Equal Means Equal: Why the Time for an Equal Rights Amendment Is Now

by Jessica Neuwirth, Gloria Steinem (Introduction)

Overview

When the Equal Rights Amendment was first passed by Congress in 1972, Richard Nixon was president and All in the Family’s Archie Bunker was telling his feisty wife Edith to stifle it. Over the course of the next ten years, an initial wave of enthusiasm led to ratification of the ERA by thirty-five states, just three short of the thirty-eight states needed by the 1982 deadline. Many of the arguments against the ERA that historically stood in the way of ratification have gone the way of bouffant hairdos and Bobby Riggs, and a new Coalition for the ERA was recently set up to bring the experience and wisdom of old-guard activists together with the energy and social media skills of a new-guard generation of women.


In a series of short, accessible chapters looking at several key areas of sex discrimination recognized by the Supreme Court, Equal Means Equal tells the story of the legal cases that inform the need for an ERA, along with contemporary cases in which women’s rights are compromised without the protection of an ERA. Covering topics ranging from pay equity and pregnancy discrimination to violence against women, Equal Means Equal makes abundantly clear that an ERA will improve the lives of real women living in America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620970393
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	01/06/2015
Pages:	160
Sales rank:	227,385
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

The founder of the international women’s rights organization Equality Now, Jessica Neuwirth is the former director of the New York branch of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. She lives in New York City. Gloria Steinem is an American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader of, and media spokeswoman for, the women's liberation movement in the 1960s and 1970s. She lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Foreword Gloria Steinem xi

Introduction 1

Pay Inequity 15

Pregnancy Discrimination 33

Violence Against Women 51

Discriminatory Laws 71

The New ERA 91

Additional Resources

Appendix 1 Equal Rights Amendment Texts and Related Legislation 107

Appendix 2 Websites for Action and Further Reading 109

Appendix 3 The First National Women's Conference, Houston 1977 113

Appendix 4 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) 127

Notes 145

Editorial Reviews

"The time is right for the ERA and a new movement of women and men, Democrats and Republicans alike, to put this fundamental right into our Constitution. Equal Means Equal clearly and eloquently lays out the issues at stake and will be an essential tool for the movement."
—Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney

From the Publisher

2014-10-15
A legal manifesto to revive the campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment.The ERA came so close to ratification so long ago that some readers might think it has already been passed, while others might wonder whether it's still necessary. As the founder of Equality Now, Neuwirth writes, "The goal of this book is to help women and men get fired up enough about the absence of this fundamental human right to put it into the Constitution once and for all." She shows how much momentum the movement originally had and how close it came to passage (three states short of the necessary 38 by its 1982 deadline, after Congress had passed it to overwhelming public support in 1972) and how conservative resistance raised fears of things that have already transpired even without the ERA: "What were the fears at the time? Fear of women in combat, fear of unisex bathrooms, fear of gay rights, and the unimaginable prospect of same-sex marriage all fed the flames." Yet the disparity of wages for workers of different gender doing the same work has yet to be corrected, and pregnancy remains cause for employment termination according to some courts. Furthermore, violence against women, hardly a focus of the original campaign, has become even more of a hot-button issue. This book is mainly a summary of court decisions, in the states and at the Supreme Court, which isn't likely to get readers fired up about much of anything, and the conclusion finds the author admitting that "the way our Constitution works, we cannot say with certainty what exactly the ERA will or won't do for women who are hoping it will end sex discrimination." Neuwirth makes a good case that ratification is the right thing to do, but her matter-of-fact style won't do much to rally the troops.

Kirkus Reviews

Read More