Today in Herstory: National Woman’s Party Announces First Draft of the Equal Rights Amendment
Today in Herstory: National Woman’s Party Announces First Draft of the Equal Rights Amendment
Gail Laughlin
December 11, 1921: The campaign for a 20th Amendment, to assure equal rights for women, is quickly taking shape! Though ratification of the Susan B. Anthony (nationwide woman suffrage) Amendment 16 months ago marked a major advance for women’s rights, winning the vote can only be a stepping stone on the path to total equality. Today the National Woman’s Party announced a preliminary draft of a measure to transform the ideal of equal rights for men and women into a Constitutional amendment permanently mandating in nationwide.
At the N.W.P.’s national convention in February – the first since ratification of the 19th Amendment was officially certified by the Secretary of State on August 26, 1920 – the delegates demanded “absolute equality” as the party’s new goal. A committee of legal experts was appointed to draw up a preliminary proposal for accomplishing that goal. A Constitutional amendment was the means chosen, and the tentative text, announced today, reads:
No political, civil or legal disabilities or inequalities on account of sex, or on account of marriage unless applying alike to both sexes, shall exist in the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Among the many prestigious members of the committee who came up with the suggested wording are Gail Laughlin, who was a full-time activist with the National American Woman Suffrage Association for many years, and was the first president of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women, serving from 1919 to 1920; Shippen Lewis, Secretary of the Legal Education Committee of the American Bar Association; Matthew Hale, former National Chairman of the Progressive (“Bull Moose”) Party, and George Gordon Battle, former Assistant District Attorney for New York.
According to Laughlin: “The amendment to the United States Constitution proposed by the National Woman’s Party asks nothing more for women than equal political, civil and legal rights with men, and certainly women should be satisfied with nothing less.”
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http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2014/12/11/today-in-herstory-national-womans-party-announces-first-draft-of-the-equal-rights-amendment/
the equal rights amendment as passed (and STILL not ratified!)
The Equal Rights Amendment
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 the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification