Eighty-five percent of country constitutions worldwide guarantee equality for women. The United States Constitution isn’t one of them.

Ratified in 1920, the 19th Amendment granted American women the constitutional right to vote. While a significant step forward in the equal rights movement, the 19th Amendment lacked language that would prohibit discrimination based on sex in areas such as employment, property, divorce, and education. That’s why, in 1923, the first wave of equal rights leaders proposed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Despite the efforts of countless activists over the last century, the ERA has yet to be enacted and women still don’t hold equal constitutional rights.

The ERA would guarantee that all people are equal under the law and would prohibit discrimination based on gender. About 101 years later, Americans still lack constitutional protections from gender-based discrimination, but a new generation of equal rights advocates are leading a renewed effort to publish the ERA to the U.S. Constitution. 

Katie Hornung, co-founder and executive director of VoteEqualityUS, was instrumental in securing the 2020 ERA ratification for the 38th state, Virginia. Her efforts were documented in the film “Ratified.” Hornung’s motivation came from the different forms of gender discrimination she experienced over the course of her life and the desire to ensure a different experience for future generations. 

“Some of the earliest discrimination I experienced was in elementary school. I played sports before Title Nine existed where I lived. I was playing on the boy’s soccer team, and grown men would yell for our coach to take the girls out of the game so their sons could play. They didn’t want any of the fields shared,” Hornung said. 

When laws and rights are established it creates a more equitable life for girls and women. 

“In high school, I was the lead in the band’s trumpet section. There were 20 boys and me, and they could not handle that a girl was the better musician. They constantly harassed me,” Hornung said. 

Situations like this weren’t only limited to her younger years.

“After college, I worked for an employer and was underpaid compared to the two men who worked for me. They reported to me that they were getting paid thousands of dollars more than I was,” Hornung said. 

Hornung is not alone in her experiences. According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center, the gender pay gap has not changed in over two decades. The Census Bureau’s most recent analysis states that, on average, full-time, year-round working women made only 84% of what their male equivalents were paid. There is an even more significant disparity between African American and Hispanic women.

“I feel like I’ve personally experienced a pretty full range of discrimination, but I don’t think any of my experiences are unique, and I think a lot of women have experienced all of this,” Hornung said. 

While many citizens believe their rights are already protected under the law, the Equal Rights Amendment has yet to be published in the U.S. Constitution.

A 2022 poll by Data for Progress found that 70% of voters falsely believe that women and men are guaranteed equal rights in the Constitution.

ERA’s history

The ERA was written by suffragists Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman in 1923. To amend the Constitution, two-thirds of the House and the Senate must pass a resolution proposing the amendment, and then a minimum of three-fourths of all 50 states must be ratified. 

In every session of Congress since 1923, the ERA has been introduced. In 1972, the resolution passed in the House of Representatives and the Senate and was made available for the states to ratify. This was an important step, but Congress placed a time limit of seven years on the process. 

To publish the amendment, 38 states needed to ratify it. In the first year, the ERA was ratified in 30 states. However, then it lost momentum as conservative activists campaigned against it. Once the seven years were up, the ERA had not achieved the necessary numbers, so Congress voted to extend the time for three more years. In 1982, only 35 of the required 38 states had ratified the ERA after the three-year extension. Many believed that the ERA was a dead amendment and had little hope that it would ever be able to be fully ratified. 

In the article The Equal Rights Amendment Explained from the Brennan Center for Justice, it says, “In recent years there has been a resurgence of women’s activism, from the Women’s March on Washington to the #MeToo Movement to the record number of women elected to Congress and state legislatures in 2018. Amid this renewed focus on issues of gender equality, lawmakers and advocacy organizations like the ERA Coalition have put the amendment back on the nation’s agenda.”

In 2017 and 2018, Nevada and Illinois became the 36th and 37th states to ratify the ERA. With only one more state needed to fully ratify the ERA, supporters considered Virginia the most likely candidate.  So, many activists worked hard for the next two years to make it happen. In 2020, Virginia’s state legislature voted to ratify the ERA, making it the 38th state to do so. 

Since 2020, the ERA has met all of the Article V requirements to become an amendment. However, it is still facing challenges due to the expired deadline. In 2023, resolutions that would eliminate the original time limit on the ERA were introduced in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.  However, Congress has not adopted these.  

Some believe that the President could tell the National Archivist to certify the ratification of the ERA and publish it to the Constitution. The Archivist oversees the operation of the National Archives and Records and has the authority to declare when an amendment has met the threshold to be added to the Constitution. Others claim that the President cannot bypass Congress and override legal opinions to force the Archivist to act.

