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dismissed the sex provision of Title VII, calling it a “fluke” that was “con-

ceived out of wedlock” and saying that “men were entitled to female sec-

retaries.” Of the five original members appointed to the commission, only

Aileen Hernandez was a woman. She described her appointment as a “20

percent nod to more than 50 percent of the population” and noted that

“the Commission was not planning to be an example to industry of the

meaning of ‘equal opportunity employer’” because no women were hired

for the top appointments. Hernandez pointed out: “There was such in-

sensitivity to sex discrimination that a major meeting with employers in

California was arranged at a private club which barred women—even

though I was scheduled to accompany the Chairman to the meeting.”

The commission’s disinterest in sex discrimination did not deter

complaints. One-third of all the complaints reaching the commission came

from women. They dealt with sex-segregated newspaper help-wanted ad-

vertisements, state protective legislation that women argued discriminated

against them, the definition of bona fide occupational qualifications

(BFOQ), and other issues. Protests against sex-segregated help-wanted ads

prompted the creation of a special committee to investigate the issue, but

it concluded that the sex-segregated ads did not violate Title VII. The issue,

however, did not go away. Congresswoman Martha Griffiths (D-MI) wrote

to the EEOC: “I assume you will agree that the heading ‘white’ or ‘Negro’

or ‘Protestant’ would be prohibited by the statute, and therefore I have dif-

ficulty seeing how advertisements under the headings of ‘male’ or ‘female’

could be in compliance with the very clear prohibitions of the law.” Two of

the commissioners, as well as interested observers, felt that if there were a

women’s organization comparable to the National Association for the Ad-

vancement of Colored People, women’s influence would increase. The Na-

tional Organization for Women (NOW) was created in 1966 to fill that

need. NOW successfully challenged several EEOC opinions, including sex-

segregated employment advertisements. In 1968, the EEOC banned sex-

segregated advertising for jobs in newspapers unless employers could

demonstrate that sex was a bona fide occupational qualification, but it was

unable to enforce the policy. In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that

sex-segregated help-wanted ads were not free speech but commercial

speech and were not protected by the First Amendment.

Congress strengthened the EEOC with the passage of the Equal Em-

ployment Opportunity Act of 1972, giving the commission the power to

file suits when negotiation and conciliation failed. The act also expanded

the categories of employers covered by Title VII.

The EEOC first addressed the problem of sexual harassment in 1980,

finding that it was a form of sex discrimination, and defining it as behavior

that interferes with a person’s work performance, including “unwelcome

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 235

sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical

conduct of a sexual nature.” In 1998, the EEOC obtained $34 million in a

sexual harassment case against Mitsubishi Manufacturing of America,

and the company agreed to change its sexual harassment prevention pol-

icy and complaint procedure. The same year, the EEOC also settled a sex-

ual harassment case against Astra USA, Inc., for $10 million and formal

apologies to the women involved.

The EEOC receives approximately 15,000 sexual harassment com-

plaints, 24,000 sex discrimination complaints, and 4,000 pregnancy dis-

crimination complaints per year. In addition, it receives complaints re-

lated to race, age, and pay discrimination.

See also Bona Fide Occupational Qualification; Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title

VII; Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972; Griffiths, Martha Edna

Wright; Hernandez, Aileen Clarke; Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson; National

Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Women in the; National

Organization for Women; Sexual Harassment

References Carabillo, Meuli, and Csida, Feminist Chronicles (1993); Freeman,

“Women and Public Policy: An Overview” (1982); www.eeoc.gov.

Equal Pay Act of 1963

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 makes it illegal for private employers to have

different rates of pay for women and men doing the same work. It was the

first federal law to address sex discrimination.

Congresswoman Mary Norton (D-NJ) introduced an equal pay for

comparable work bill in 1945, and Congresswomen Frances P. Bolton (R-

OH) introduced different versions in 1954. Although President Dwight D.

Eisenhower supported the concept, opponents insisted that comparable

work could not be defined. Congresswoman Katharine St. George (R-NY)

overcame the objection in 1962 when she proposed equal pay for equal

work, an approach that Congresswoman Edith Green (D-OR) drafted

into a bill and introduced.

Support for equal pay legislation also came from Women’s Bureau

director Esther Peterson, who made passing it a priority and hired a lob-

byist to work with members of Congress on the measure. The measure re-

ceived further support in 1962, when the President’s Commission on the

Status of Women endorsed equal pay at its first meeting and commission

chair Eleanor Roosevelt declared her support for it at a press conference.

