The Successful Era after the ERA Failure

• In Event: 463 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 04. Feminist Identities, Tactics, and Outcomes in Social Movements

Abstract

Although the suffrage movement and the voting rights presented the possibility that American women can have tremendous political power as a voting bloc, women in America had not shown their active political participation until women’s movements in the 1960s. Complementing previous research that considered the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) battles as a ratification failure and focused on its causes, this article suggests a focus shift in interpretation and assessment of the ERA efforts. It argues that the ERA ratification campaign during the 1970s was not the isolated political activity but one part of political history that is filled with American women’s active participation and contentious issues. Throughout its prolonged battle, both pro- and anti-ERA forces gained in strength by continuously raising women’s issues that still call for fierce debates even several decades later. Many American women’ active participation in the ERA battles facilitated the formation of women’s organizations that serve as persevering political education tools for following generations. The persistently incremental trend in the number of women in state legislature seats confirms that the ERA ratification campaigning promoted political advancement of many average American women at the local level as well as a few political elites at the national level. The ERA ratification battles deserve the recognition of their significant contribution to women’s participatory democracy, broad and persistent networks and organizations, and political representation in state legislature.

Author

• Yun Kyung Cho, University of Wisconsin-Madison