Proposed amendment to the United States Constitution that was designed to do away with all sexually discriminatory laws and practices. Approved by Congress in 1972, it was never ratified by the requisite number of states and went down to defeat on June 30, 1982 by a narrow margin. The text of the amendment passed by Congress in 1972 declared simply: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” The amendment was first introduced in Congress in 1923 by a militant women’s suffrage group, and reintroduced without success each year thereafter through the 1960s.

As far back as the first women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York in 1848, feminists had recognized that much of the discrimination women faced was supported and nurtured by the legal system itself. In the 1970s, led by the then-fledgling women’s advocacy group NOW, feminists revived the push for an equal rights amendment that would, in one fell swoop, eradicate these long-held discriminatory laws and practices.

Labor unions, however, continued to oppose the measure on the grounds that it would nullify state laws designed to protect the health and safety of women workers. Only after federal courts had voided many of these protective labor laws under Title VII did organized labor drop its opposition to the ERA and provide critical support to NOW’s efforts to urge its passage.

After an unprecedented nationwide feminist campaign, the ERA was finally approved by a landslide in both the House and Senate in 1972. Before it could be formally adopted as a constitutional amendment, however, the ERA had to clear one more hurdle: it had to be ratified by a minimum of thirty-eight of the fifty states. It was ratified by only thirtyfive, despite the efforts of a powerful pro-ERA coalition. ERA opponents, consisting primarily of conservative religious and political organizations, had managed to convince just enough people that the measure would unduly jeopardize traditional lifestyles.

In the end, the ERA’s defeat became largely symbolic. With the rise of feminism, many of the discriminatory laws the ERA was originally designed to eradicate had already been struck down, one by one, during the decade-long struggle for the amendment’s ratification.