About this Project

Before I came to Northeastern, I had never even heard of the Equal Rights Amendment. I learned about it for the first time in a history class I took my freshman year, and fairly often after in my women’s, gender and sexuality studies classes. But it was always in the past tense — the amendment that tried to ban sex discrimination and failed.

 

In the fall of 2019, I was working on an article about activism in the 1970s and ‘80s for class, and thought back to the ERA. After some research, I was shocked to find that the amendment was still around today, and there was a very real push to ratify and add it to the Constitution. 

 

As I worked on the story for class, I knew I wanted to dig deeper into the issue and delve into the complicated legal arguments that revived the ERA, and look into what exactly might happen in this mostly uncharted legal territory. That urge only increased when Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the ERA in January 2020. 

 

A constitutional amendment is a big deal, and I didn’t feel like the ERA got the attention it warranted. Many of the women I spoke with pointed out that the legal protections we have now aren’t set in stone and that women deserve to be included in the Constitution. Those who oppose the ERA say it's not about real equality and would do away with legal benefits for women. 

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