The debate over the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment was a highly visible spectacle. Millions of Americans were divided by the efforts of second wave feminists and their call for female empowerment through equality, versus the efforts of Phyllis Schlafly and her Stop ERA movement. The short lived movement to pass the Equal Rights Amendment panned throughout the early 1970s, and ultimately failed thanks to Schlafly’s campaigning against the cause.
The ERA movement was similar to the Women’s Suffrage Movement in that both movements were rooted in women’s roles in politics. The events of the movement to pass the Equal Rights Amendment mirror the struggles of the suffragettes in getting the Nineteenth Amendment passed. Women who were against the ERA in 1970 were against it because they believed that they were already equal to men and did not see the need for any special treatment in the Constitution. These opponents of the ERA feared that the passing of the amendment would lead to women being drafted and not having the right to remain as housewives. The outcry against the ERA is evocative of the men and women who were anti women’s suffrage. People did not support the move for women’s suffrage in the 1920s because they believed that women both did not need the right to vote and having voting rights would lead to more harm than good.