The commission’s research revealed that in the period from 1955 to 1960,

women earned less than two-thirds of what men earned.

When the House debated the bill, St. George said that opposing it

“would be like being against motherhood.” The Chamber of Commerce of

the United States was the bill’s most visible opponent. It was supported by

236 Equal Pay Act of 1963

the American Association of University Women, Business and Profes-

sional Women/USA, the National Consumers League, the National

Woman’s Party, the American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial

Organizations, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Kennedy ad-

ministration. The bill passed the U.S. House and Senate in 1962 but in dif-

ferent forms, and it ultimately died. Green sponsored the bill again in

1963, when it passed.

The law states that employers subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act

of 1938 must pay equal wages for equal work, making exemptions for dif-

ferences based on seniority, merit, or piece rates. The law specifically ex-

cludes women working in restaurants, hotels, laundries, and hospitals; do-

mestic workers; and many small businesses. At the time of the bill’s

passage, 7 million women came under its mandate.

See also American Association of University Women; Bolton, Frances Payne

Bingham; Business and Professional Women/USA; Green, Edith Louise

Starrett; National Woman’s Party; Norton, Mary Teresa Hopkins; Pay Equity;

Peterson, Esther; President’s Commission on the Status of Women; Roosevelt,

Eleanor; St. George, Katharine Delano Price Collier; Women’s Bureau

References Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 87th Congress, 2nd Session . . . 1962

(1962); Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 88th Congress, 1st Session . . . 1963

(1964); Harrison, On Account of Sex (1988); Linden-Ward and Green, Ameri-

can Women in the 1960s: Changing the Future (1993).

Equal Rights Amendment

Conceived by Alice Paul of the National Woman’s Party, the Equal Rights

Amendment (ERA) was first introduced in Congress in 1923. Congress

passed the amendment in 1972 and sent it to the states for ratification.

The amendment failed in 1982 after only thirty-five states had ratified it,

three fewer than needed for it to be added to the U.S. Constitution.

After passage of the Nineteenth Amendment granting woman suf-

frage in 1920, Alice Paul of the National Woman’s Party proposed an

Equal Rights Amendment to guarantee women’s full equality. The pro-

posed amendment stated: “Men and women shall have equal rights

throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.”

Opponents of the amendment included labor, social reformers, the

Women’s Trade Union League, the American Association of University

Women, and the General Federation of Women’s Clubs. They rightly

feared that the amendment would make unconstitutional the protective

labor legislation that they had worked for decades to pass. Paul argued

that protective legislation placed women in a subordinate role and that

without the amendment, women were legally barred from some of the

best colleges and universities.

Equal Rights Amendment 237

Introduced in every session of Congress beginning in 1923, it gained

the support of several professional women’s organizations in the 1930s,

including the Osteopathic Women’s National Association, the Association

of American Women Dentists, the American Alliance of Civil Service

Women, the National Association of Women Lawyers, and others. In 1940,

the Republican National Convention included support for the amend-

ment in its platform and repeated the endorsement in 1944, the year the

Democratic National Convention first included it in its platform.

During World War II, women’s contributions to the war effort at-

tracted new supporters for the amendment, including the General Feder-

ation of Women’s Clubs, Business and Professional Women/USA, and

Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1943, Senator Hattie Caraway (D-AR) became the

first woman in Congress to sponsor the amendment, and the National

Woman’s Party formed the Women’s Joint Legislative Committee to sup-

port it. The next year, opponents formed the National Committee to De-

feat the UnEqual Rights Amendment.

In the post–World War II years, the amendment gained the visible

support of several notable women, including artist Georgia O’Keeffe, au-

thor Pearl Buck, actresses Helen Hayes and Katharine Hepburn, and an-

thropologist Margaret Mead. Among members of Congress, support came

from Republicans who were probusiness and southern Democrats who

were antilabor. The U.S. Senate voted on the amendment in 1947, but with

38 ayes and 35 nays, it failed to receive the two-thirds majority needed for

a constitutional amendment.

238 Equal Rights Amendment

Among the honorary

leaders at an ERA

march were (left to

right) Eleanor

Holmes Norton,

Representative Bella

Abzug (D-NY),

Gloria Steinem, Betty

Friedan, Barbara

Mikulski, and Mar-

garet Heckler, 1978

(Courtesy: Martin

Luther King Library)

The amendment passed the Senate in 1950 and 1953 with the neces-

sary two-thirds majority, but both times it included the statement that

“the provisions of this article shall not be construed to impair any right,

benefits or exemptions conferred by law upon persons of the female sex.”

