Schenken Suzanne O’Dea. From Suffrage to the Senate: An Encyclopedia of American Women in Politics (2 Volumes)

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United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination

Against Women without reservations, declarations, or understandings that would

weaken this commitment.

We reaffirm our commitment to the power of grassroots activism, to a

multi-issue, multi-tactical strategy.

We are committed to a feminist ideology and reaffirm our historic commit-

ment to gaining equality for women, assuring safe, legal and accessible abortion

and full reproductive freedom, combating racism, stopping violence against

women, ending bigotry and discrimination based on sexual orientation and on

color, ethnicity, national origin, women’s status, age, disability, size, childbearing

capacity or choices, or parental or marital status.

We will not trade off the rights of one woman for the advancement of an-

other. We will not be divided. We will unite with all women who seek freedom

and join hands with all of the great movements of our time and all time, seeking

equality, empowerment and justice.

We commit to continue the mentoring, training, and leadership develop-

ment of young and new activists of all ages who will continue our struggle. We

will work to invoke enthusiasm for our goals and to expand ownership in this

movement for current and future generations.

We commit to continue building a mass movement where we are leaders,

not followers, of public opinion. We will continue to move feminist ideals into the

mainstream thought, and we will build our media and new technology capabili-

ties to control our own image and message.

How long and hard a struggle it was to win the right for women to vote. To-

day, we fight the same reactionary forces: the perversion of religion to subjugate

women; corporate greed that seeks to exploit women and children as a cheap la-

bor force; and their apologists in public office who seek to do through law what

terrorists seek to accomplish through bullets and bombs. We will not submit, nor

will we be intimidated. But we will keep moving forward.

Those who carried the struggle for women’s suffrage through to its end were

not there at the start; those who started the struggle did not live to see the victory.

Like those strong feminist activists, we will not let ourselves be dispirited or dis-

couraged. Even when progress seems most elusive, we will maintain our convic-

tion that the work itself is important. For it is the work that enriches our lives; it

is the work that unites us; it is the work that will propel us into the next century.

We know that our struggle has made a difference, and we reaffirm our faith that

it will continue to make a difference for women’s lives.

Today, we dedicate ourselves to the sheer joy of moving forward and fight-

ing back.

Reprinted by permission of the National Organization for Women.

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Woman Suffrage

Women’s rights advocates began calling for the right to vote in the 1848 Declaration

of Sentiments and Resolutions. Following ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment,

guaranteeing citizenship to former slaves, and of the Fifteenth Amendment, estab-

lishing their voting rights, suffrage supporters began seeking alternatives to a woman

suffrage amendment. Several women attempted to vote, or voted, in the 1872 presi-

dential elections, some arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment gave them the right,

others arguing that as citizens they had the right. Suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony

was among the women who voted in that year’s election, an act that resulted in her

being charged, tried, and convicted of voting. In her 1873 speech, she explained the

reasoning that led her to believe that she had the right to vote.

Both sides of the woman suffrage debate had women and men in their ranks.

Manufacturers and distributors of alcoholic beverages opposed woman suffrage be-

cause they believed that women would vote to outlaw liquor, a concern bolstered by

women active in the temperance movement. Kate Gannett Wells in her letter and

Jeannette L. Gilder in her article emphasize that some women could be prudent and

informed voters, but they insist that the benefits of those women casting votes are

outweighed by the costs to society.

In 1915, Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman

Suffrage Association, presented what she called her Winning Plan to pass the Nine-

teenth Amendment and gain suffrage rights for women. In August 1920, Tennessee

became the thirty-sixth state to ratify the amendment.

Speech after Being Convicted of Voting in the 1872 Presidential Election,

Susan B. Anthony, 1873

Friends and fellow citizens: I stand before you tonight under indictment for the

alleged crime of having voted at the last presidential election, without having a

lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus

voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen’s

rights, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitu-

tion, beyond the power of any state to deny.

The preamble of the Federal Constitution says: “We, the people of the

United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure do-

mestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare,

and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and

establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male

citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it, not

to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and

the half of our posterity, but to the whole people—women as well as men. And it

is a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of

liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided

by this democratic-republican government—the ballot.

