Equal Rights Amendment Chris Bodenner Article Review

Should men and women be treated equally under the law? In his article entitled “Should the Equal Rights Amendment Be Added to the Constitution?”, Chris Bodenner presents the debate about the Equal Rights Amendment, or ERA. This proposed Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was the center of a movement in the 1960s and 1970s and has garnered both opposition and support. Bodenner’s article begins with a detailed historical and social overview of the women’s movement, centering around ending gender inequality. Political events like the Civil Rights Movement, the passage of affirmative action, the election of women into Congress in the 1970s, as well as cultural movements like the sexual revolution and feminism in academia were crucial in the attempt to get the Amendment ratified. However, backlash had been growing against this movement, stemming from fears of the disintegration of traditional and, later, family values and the biological differences between the sexes. The Equal Rights Amendment was never ratified, short by the support of three states by the 1979 deadline and completely dead by 1982.

In his article, Bodenner outlines the reasons for the opposition of the ERA. Interestingly, opponents were not only men: women like Ellen Campbell, a Southern leader of “STOP ERA”, asserted that men were the heads of the home and, in society, were above women. Other reasons for the opposition was that supporting the ERA was not mainstream and did not speak to all women; most supporters were white, middle class, and college educated. Opponents of the ERA also suggested that making men and women equal under the eyes of the law, and particularly the workplace, might be harmful, as it would be removing policies that were designed to protect women. More moderate ERA critics felt that, Bodenner writes, “the solution to female inequality was not sweeping changes to the Constitution, but rather specific laws designed to protect women in specific circumstances.”

Proponents of the ERA, on the other hand, advocated for the understanding of citizens as individuals who are free to select employment for which they are suited. A large component of this argument involved identifying the social pressures that contributed to the inequality within American society. The National Organization for Women (NOW) Chairwoman Wilma Scott Heide, for instance, suggest the anti-female nature of the country and its value system, which could be addressed by directly inserting equality into the Constitution in the form of the ERA. While critics of the measure argued that this would to a “blurring” of the boundary between the sexes, leading to the creation of unisex bathrooms and locker rooms, supporters of the ERA pointed out the extreme and unfounded nature of the claims—in one way, pointing out that airplane toilets are unisex—and asserted that privacy laws were adequate to prevent people from using facilities at the same time.

The debate about whether or not to support the ERA is an interesting one when considering how much social change has taken place since the peak of the feminist movement in the 1970s, when the ERA was at the forefront of political activism. More women are in positions of power, understandings of gender have become more fluid, and same-sex marriage has been legalized throughout the United States. Considering these points, as well as the arguments presented in the text, the more convincing argument is the one that supports the addition of the ERA to the Constitution. The acknowledgement of the freedom and rights of individuals and ensuring that they are equal to those of all other individuals, should be something that is in the Constitution. Finally, the adherence to “traditional” and “family” values upheld by opponents and, prior to this movement, was part of the mainstream, should not infringe upon the rights of any citizen. The ratification of the ERA would not prevent people from practicing those values if they would like to but make room for people who are different to be an equally important American citizen.