Equal Rights Amendment supporters objected to the exemptions and did

not ask the House to debate the amendment.

The President’s Commission on the Status of Women refused to en-

dorse the amendment, but it did call for equality under the law. With the

emergence of the modern feminist movement, however, the amendment

began to receive renewed and intensified attention and support. The Na-

tional Organization for Women, formed in 1966, became one of the

amendment’s fiercest and most dedicated supporters.

Democratic senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota introduced the

amendment in February 1969 with seventy-nine cosponsors.

In May 1970, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitutional

Amendments held three days of hearings on it. During the hearings, Con-

gresswoman Martha Griffiths (D-MI) said that the courts could interpret

the Constitution as guaranteeing equal rights for women, but she did not

think that would ever happen. Griffiths said: “I seek justice, not in some

tomorrow, or by some study commission, but now while I live, and I think

the equal rights amendment will help towards the way.” Democratic con-

gresswoman Shirley Chisholm of New York told the subcommittee that

the Constitution did not address women’s rights because “American insti-

tutions were created by white males and . . . the freedom, equality, and jus-

tice that they mentioned and fought for was intended ...for them and

them alone.”

The House of Representatives did not hold hearings in 1970. Its

chairman of twenty years, Democrat Emanuel Celler of New York, had re-

fused to hold hearings on a constitutional amendment for women’s rights

throughout his tenure as committee chairman. To get the amendment out

of committee, Griffiths succeeded in gaining 218 signatures on a discharge

petition for it. On 10 August 1970, the ERA passed the U.S. House of Rep-

resentatives with 352 ayes and 15 nays.

The Senate responded with more hearings, this time before the full

Judiciary Committee. The Senate began debate on the amendment in Oc-

tober 1970 and attached two amendments, one allowing women’s exemp-

tion from the draft and another permitting nondenominational prayers in

public schools. The amendments essentially killed the measure, and the

Senate did not vote on the full amendment before the end of the session.

For the first time since 1948, a House Judiciary subcommittee held

four days of hearings on the ERA in 1971. The full committee passed a

resolution for the amendment, but it had two additions. One allowed

Equal Rights Amendment 239

Congress to exempt women from the draft, and another permitted dif-

ferent labor standards for men and women, both of which amendment

supporters opposed. When the House of Representatives debated the

measure, the amendments regarding military service and labor standards

were dropped. The House passed the ERA with 354 ayes and 24 nays on

12 October 1971. Democrat Leonor Sullivan of Missouri was the only

woman who voted against it.

Even though the unwelcome amendments had been removed, an-

other change had been made in the amendment that set it apart from the

version that had passed the House in 1970. The version of the amend-

ment that passed the House in 1971 and that was passed in the Senate in

1972 said:

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United

States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each

House concurring therein), that the following article is proposed

as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which

shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitu-

tion when ratified by three-fourths of the several States within

seven years from the date of its submission by the Congress:

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied

or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of

sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appro-

priate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the

date of ratification.

The seven-year limit for ratifying the amendment received little attention

at the time, but it came to be a significant factor in the amendment’s ulti-

mate failure.

The chief Senate sponsor was Democrat Birch Bayh of Indiana. Be-

cause Bayh’s wife was undergoing treatment for cancer, the Senate delayed

action on the ERA until 1972. When the Senate considered the measure

that year, Democratic senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr., of North Carolina emerged

as the ERA’s strongest opponent. He proposed several amendments in ef-

forts to narrow the scope of the ERA. All of them failed. On 22 March

1972, the U.S. Senate passed the ERA with 84 ayes and 8 nays.

To complete the process, three-fourths of the states, or thirty-eight

states, had to ratify the amendment. Two hours after Congress sent the

amendment to the states, Hawaii ratified it. By the end of the year, twenty-

one additional states had ratified the ERA. In addition, six states added

240 Equal Rights Amendment

ERAs to their state constitutions. The National Organization for Women

(NOW), the League of Women Voters (LWV), and Business and Profes-

sional Women/USA (BPW/USA), the most active supporters, organized

traditional lobbying campaigns as states considered the amendment. They

conducted research, testified at hearings, contacted legislators, organized

letter-writing campaigns, and supported pro-ERA legislative candidates.

Some groups organized rallies and other public events to demonstrate

support for ratification. The early successes in 1972 convinced amend-

ment supporters that it would easily be ratified before the seven-year

deadline Congress had imposed.

