Pros And Cons Of The Equal Rights Amendment

At this time in history, there were “two million children under the age of sixteen” working to provide for their families, and some kids beginning labor at the tender ages of “six and seven years (in the cotton

Knauer, Christine. “Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).” Encyclopedia of Women and American Politics. By Lynne E. Ford. 2015 ed.

She believes that the ERA would take away from some of the women’s important rights and benefits by providing an example of the military draft. She states that, “I have listened to the lawyers and state legislature hearing, and they all said, ‘Yes, they do want women drafted and they do want them in combat.’” Women were originally exempt from the draft, but ratifying the ERA would take away their exemption and would subjectively draft them with men. Taking away their exemption would only leave them dissatisfied and drawback. Moreover, when they debate over women’s role in the marriage, she uses the evidence of the Maryland law which introduced the equal rights amendment: “This takes out the word ‘husband’ and puts in the word ‘spouse’(…)

Review of Why ERA Failed: Politics, Women’s Rights, and the Amending Process of the Constitution By Mary Frances Berry The struggle for women’s rights has been a long, hard fought battle in American history. The fight for even the most basic of rights, such as the right to vote or control property, often takes decades for a victory to be had. One such initiative that sought a widening of women’s rights was the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) of the 1970s. The ERA sought to put women on equal legal footing as men, and to no ones surprise the movement failed.

When Cornelius Vanderbilt died he left his $100 million fortune to his son William Vanderbilt and they both had the same attitude. During the Gilded Age these big business and their owners were thought of as being Robber Barons or Captains of Industry. The poor working conditions that were provided, the corruption they led in government, and their use of child labor shows that they were Robber Barons. Children were used in labor to work a lot and most days of the week. Kids as young as 5 often worked as much as 12 to 14 hours a day for barely any pay.

Her leadership and ERA draft would become a key part of the battle for women’s rights as her work would be revised and modified many times during the women’s rights and suffrage movement of the 1960s to better address the social norms and gain more support. On the opposing end of the battle, Phyllis Schlafly was a conservative activist who founded the STOP ERA organization to fight against the ratification of the ERA. “Under Schlafly’s guidance, conservative era opponents seized a moral high ground by claiming that while ERA backers wanted to topple traditional values, they—the amendment opponents—were the true supporters of the American family” (Dewolf, pg. 228, 2021). Schlafly believed the ratification of the ERA would remove traditional gender roles which would harm the American family structure and the entire movement was “opposing Mother Nature herself”(Schlafy, 1981). This opinion was led by the belief that under the ERA, women would pursue careers of their own which would increase divorce rates, leave children home alone, and disrupt traditional family life.

During the Eighteenth and the early Nineteenth centuries, Child labor was a major part of the industrial revolution, especially in Great Britain where child labor was a large part of the working class and soon became a social and political problem/issue. In late Eighteenth century child labor became a necessary thing for the working class and society of Britain and other countries such as modern day Germany and America. Children were hired because they could do jobs the adults simply couldn 't do because of their sheer size and incapability to do certain things like clean chimneys and fix the machines in the

Roe vs. Wade is the highly publicized Supreme Court ruling that overturned a Texas interpretation of abortion law and made abortion legal in the United States. The Roe v. Wade decision held that a woman, with her doctor, has the right to choose abortion in earlier months of pregnancy without legal restriction, and with restrictions in later months, based on the right to privacy. As a result, all state laws that limited women 's access to abortions during the first trimester of pregnancy were invalidated by this particular case. State laws limiting such access during the second trimester were upheld only when the restrictions were for the purpose of protecting the health of the pregnant woman. Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in the greater United States, which was not legal at all in many states and was limited by law in others.

The 1970s were a rough year for African-Americans, still fighting for social and political rights in the United States. Consequently, women still did not receive equal rights. However, in 1972, “Congress approved the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the Constitution, which reads: ‘Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex’ (History.com Staff).” Out of the thirty-eight necessary states only twenty-two ratified it right away, it was relieving for the moment because the feminist advocates had been trying to be ratified since 1923. The First African-American woman elected into Congress was Shirley Chisholm.

Phyllis Schlafly started the campaign of ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923 and I am beyond certain that the ERA activists today will not stop until it is ratified and accepted into the constitution. At the end of ERA battle, Sonia Johnson made an incredible and uplifting statement for all women. She said, “I am sure I am not the only feminist who is occasionally clear-sighted enough to be grateful to Phyllis Schlafly for making us have to fight so hard for the Equal Rights Amendment. Whether in the end this amendment is the way women will achieve legal equality or not, it is still true that the struggle over its ratification has provided the greatest political training ground for women in the history of the world”

In 1923, the ERA written by Alice, was introduced into Congress. The Amendment declared “equal rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the US or by any State on account of sex” (“Woman Suffrage”, 2014, para 1). The Amendment was introduced into every Congress through 1972, where it finally passed but failed ratification in 1982. Only 35 states ratified the Amendment by the 1982 deadline. After the failure, the Amendment was again presented to Congress every year, but still fails to get passed.

As the rate of industrialization in America grew during the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, child labor became more and more common. The rapid growth of the economy and the vast amounts of poor immigrants during the Industrial Age in America justified the work of children as young as the age of three. By 1900, over two million children were employed. However, the risks of involving child labor greatly outweighed the positives; child labor was inhumane, cruel, and caused physical deformities among children. Children typically worked in coal mines, mills, and factories which contained many life-threatening hazards.

Fortunately, due to the tireless work of decades of activist’s, laws have changed, amendments added to the constitution, and rights granted to those who were previously unjustly denied. One of these victories for women’s rights occurred when women were granted the right

Child labor during the 18th and 19th century did not only rapidly develop an industrial revolution, but it also created a situation of difficulty and abuse by depriving children of edjucation, good physical health, and the proper emotional wellness and stability. In the late 1700 's and early 1800 's, power-driven machines replaced hand labor for making most manufactured items. Many of America 's factories needed a numerous amount of workers for a cheap salary. Because of this, the amount of child laborers have been growing rapidly over the early 1800s.

In the small towns they at least worked for their families but in the city the worked harder, in harsher conditions and for a huge company. This resulted in more hours of work and more sickness because of how hard they worked. Child labor is still present today. More than 59,600 of the workers in the U.S.A are under 14 and many other countries have it worst. We can see how child labor was present in the industrial revolution, but we can also see how it is still present today.