INTRODUCTION
Equal Rights Amendment
Suffragist leader Alice Paul drafted the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and introduced
it in Congress in 1923. It stated: “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United
States and in every place subject to its jurisdiction. Congress shall have power to enforce this
article by appropriate legislation.”
Ratification of an amendment to the Constitution requires the support of three-fourths of
the states or thirty-eight states. It must be approved by at least two-thirds of both houses of
Congress, that is, up to 292 members of the House and 67 senators.
Between 1923 and 1970 the ERA was introduced in every session of Congress. In 1946
it was narrowly defeated by the full Senate 38-35. Most of the time, it never reached the floor of
either house for a vote.
In March 1972, Congress passed the proposed ERA and sent it to the states for
ratification. The amendment came before the Arkansas legislature in 1975. On February 14,
1975, the Arkansas House of Representatives witnessed a historically-significant debate
concerning the ERA. Diane Kincaid, a political science professor at the University of Arkansas
and former chairperson of the Governor’s Commission on the Status of Women, spoke in favor
of the Amendment, while Phyllis Schlafly, founder of the National Committee to Stop ERA,
opposed the Amendment. Hundreds of women watched the well-presented arguments from the
galleries. However, newspapers reported that the debates swayed few watchers from their
original stance.
Similar debates took place across the nation through the 1980s. By the deadline in 1982
the ERA could not be enacted because three states did not ratify. Arkansas never ratified the
ERA.
Some of the views expressed against the ERA
In the 1970s ERA opponents believed the Constitution already protected women and that
the proposed amendment took away some of these rights and laws that protected them. They
were also of the opinion that the Amendm