With virtually no organized opposition to the amendment, support-

ers did not develop long-term strategies for ratification, and they did not

allocate significant resources for a lengthy campaign. In addition, the ar-

guments they articulated in its favor addressed feminists’ interests and

professional women’s concerns, but most women did not identify them-

selves as feminists, and although increasing numbers of women were in

the workforce, few of them were professionals. Amendment supporters

neglected to consider the amendment’s significance from the perspective

of homemakers, working-class women, employed women who did not

want to be in the labor market, and men. They repeatedly argued that the

amendment would end women’s second-class citizenship.

Opposition to the amendment, however, was developing. Several lo-

cal and regional groups with aspirations for national influence formed,

but it was Phyllis Schlafly who galvanized opposition to the ERA and ul-

timately defeated it. Schlafly had begun developing a network of conser-

vative women in 1967 and communicating with them through her

monthly newsletter, the Phyllis Schlafly Report. She also held training ses-

sions that covered everything from the clothing colors and styles that look

best on television to evaluations of their speaking styles and content.

Initially ambivalent about the amendment, Schlafly had not partici-

pated in efforts to stop it when Congress had debated it. A friend, how-

ever, had urged her to consider the ERA’s implications. Schlafly did and

found them deplorable. She concluded the amendment would end hus-

bands’ financial responsibilities to their wives and would weaken the tra-

ditional family. She asserted that the amendment’s second section giving

Congress the power to enforce the amendment took too much power

away from the states and gave it to Congress. She supported protective la-

bor legislation and concurred with supporters and opponents that such

measures would become unconstitutional. She also objected to it because

she believed that women would be drafted into the military, that same-sex

marriages would be lawful, and that abortions would be legal. In October

1972, Schlafly founded and appointed herself national chairperson of

Equal Rights Amendment 241

Stop ERA. When the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion a few months

later in Roe v. Wade (1973), Schlafly believed that her analysis of the

amendment had been confirmed. Schlafly’s well-developed public rela-

tions skills, organizational ability, compelling speaking style, and forecasts

of what the ERA would do brought her national attention and legions of

followers.

The amendment, however, gained new support in 1973. The Young

Women’s Christian Association ended its opposition to the ERA, as did

the American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations.

The LWV, National Woman’s Party, Common Cause, BPW/USA, National

Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC), and NOW formed the ERA Action

Committee, with each member organization accepting responsibility for

some aspect of the ratification campaign. For example, NWPC worked to

elect state legislators who supported the amendment, and LWV trained

lobbyists. Eight more states ratified the amendment in 1973. In 1974,

three more states ratified it, but the momentum toward ratification had

clearly slowed. BPW/USA hired a Republican consulting firm to analyze

the seventeen states that had not ratified ERA and to identify the ten most

likely to ratify.

Schlafly had ended feminists’ thoughts of a speedy and easy ratifica-

tion. Her ability to pull hundreds and occasionally thousands of women

into state capitols to lobby their legislators overwhelmed feminists. ERA

supporters counted votes and lobbied, but not with the effectiveness or

the drama Schlafly and her followers demonstrated. In one state capitol,

Schlafly draped a casket with a “Bury ERA” banner. In other state capitols,

Schlafly and her supporters used skits, costumes, and refreshments in

their attempts to gain the attention of legislators and news media. In an-

other state, opponents gave each legislator a loaf of bread with a note beg-

ging for a no vote on ERA ratification. Schlafly traveled across the coun-

try explaining her objections to the amendment, giving uncommitted

legislators and sometimes supporters of the ERA reasons to vote against

it. She regularly debated ERA supporters and consistently triumphed.

Other groups also organized to oppose the amendment, including

Women Who Want to Be Women; Happiness of Womanhood; American

Women Against the ERA; Females Opposed to Equality; and Family, Lib-

erty, and God. The membership of these groups tended to be housewives

who feared the changes that could result from the amendment and who

worried that the amendment would force them into male roles. Viewing

the amendment as an assault on womanhood and the institution of mar-

riage, opponents to the amendment feared losing spousal support or the

decriminalization of rape and other sex crimes. Amendment supporters

did not address these fears, in part because they discounted them and the

242 Equal Rights Amendment

women who held them and in part because they did not have responses

to them. In addition, some of the tactics amendment supporters used,

such as public demonstrations and confrontation, alienated many women

and men.

