The Equal Rights Amendment: Why Controversy Ensured its Defeat?
Since time immemorial, controversies have played a fundamental role in shaping politics
of the world. Controversies led to either defeat or support of political agendas. Controversies
played an important part in the defeat of Amendment of Equal rights (Berkin et al, 2009). The
Equal rights amendment championed for equal rights for women. However, some groups felt
intimidated and sort to oppose the ratification of the Equal Rights. They came up with
controversies that worked to tarnish the amendment and hence later lead to its defeat (Baldez,
Epstein & Martin, 2006). Attributable to the above elucidations, this paper in writing seeks to
discuss why controversies resulted in the defeat of Amendment of Equal Rights.
On 1972, March 22nd, participants of the progressively voiced women’s movement
celebrated the enactment of the Equal Rights Amendment commonly denoted by the acronym
ERA. The amendment had had nearly close to seven years to be endorsed. The proposed
enactment called for “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the
United States or by any other state on account of sex.” Effectively and efficiently petitioning by
the organizations championing the rights of women led by enormous margins in the Congress
chambers in support of the petition to eliminate discrimination of gender. As the state hurriedly
initiated the process of ratification of the modification, several American women anticipated for
a future that embraced equality. However, these hopes were misplaced. In that, after ten years,
the ERA unsuccessful did not garner sufficient backing from states to add the amendment to the
American Constitution. Its failure is attributed to controversies created by the people who did not
support ERA (Brown, Emerson, Falk & Freedman, 1971).
