Equal Rights Dbq Essay

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Recommended: Women military

Rameil Samuel
Period 1 - US History
5/13/2015
Equal Rights - Document Based Question
Equal rights in America has been an issue for many generations. Before the 1960s, women were second-class citizens compared to men who had all the rights available to them. The Equal Rights Amendment, also known as the ERA, was originally proposed in 1923 but unfortunately failed. However, Congress was only reflecting the society’s perspective of equal rights and were not the sole reason of the amendment’s failure to be passed. Women were not allowed to reach higher education or job roles in management. Medical and law schools had a majority of men and close to no women at all. Women were discriminated if they were tall or athletic. After high school, women …show more content…

In cities and suburban areas, women headed off to college to get the Mrs. degree or in other words get married. During World War II, the majority of men were sent off seas to fight in the Eastern and Western front. This led to jobs that typically would only be open only for men were now replaced by women. The United Nations Charter supported equal rights for both men and women. Later on, sports programs for young women in high school and college became much more popular. Support for the ERA only grew after. In June of 1971, the House Of Representatives met to discuss the ERA for the 20th time. The House passed the ERA by a vote of 350 to 15 and the next year the US Senate passed the ERA by a vote of 84 to 8. Both the Democratic and Republican supported the ERA along with President Nixon, Ford and Carter. Ratification by the states was the only obstacle standing in the way. In 1983 after 10 years of its proposal in 1973, the ERA was not ratified. The ERA was not constitutionalized because difficulty of ratifying an …show more content…

Idaho, Nebraska and Tennessee originally ratified the ERA but later on rescinded it. In document 3, a map of the United States showed about half the states not ratifying before the deadline and at least 4 states revoking ratification. A requirement for an amendment becoming constitutionalized is 3/4 of the states ratification which was not met by the 1982 deadline. Amending a constitution has never been easy as seen in Document 2 which states the Article V of the constitution, “The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on Application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several states, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States”. At least 2/3 of Congress of both the Senate and House of Representatives need to agree with the proposal of any amendment, this with the requirement of 3/4 of the states ratifying it make amending any constitution regardless of its support difficult. Eventually, there was backlash towards the ERA because the amendment let the Congress decide how to enforce it. As stated in Document 1 Section 2 of the ERA, “The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by

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