For any state to make sex a qualification that must ever result in the disfran-

chisement of one entire half of the people, is to pass a bill of attainder, or, an ex

post facto law, and is therefore a violation of the supreme law of the land. By it the

blessings of liberty are forever withheld from women and their female posterity.

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To them this government has no just powers derived from the consent of

the governed. To them this government is not a democracy. It is not a republic. It

is an odious aristocracy; a hateful oligarchy of sex; the most hateful aristocracy

ever established on the face of the globe; an oligarchy of wealth, where the rich

govern the poor. An oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the igno-

rant, or even an oligarchy of race, where the Saxon rules the African, might be en-

dured; but this oligarchy of sex, which makes father, brothers, husband, sons, the

oligarchs over the mother and sisters, the wife and daughters, of every house-

hold—which ordains all men sovereigns, all women subjects, carries dissension,

discord, and rebellion into every home of the nation.

Webster, Worcester, and Bouvier all define a citizen to be a person in the

United States, entitled to vote and hold office.

The only question left to be settled now is: Are women persons? And I

hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not.

Being persons, then, women are citizens; and no state has a right to make any law,

or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities. Hence,

every discrimination against women in the constitutions and laws of the several

states is today null and void, precisely as is every one against Negroes.

An Argument against Woman Suffrage, Kate Gannett Wells, 1884

I have not come here with any hope of refuting in ten minutes all the arguments

of our pro-suffrage friends, nor is it necessary that I should even try to do so, for

repeated discussion of the subject has made us all familiar with our own convic-

tions and those of our contrary-minded neighbors. Still less have I come in any

unfriendly spirit to the pro-suffragists, for I know many of them too well not to

acknowledge that they are working, heart and soul, for what they believe is one of

the necessary, if not the most necessary, factors in human progress.

The anti-suffrage women are women so busy in their own homes, so occu-

pied in charities and plans for the poor and ignorant, that they never have had

time, more than that, they never have had the wish to come before the public,

even in this Green Room. More than that, they do not think it is woman’s place

to argue or to refute statements in the arena of politics. For years they were silent,

passive; their convictions strengthening all the while, they expressing them only

as social intercourse demanded. But a year or two ago reproaches were heaped

upon them for their passivity, which was called cowardice. They are not cowards,

but they are women, and as such they prefer to stay at home and do their part

through their home. There are but few of us trained to the public work of ad-

dressing you. Those few the distance of many miles keeps from us, but there are

thousands of women who feel that if their silence is attributed to fear or to small

numbers, they must summon courage to speak, and therefore have they asked me

to come and speak as best I may for them.

I stand here because we anti-suffragists believe that the time has come for us

to declare that our intellectual judgments, our moral convictions, and our belief in

right expediency as one of the grounds on which governmental and constitutional

changes should be made, are entirely opposed to the doctrine of female suffrage.

It is said that the casting of a vote is a slight duty, quickly performed. If it

were that simple mechanical act, we might not object to such action, but to cast

a vote ought to mean to cast it intelligently and honestly; and how can we gain

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that accurate intelligence except by attending caucuses, primaries, nominating

conventions, and supplementing general knowledge as far as possible by personal

acquaintance with candidates? Even if some women have time and ability for such

work, most of us have not; and even if we all had the time, is it desirable that the

presence and co-work of unintelligent and depraved women should be added to

the already jarring factions of political life? Every woman knows that all women

cannot purify politics; and if a good woman can vote, so can a bad woman! There-

fore, gentlemen, we say that to permit us to vote is to permit us to do many im-

possible things, which, nevertheless, we ought to do as patriotic women. The point

in question is a vexed one between the pro and anti-suffragists. They say we have

no right to prevent their doing what they consider to be right, and also that we

need not vote because they do. We say that their demand for extension of the suf-

frage does involve us, and therefore we are put on the defensive against them. Party

questions and reform measures of all kinds will arise; we may hold convictions dif-

ferent from theirs, and as we also care as much for our country’s welfare as they

do, when we see some measure we deem unwise likely to succeed, then, to save our

country or State, we must vote; therefore do we beseech you not to grant female

suffrage. And if it is replied that women will only vote and legislate rightly, I an-

swer that I utterly disagree with such a statement. Women, as a rule, will vote on

the side of pure moral issues, but they will also vote for illogical, inexpedient meas-

ures to secure some narrow, present good, which should be outweighed by the

larger issues of legal stability, validity of order, constitutional and States’ rights,

which are also involved in the immediate settlement of any question.

