I Need the ERA Because…Īs part of our I Need the ERA because… campaign, launched to mark Women’s Equality Day 2022, we take a closer look at how the ERA would help move the needle on four crucial issues for women and girls, including abortion, child marriage, gender-based violence, and female genital mutilation. It should also make it easier for the courts to strike down existing sex discriminatory laws based on stereotypes. Legislatively, the ERA would empower and embolden Congress to pass federal laws that address systemic gender discrimination and inequality, leveling the playing field for women and girls, especially women of color and other historically marginalized groups. Specifically, the ERA would make sex a “suspect classification” like race, religion, and national origin and require cases of sex discrimination to undergo “ strict scrutiny.” Strict scrutiny is the highest level of justification in the US legal system and would recognize and raise sex equality to the status of a fundamental right and categorize sex as a “protected class. At a time when women’s rights are under severe attack, the ERA would both shield existing rights from political winds as well as help expand protections and liberties for all women, girls, and other marginalized genders. Incorporating the ERA would embed the bedrock principle of sex and gender equality into the most important legal document in the United States. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.īut despite meeting all constitutional requirements necessary to become the 28th amendment, including ratification by 38 states, the ERA has yet to be added to the United States Constitution. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. What is the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)?įor more than a century, feminists have realized that this omission presents a major barrier to achieving true gender equality in the United States and that’s why Alice Paul drafted the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in 1923: 85% of UN Member States in the world have constitutions that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex and/or gender.
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