who Make America" PBS
|
“In almost every professional field, in business and in the arts and sciences, women are still treated as second-class citizens. It would be a great service to tell girls who plan to work in society to expect this subtle, uncomfortable discrimination--tell them not to be quiet, and hope it will go away, but fight it. A girl should not expect special privileges because of her sex, but neither should she "adjust" to prejudice and discrimination.”
-Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique “While Friedan's writing largely spoke to an audience of educated, upper-middle-class white women, her work had such an impact that it is credited with sparking the "second wave" of the American feminist movement.” [21]
|
“Women like Gloria Steinem attracted media attention through their popular writings and their appealing image. They played a key role representing feminism to the public and the media — providing attractive examples of women who were feminists without fitting the negative stereotypes of humorless, ugly, man-hating shrews.”[21]
"There were hundreds and hundreds of laws that were based on sex. To go one by one by one we figured out it would take 485 years, so clearly it needed to be a constitutional principle." - Gloria Steinam
|
“Give us a chance to show you that those so-called protective laws to aid women - however well-intentioned originally - have become in fact restraints, which keep wife, abandoned wife, and widow alike from supporting her family.”
- Martha Griffiths, U.S. Representative for Michigan “When Representative Martha Griffiths (D-MI) led the House to a vote on the ERA during 1970s, she asserted that protective laws only confined women to poorly paying occupations with little opportunity for advancement. She also argued that protective legislation limiting working hours did not stop women from holding multiple, low salary positions, but put jobs like chief executive out of reach.”[16]
|
“It is high time men recognized that some “protective” laws treat women like idiots, and others keep women out of jobs where they’d lift no more than a three-year-old child does. Don’t be fooled by the bugaboos raised by the amendment’s opponents. Women will gladly trade protective laws for some equal pay and equal rights.”
- Liz Carpenter in a letter to her Congressman (1971) |
"During the 1970s, [Ruth Bader Ginsburg] also served as the director of the Women's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, for which she argued six landmark cases on gender equality before the U.S. Supreme Court." [24]
|
"[The ERA] would serve as a clear statement of the nation's moral and legal commitment to a system in which women and men stand as full and equal individuals before the law."
-Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1974) |
“‘We have done almost everything in pairs since Noah, except govern — and the world has suffered for it.’ And, as we all know, in all movements, the only way to effect change is for everyone to be moving it forward.”
-Bella Abzug, New York Congressman (1971-1977) and leader in the Womens |
Male Supporters
Since the beginning of the feminist movement in Seneca Falls, men have stood up for women’s rights. Although their number is significantly smaller that the coalition of women in the movement, men marched alongside and played a vital role in the push to pass the ERA.
“There isn't any man who won't be touched by the improved status of women."
- Alan Alda (1982) "A dedicated feminist, Alan Alda was appointed in 1976 to serve on the National Commission for the Observance of International Women’s Year, where he co-chaired the Equal Rights Amendment Committee. In 1982, he was co-chair with Betty Ford of the National ERA Countdown Campaign." [18] |
"Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts championed the ERA in Congress for more than three decades. At a 1978 convention of the National Organization of Women in Washington, he predicted that the Equal Rights Amendment would be ratified.” [15]
In 1984, “The ERA Song” was written and performed by Peter Kastner on Playboy’s news channel to parody the arguments used by men against the ERA. In this introduction, Kastner explained, “You know people have come up with all sorts of arguments against the ERA...but the dumbest thing I ever heard was last week at lunch, and it went something like this.” [19]
|