What, then, is our general position?

1. That suffrage is not a natural right; if it were, no restriction of age; prop-

erty, or education could be put upon it such as now exists.

2. That the essence of republicanism does not depend upon every one’s vot-

ing, independent of qualification, but that it is the sovereign people, and not a

monarchical power, who shall decide what persons may vote and under what re-

strictions.

3. That to be deprived of a vote is not to be deprived of one’s personality;

we are persons whether we are voters or not, and as persons should demand and

receive careful legislation in all that concerns our interests.

4. Our opponents have rendered it useless for us to reaffirm that an intelli-

gent woman is as capable of casting an intelligent vote as an intelligent man, or

that some form of restricted suffrage might perhaps be desirable, for they de-

mand unrestricted, universal female suffrage. They claim that suffrage is an edu-

cating power. We “anti” women grant that it may be, but we add that as the coun-

try is already so heavily weighted with an ignorant population, and that as our

naturalization laws admit foreigners to vote before they have become American-

ized, therefore we, as true patriots, will not burden our country with a great class

of women to be educated.

We anti-suffragists will not yield one iota to the pro-suffragists in our belief

in woman’s capacity for advancement in every direction; in her right to receive

the highest education, to demand equal wages with men, to work as physician,

lawyer, minister, lecturer, or in any occupation she wishes. We also demand of our

legislature that they erase from the statutes laws which discriminate unjustly

against woman. We also believe that she should serve on school committees, on

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State boards of charities, and on all kindred institutions, so that we wish to effect

no curtailment of a woman’s sphere except in the direction of suffrage.

And why do we wish that she should not enter upon that? Because most

women are not fitted for it. We do not say that they never will be, but that they

are not now, and will not be for some generations to come. Because I am a

woman, because I care for woman’s advancement, because I believe that though

a large number of women are already fitted to vote, an infinitely greater number

of women are not fitted for it, do I—do we—implore you not to give to all what

at least most of us are not able to use rightly. You cannot give us suffrage without

letting loose influences akin to those which have already debased politics and

given rise to words of doubtful morality like wire-pulling, bribery, log-rolling, etc.

If you give suffrage to all, you will speedily find that women are adepts in politi-

cal measures, and will no more shrink at trying all means to secure their ends

than do men; though on the other hand many men do, and many women would,

employ only honorable means.

It is not necessary that women should vote in order to have the laws more

favorable for them. The changes that have already taken place in them are due to

the great progress of modern civilization within the last fifty years, and have had

nothing to do with suffrage.

There is an opinion in some minds that the State should more and more as-

sume a paternal relation to its population; that it should provide whatever is

asked, and that by the making of laws, oppression and poverty will cease. It is also

supposed that women can legislate best for themselves. Gentlemen, those who as-

sume either of these opinions are asking the State and the power of suffrage to do

the work of personal righteousness. If women can best legislate for themselves,

why should not minors, both girls and boys, ask to have themselves qualified be-

fore the present legal age? And why should not one class of women legislate for

themselves, and still another class for themselves? That there are still unfair and

degrading laws is granted, but if we ask for woman suffrage in order to rectify

them, we open the way for increased private, class, and personal legislation of all

kinds. Is woman suffrage going to cure the evils that come from one’s own mis-

doings? Will a brutal, an intemperate husband be any less brutal or intemperate

because his wife has the power to vote? Will trustees cease to speculate with their

clients’ money because those clients can vote? Again, it is personal righteousness

that must do the work which so often is expected from legislation and suffrage.

