The Equal Rights Amendment Redux
by Idella Moore

When Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972, in order to get around powerful North Carolina Sen. Sam Ervin's opposition, it added a seven-year time limit on ratification. Even after Congress bowed to public pressure to extend the deadline, proponents were given only an additional three years to finish ratification.

Throughout the 10 years of the ERA campaign, national polls consistently showed the majority of Americans were in favor of the amendment. But state legislators who believed (or purported to believe) the anti-ERA claims that the ERA would destroy families, legalize gay marriage, subject women to the military draft, and mandate unisex toilets, were successful in preventing the ERA from being ratified in 15 state legislatures. By June 30, 1982 the deadline came with the ERA lacking just three of the 38 states needed for ratification. The ERA was defeated. Or was it?

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Moore is the executive officer for 4ERA.org

The Economic Status of Arizona Women
by Jodi Beckley Liggett

Women have made tremendous economic gains over the last several decades. While women fare much better in some states than others, nowhere do women fare as well economically as men.

So go the findings of the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) in their report, "The Best and Worst State Economies for Women." IWPR is a think tank that tracks women's well being across the states. Arizonans will be pleasantly surprised to learn that Arizona does not vie for dead last on these particular rankings. Yet, all the states have far to go in achieving economic equality for women, and Arizona is no exception.

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Liggett is director of programs and policy research at the Arizona Foundation for Women.

Legislature Attacks Reproductive Rights Again

by Ann O'Hanlon

RICHMOND, VA.--Here we go again. Extremist state legislators are taking the issue of abortion and using it to distract us as they quietly impose their alarming, turn-back-the-clock agenda on women's issues.

So far, by one or two votes, most of their radical proposals have failed to make it to the governor's desk and because of this do not receive much media or other public attention. But no one who cares about family privacy or the rights of women should be complacent. Right now, one Senate committee -- a committee whose members believe that the most intimate personal decisions should be made without intrusion from government -- is all that prevents these proposals from becoming law.

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O'Hanlon is the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia.