Why the ERA failed: politics, women's rights, and the amending process of the constitution. - book reviews

Washington Monthly, Dec, 1986 by Kathleen Currie

Why the ERA Failed: Politics, Women's Rights, and the Amending Process of the Constitution.

May Frances Berry. IndianaUniversity Press, $17.95.

In thespring of 1981, when the Equal Rights Amendment had a little over a year of life left, I attended a meeting at which a psychologist reported on interviews she had conducted in several states where the amendment had not been ratified. What we heard was disturbing. None of those interviewed identified with those they called "women's libbers' who were "trying to shove the ERA down their throats.' They agreed with feminists on issues like equal pay for equal work but felt the ERA proponents denigrated their regard for family life and their work as homemakers.

The feminist reaction rangedfrom bewilderment to pounding-the-table anger. Why were these women saying such nasty things about nice feminists who were trying to save them? No one admitted there was truth in what they said. We didn't respect their reservations about the ERA and didn't want to address their fears about losing traditional roles. No one suspected that we were going to lose the ERA in part because of our inability to understand and appreciate these feelings.

Four years after the last ERAdeadline was missed, Mary Frances Berry, a feminist, professor of history and law, and member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, examines these and other factors that led to the defeat of the ERA. She believes that constitutional amendments have been successful only when they were introduced during periods of progressive reform, when years of groundwork preceded their referral to the states for ratification, and when a broad consensus on a state-by-state and even region-by-region basis existed for passage. The ERA, which was referred to the states just before a conservative era, met none of these requirements. Proponents had made no real plans for ratification in the states, and they underestimated the work needed to create a national consensus.

Berry makes a good case for hertheory, though her view of the ERA campaign is a narrow one. She compacts 200 years of constitutional history into a terse 120 pages, with few anecdotes and little of the passion of the campaign. She doesn't make a case for or against the ERA and she doesn't discuss the conflict it stirred within the movement.