“The only thing keeping us from its publication is an executive order by the President. We could all be in the Constitution tomorrow,” said Darcy Totten, the executive director for the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls. 

Impacts of the ERA

“The ERA is foundational to what it means to be considered a whole and equal person with rights, especially as women are fighting for the right to autonomy, for the right to opportunities to build their own lives and to make their own futures,” Totten said. 

The ERA will not only affect women but could impact society as a whole. 

Society becomes more functional when women have access to equal rights, opportunities, and education. Some articles that support these claims are Global Issues: Gender Equity and Women’s Empowerment by the Peace Corps and Facts and figures: Economic empowerment by UN Women. 

From the beginning of this country, women have been excluded from equal rights, and women have never been considered equal citizens under the law.

“Women are robust participants in our entire society, our government, our economy, and every aspect of the society we live in right now. However, it was designed with the idea that we wouldn’t be part of it in any sense, equal to men. The ERA is our opportunity to change that,” Totten said.

The ERA will not solve all issues of inequality, but it is essential for furthering women’s rights and equality. 

The movie “Ratified”

The movie “Ratified” tells the story of the ERA and details the women behind the scenes fighting to ratify the ERA. People advocating for the ERA, as highlighted in the movie, range from senators and house representatives to mothers who wanted more for their children. Even a young girl grew up helping the cause with her mom. 

Emily Best is a Co-Creator of the movie “Ratified” and has produced many other films. She first learned about the ERA in 2017 at an event for women trying to revive people’s interest in the Equal Rights Amendment. 

“I was 36 years old, and I was astonished. I had been working actively in equity, inclusion, and entertainment, and I did not know we didn’t have an Equal Rights Amendment. I was shocked, I called a bunch of my friends who were also really public feminists, and I asked, Did you know about this? And I said no. I was shocked,” Best said.

This new discovery inspired Best to use her storytelling skills to create “Ratified.”

“I was so fascinated by this story and the women who had held that event where I first learned about the ERA that I approached them to see if we could put a project together. And I found the director and some executive producers, and we have worked together for eight and a half years to bring this project to life,” Best said.

Although this project is essential, it hasn’t always been easy. 

“Making this movie has been really challenging. We started on another story entirely and spent our first little bit of money looking at the other story,” Best said. 

Eventually, two more states were ratified, leaving only one left. Everyone expected Virginia to be the last state, so Best and her team decided to follow them. 

“We ended up following this multi-racial, multi-generational coalition in Virginia, and we got to follow them through trying and losing, and then flipping the Virginia House and Senate, and then trying again and succeeding, and Virginia became the 38th and final state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. And we thought that was the movie’s end,” Best said.

When COVID-19 hit in 2020, the ERA was fully ratified, and everyone involved expected it to be added to the Constitution, but nothing happened. 

“It was really confounding. And the longer this went on, the more we realized that there’s a third act to this movie. We’re looking at another hold-up for a fully ratified amendment, which has never happened before,” Best said. 

A main character in the movie “Ratified” was Hornung, who led the group working to ratify the ERA in Virginia. 

“I became in charge of a group called VA Ratified ERA in 2018, and at that point, we were working on the ratification. People were starting to realize that there’s just one state left that needs to ratify it. They looked at our actions and decided we were the most likely state. And the documentary team called and asked if they could follow us since what we were doing was historical,” Hornung said. 

This was a pivotal moment that allowed the movie to take a more clear direction.  

“I think the movie is an excellent on-ramp for quickly getting up to speed on what’s happening. It covers 100-plus years and is less than 90 minutes long. And it’s also really fun because it gets people fired up and excited. I also think it shows how activism can be beautiful and invigorating rather than boring,” Hornung said. 

Hornung’s enthusiasm highlights how powerful storytelling can be. This movie can educate and inspire its viewers to take action and make the ERA more accessible to a broader audience. 

“This is the most simultaneously sort of uplifting and frustrating thing. My mother used to march in the street for the ERA. It was a passion of hers when she was in college. She has since passed, and I hope I will see it in the Constitution before I do,” Totten said.

For Totten and most of these women, the fight for the ERA is personal as they advocate for a more equal future.  

“This is the most important foundation we can build for ourselves right now, for women in the future, and for everyone; we’re half the people. You can’t have a fair and equal society if half of the people are not considered equal under the law,” Totten said.