It is woman’s ignorance more than man’s wickedness, or the law’s injustice,

which brings about the evils for which our sympathy is craved. Suffrage is not

needed to beget self-respect, or a knowledge of contracts, investments, and the

workings of the law, which if carefully studied before action is begun, would save

later needless misery. Lastly, it is argued against us that for various reasons we

need not fear that the unintelligent will vote. This must remain a matter of opin-

ion between us and those who differ from us. I can only say that my experience

has led me to the contrary conclusion. I had occasion one winter to be connected

with some work at the North End. The women were too careless and wretched in

their lives and in their dress to be here described. They talked with each other in

little groups; many a one spoke of the time when she could vote, as the only

vengeance left her to exercise upon the wealthy classes. Woman suffrage, they

said, would give the unskilled workwomen more ample wages, for they could vote

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themselves what they needed. Again, I was in a house where workingmen came

for their daily dinner. The men were also talking of this subject, and said that the

women must vote,“for we want the eight-hour law, and can get it THROUGH the

women. They must make the State give us work. The women must see to it that

we have work and only work for eight hours.” These are but two instances, though

I think they could be multiplied a hundred-fold; yet are they not indications of

the way in which woman suffrage may be urged to forward some special party

measure? Once let the great mass of uneducated women be added to the great

mass of already uneducated men voters, and the State will slowly but surely be

shaken under the varying demands made upon it for bread, work, money, leisure,

and all kinds of laws to favor all kinds of persons. When those times come, there

will be more bitter animosities of women against women, of secret warfare, of

despicable wire-pulling, and of exercise of the power of personal charms as a

weapon of persuasion, than now exists among men.

One word more. Even if in itself suffrage may be based upon the funda-

mental principle of justice, it does not follow that it should be applied when great

injustice must be done. No wise government deals in abstract justice without con-

sidering the expediency of the steps necessary to remove justice from an abstract

principle into a concrete action. Therefore, if in close argument I should be forced

(which I could not be) to surrender all my assumed positions against woman suf-

frage, I could never be driven from this position, that in the present constitution

of events, of facts,—physiological, social, financial, moral, and political,—it is in-

expedient for government to grant universal female suffrage.

Inexpedient! Yes, forever inexpedient, until the highest type of morality and

the clearest sense of justice and the widest reaches of law in its theoretical and

practical applications are reached by all women. Women now do generous, wise,

and lofty deeds, and women now do mean, foolish, despicable actions,—oh, how

mean! how bad!

So finally we beseech you, gentlemen, to rectify all unjust laws against

women; to strengthen the hands of good women all over the land in raising the

fallen, in teaching self-respect and self-support to the ignorant, in bringing more

happiness into every one’s life; and to withhold from us the duty, necessity, right

of suffrage, whichever it may be called, until you can have only noble, honest

women for your voters and legislators.

Printed by the Massachusetts Association opposed to the Extension of Suffrage

to Women. Courtesy of the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College.

Why I Am Opposed to Woman Suffrage, Jeannette Gilder, 1894

It has been quite a shock to people who do not know me, but who thought they

did, to find me opposed to woman’s suffrage. Because I have been for so many

years a working-woman, and because the profession I chose is, or was at the time

I entered it, supposed to be entirely a man’s profession, they thought I wanted all

the privileges of men. But I don’t. You could have counted the women journalists

on the fingers of one hand at the time I entered the ranks. Nowadays you could

not find fingers enough in a regiment to count them on. There are now certain

branches of journalistic work that are almost entirely given over to women, and

women not only edit mere departments of daily papers, but there are those who

edit the Sunday editions of some of the biggest dailies.

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I am a great believer in the mental equality of the sexes, but I deny the phys-

ical equality. I believe in putting men’s work and women’s work of the same kind

side by side, and judging them not as sex work, but simply as work. To have a

“Woman’s Building” at the World’s Fair did not seem to me a compliment to the

sex, but I believe some good reasons were advanced for it. Even some of its

staunchest advocates, however, doubt if there will ever be such another building

at such another show. I do not believe in sex in literature or art. Every book should

be compared with all other books of its kind, and so with every picture, statue, or

musical composition. There are few trades or professions that I do not think

women fairly well equipped for, or capable of being prepared for. I cannot say that

I quite like the idea of a woman preacher, but that may be a mere prejudice; nor

do I think that I would retain a woman lawyer. But this is neither here nor there.