Another state ratified the amendment in 1975, making a total of

thirty-four states that had done so, and the push for the last four states be-

gan with increased intensity. In 1976, no states ratified the amendment,

but one state added an ERA to its constitution. The amendment that had

begun with little opposition had stalled. NOW members began daily

protests outside the White House, and a national organization, ERAmer-

ica, was formed to channel money and resources to states most likely to

ratify. A Harris poll showed that 67 percent of Americans supported the

ERA and 27 percent opposed it. In 1976, one state ratified the ERA, but

three states had voted to rescind their ratification, actions the U.S. De-

partment of Justice said were illegal and unconstitutional.

To attract publicity to the campaign, NOW called for an economic

boycott of states that had not ratified ERA. More than 200 organizations,

in addition to many individuals, supported it by holding their conven-

tions and meetings in states that had ratified and by avoiding travel in

other states. The boycott was challenged in court, but the U.S. Circuit

Court of Appeals upheld NOW’s right to wage it.

As the seven-year deadline for ratification established by Congress

approached, two California law students who were also NOW members

proposed obtaining an extension deadline. Democratic congresswoman

Elizabeth Holtzman of New York introduced a resolution extending the

ratification deadline to March 1986. NOW organized a march in Wash-

ington, D.C., that attracted more than 100,000 people who demon-

strated their support for the amendment and for extending the deadline.

Congress granted an extension to 30 June 1982 but not for the seven

years requested.

The extension granted amendment supporters a reprieve that they

used to develop a new campaign strategy. They enlarged their focus to a

national one in an attempt to convince women across the country that they

could influence states to ratify. Fund-raising campaigns became more suc-

cessful. NOW, for example, had raised $150,000 in 1977 and increased that

to almost $1 million in 1981. Other groups became increasingly active, cre-

ating political action committees to support pro-ERA legislative candidates

and recruiting corporate executives to lobby in states that had not yet rat-

ified it. Supporters, however, did not articulate arguments that effectively

countered Schlafly’s rhetoric against the amendment.

Amendment opponents used President Jimmy Carter’s proposal to

draft women and men into the military to their advantage by arguing that

Equal Rights Amendment 243

it affirmed their claims about the ERA. The 1980 Republican National

Convention further weakened the amendment’s chances when it repudi-

ated its forty-year-long tradition of supporting it.

NOW launched its ERA Countdown Campaign in 1981, with former

first lady Betty Ford and actor Alan Alda as honorary cochairs. Polls

showed that 63 percent of Americans supported the amendment and 32

percent opposed it. Massive efforts to raise $15 million for advertising in-

volved door-to-door solicitation and use of Hollywood celebrities and

other notables to support the reinvigorated effort. Also, lobbying brigades

of women from across the country joined local forces in targeted states to

press for ratification.

Early in 1982, attention focused on North Carolina, Florida, and Illi-

nois. The Illinois legislature had considered and rejected the amendment

several times, but supporters continued to believe that the state would rat-

ify it. Seven women went on a hunger strike, and seventeen women

chained themselves to the door of the Illinois Senate chamber, but none

of the targeted states ratified the amendment.

On 30 June 1982, the amendment died, three states short of those

needed for ratification. Of the fifteen states that did not ratify, most were in

the South, with Illinois being the primary northern exception. No state had

ratified the ERA after 1978. The amendment was reintroduced in the House

in 1983 but, with 278 ayes and 147 nays, it needed six more votes in order

to have had the required two-thirds majority of those present and voting.

Despite the amendment’s failure, Congress passed several measures

banning sex discrimination, including the Equal Credit Opportunity Act

of 1974, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the Women’s Ed-

ucational Equity Act of 1974, and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of

1978. Other measures expanded coverage of Title VII of the Civil Rights

Act of 1964, increased the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s

power, added sex to the purview of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights,

and prohibited sex discrimination in state programs funded by federal

revenue sharing. In addition, several states added equal rights amend-

ments to their state constitutions and passed a range of laws banning sex

discrimination.

See also Abortion; American Association of University Women; Anthony, Susan

Brownell; Business and Professional Women/USA; Caraway, Hattie Ophelia

Wyatt; Chisholm, Shirley Anita St. Hill; Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII;

Eagle Forum; Education Amendments of 1972, Title IX; Equal Credit

Opportunity Act of 1974; Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; Equal

Pay Act of 1963; Equal Rights Amendments, State; ERAmerica; Ford, Elizabeth

Ann (Betty) Bloomer; Friedan, Betty Naomi Goldstein; General Federation

of Women’s Clubs; Holtzman, Elizabeth; League of Women Voters; National

Association of Colored Women; National Committee to Defeat the UnEqual

244 Equal Rights Amendment