This is a reminder: Dissent matters.
May 22, 2025
My name is Ruby Lerman, and I’m a teenager in Montgomery County, Maryland. I have my whole life ahead of me, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Ideally, I want to be an engineer or a climate scientist because those fields interest me. However, those fields are very male-dominated. But what can’t I accomplish? What opportunities are closed to me?
These questions seem rhetorical. Why should any person of any gender or race who has put in the work in their field not have the same privileges as others? Then, I discovered the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).
The ERA is an amendment to the Constitution, first proposed in 1923, which simply prohibits sex discrimination. Straightforward, helpful, necessary, what’s wrong with it? Why isn’t it officially recognized?
In 1972, when it was brought in front of state legislatures, it was given a 7-year deadline for at least 38 states to ratify it so it could be added to the Constitution. It even got a 3-year deadline extension from Jimmy Carter. Ten years later, only 35 states did so, and it was not amended into the Constitution. However, the last of the remaining three states (Virginia) ratified it in 2020. This raises questions about whether the deadline was required (There are no requirements about deadlines when adding amendments to the Constitution).
The ERA faced opposition from many conservative groups who feared this would change gender roles in society. These groups persist today and are arguing that it was too late due to the deadline. This is why even now, in modern America, it still struggles to get universal recognition as the 28th Amendment. My question is, why? What are these groups scared of facing? Women smarter than themselves?
This simple amendment could make the pink tax (women’s products costing more than men’s) illegal, pay inequality illegal, and day-to-day sexism illegal. Why does it struggle to have Congress recognize it as law when it’s 53 years overdue? Why do individuals currently in power in America still think this way?
Please, we must bring awareness to this issue for the next generation, or even mine. There is no actual reason that ERA isn’t being recognized as part of the Constitution, just the ignorance of politicians. Tell everyone you know about this injustice so we can stop it together.
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