During the 1970s, “family values” moved to the center of conservative politics, nowhere more so than in the battle over the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Originally proposed during the 1920s by Alice Paul and the Women’s Party, the ERA had been revived by second-wave feminists. In the wake of the rights revolution, the amendment’s affirmation that “equality of rights under the law” could not be abridged “on account of sex” hardly seemed controversial. In 1972, with little opposition, Congress approved the ERA and sent it to the states for ratification. Designed to eliminate obstacles to the full participation of women in public life, it aroused unexpected protest from those who claimed it would discredit the role of wife and homemaker.
Doug Marlette’s cartoon comments on the continuing gap in pay between men and women, the kind of inequality that inspired support for the proposed Equal Rights Amendment.
The ERA debate reflected a division among women as much as a battle of the sexes. To its supporters, the amendment offered a guarantee of women’s freedom in the public sphere. To its foes, freedom for women still resided in the divinely appointed roles of wife and mother. Phyllis Schlafly, who helped to organize opposition to the ERA, insisted that the “free enterprise system” was the “real liberator of women,” since labor-saving home appliances offered more genuine freedom than “whining about past injustices” or seeking fulfillment outside the home. Opponents claimed that the ERA would let men “off the hook” by denying their responsibility to provide for their wives and children. Polls consistently showed that a majority of Americans, male and female, favored the ERA. But thanks to the mobilization of conservative women, the amendment failed to achieve ratification by the required thirty-eight states.