The ERA

The Equal Rights Amendment was a proposal written in 1921 by Alice Paul, who was the founder of the National Woman's Party. It was designed mainly to invalidate many state and federal laws that she felt discriminated against women; its central underlying principle was that sex should not determine the legal rights of American men or women. This proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution stated that "Equality of rights under the law shall not be …

…granting women the right to vote. But for her the ability to vote was not enough to guarantee women's equal rights and she decided to concentrate her efforts for the ERA. Introduced in 1923, the Equal Rights Amendment finally passed Congress in 1972 but there it stopped as it failed to win ratification. Although it failed to become ratified by congress, currently since 1985 the ERA has been reintroduced into each session of Congress and held in Committee.