In politics I do not think that women have any place. The life is too public,

too wearing, and too unfitted to the nature of women. It is bad enough for men—

so bad, that some of the best of them keep out of it; and it would be worse for

women. Many of the women who are enthusiastic in the cause of suffrage seem

to think that if they are once given the power to vote, every vexed question will be

settled, every wrong righted. By dropping their ballots in the box they believe that

they can set in motion the machinery of an earthly paradise. I wish I could think

so. It is my opinion that it would let loose the wheels of purgatory. If the ballot were

the end, that would be one thing, but it is only the beginning. If women vote they

must hold office, they must attend primaries, they must sit on juries. We shall

have women “heelers” and women “bosses”; there will be the “girls” of the Fourth

Ward (when it comes to New York) as well as the “boys.”

What will become of home life, I should like to know, if the mother and the

father both are at the “primary” or the convention? Who will look after the chil-

dren? Hired mothers? But can every woman with political ambitions afford to pay

for a “resident” or a “visiting” mother? And even if she can, will such a one take

the place of the real mother? I think not. Cannot a woman find a sufficiently en-

grossing “sphere” in the very important work of training her children? If there are

any sons among them, she can mould them into good citizens; if there are any

daughters, she can guide their footsteps along any path they may choose, for all

paths but the political are open to them. I do not think that to be a good house-

wife should be the end and aim of every woman’s ambition, but I do think that it

should be some part of it; for I am old-fashioned enough to be a pious believer

in the influence of a mother’s training upon her children. Read the life of any

great man, and you will see how much of his greatness he owed to his mother. It

seems to me that it is a bigger feather in a woman’s cap—a brighter jewel in her

crown—to be the mother of a George Washington than to be a member of Con-

gress from the Thirty-second District.

From the day Adam and Eve were created to the present year of grace men

and women have been different in all important respects. They were made to fill

different roles. It was intended by nature that men should work, and that women

should share in the disposition and enjoyment of the fruits of their labor. Cir-

cumstances alter cases, and women are often—alas! too often—driven out into

the world to make their own way. Would they find it any easier if they had the bal-

lot! Do men find it so easy to get work? If they do, why are there so many thou-

sands of the clamoring unemployed?

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It is said that the laws are unfair to women. Then call the attention of the

law-makers to the fact, and see how soon they will be amended. I think that men

want to be fair to women, and a petition will work wonders with a Congressman.

Will women always be fair to women? That is a serious question. They may on

some points, but the question of chivalry never comes into consideration be-

tween women. It does between men and women, and the latter profit by it.

I speak from experience when I say that I don’t see how women can culti-

vate home life and enter the political arena. Circumstances forced me to go out

into the world to earn my own bread and a part of that of others. When my

mother was living, she made the home, and all went well. But after that, after mar-

riages and deaths, a family of four small children came to me for a home. I don’t

mean for support, for they had a father living, but for a home. I had to take, as far

as possible, the place of my sister, their mother. To do my duty by them and by

my work was the most difficult task I ever undertook. I had to go to my office

every day and leave them to the care of others. Sometimes the plan worked well,

but oftener it worked ill—very ill indeed. I had seven people doing, or attempt-

ing to do, what I and two others could have done had I been able to be at home

and look after things myself. Suppose that politics had been added to my other

cares? Suppose that I had had meetings to attend and candidates to elect, perhaps

to be elected myself? What would have been the result? Even direr disaster! We

cannot worship God and Mammon; neither can we be politicians and women. It

is against nature, against reason. Give woman everything she wants, but not the

ballot. Open every field of learning, every avenue of industry to her, but keep her

out of politics. The ballot cannot help her, but it can hurt her. She thinks it a sim-

ple piece of paper, but it is a bomb—one that may go off in her own hands, and

work a mischief that she little dreams of.

From Harper’s Bazaar, May 19, 1894. Courtesy of the Sophia Smith Collection,

Smith College.

The Winning Plan, Carrie Chapman Catt, 1915

. . . National Boards must be selected hereafter for one chief qualification—the

ability to lead the national fight. There should be a mobilization of at least thirty-

six state armies [after congressional approval an amendment needed the approval

of three quarters of the states—or thirty-six states], and these armies should

move under the direction of the national officers. They should be disciplined and

obedient to the national officers in all matters concerning the national campaign.

This great army with its thirty-six, and let us hope, forty-eight divisions, should

move on Congress with precision, and a will....More,those who enter on this

task, should go prepared to give their lives and fortunes for success, and any pusil-

lanimous coward among us who dares to call retreat, should be courtmartialled.

Any other policy than this is weak, inefficient, illogical, silly, inane, and

ridiculous! Any other policy would fail of success....

When a general is about to make an attack upon the enemy at a fortified

point, he often begins to feint elsewhere in order to draw off attention and forces.

If we decide to train up some states into preparedness for campaign, the best help

which can be given them is to keep so much “suffrage noise” going all over the

country that neither the enemy nor friends will discover where the real battle

is....

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We should win, if it is possible to do so, a few more states before the Federal

Amendment gets up to the legislatures.

. . . A southern state should be selected and made ready for a campaign, and

the solid front of the “anti” south broken as soon as possible.

Some break in the solid “anti” East should be made too. If New York wins in

1917 the backbone of the opposition will be largely bent if not broken....

By 1920, when the next national party platforms will be adopted, we should

have won Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, New York, Maine and a

southern state. We should have secured the Illinois law in a number of other

states.

With these victories to our credit and the tremendous increase of momen-

tum given the whole movement, we should be able to secure planks in all plat-

forms favoring the Federal Amendment (if it has not passed before that time) and

to secure its passage in the December term of the 1920 Congress.

It should then go to the 1egislatures of thirty-nine states which meet in

1921, and the remaining states would have the opportunity to ratify the amend-

ment in 1922. If thirty-six states had ratified in these two years, the end of our

struggle would come by April 1, 1922, six years hence....

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Equal Rights Amendment

The Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution was first conceived

by National Woman’s Party leader Alice Paul and was first introduced in Congress

in 1923. Her 1943 article in the Congressional Digest outlines the National

Woman’s Party’s rationale for demanding a constitutional amendment for women’s

equality. Congress passed a somewhat different version of the amendment in March

1972, but it had the same purpose: to guarantee women’s equality with men. The res-

olution for the amendment included a seven-year limit for ratification that was ex-

tended for two years.

Rep. Shirley Chisholm (D-NY)’s comments to the House of Representatives in

1969 outline the reasons she believed that the amendment was necessary. As an

African American woman, she compared the racial discrimination and the sexual

discrimination that she had experienced.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing before her appointment to the U.S. Supreme

Court, provides a legal context for supporting the amendment. Discussing opinions

of the Court on which she later served, Ginsburg’s 1977 article outlines several

Supreme Court decisions related to gender discrimination and the need for the Equal

Rights Amendment.

The amendment failed to be ratified by the required thirty-eight states and

died on 30 June 1982. Stop ERA founder and leader Phyllis Schlafly, who was the

person most responsible for defeating the amendment, recollected her followers’ cele-

bration on the day of the defeat in a 1997 article in George magazine. Amendment

supporters, however, continued to believe in the importance of equality and sought

other avenues to end discrimination against women, including the passage of state

constitutional amendments.

Should Congress Approve the Proposed Equal Rights Amendment

to the Constitution? Alice Paul, 1943

The National Woman’s Party is striving to remove every handicap placed upon

women by law and by custom. In order to remove those handicaps which the law

can touch, it is endeavoring to secure the adoption of an Equal Rights Amend-

ment to the United States Constitution.

The Woman’s Party advocates such an Amendment for the following rea-

sons:

1. A national amendment is the most effective way to establish equality of

rights for men and women throughout the country.

The amendment would, at one stroke, compel both Federal and State gov-

ernments to observe the principle of Equal Rights since the Federal Constitution

is the supreme law of the land. The amendment would override all existing legis-

lation which denies women Equal Rights with men and it would prevent any such

legislation in the future.

2. A national amendment is the most permanent way to establish equality of

rights for men and women throughout the country.

An amendment to the National Constitution would establish the principle of

Equal Rights permanently in our country insofar as anything can be established

permanently by law. Equal Rights laws passed by legislative bodies, on the other

hand, are subject to reversal by later legislative bodies.

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