Equal Rights Amendment

Focus On: The Equal Rights Amendment

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I know it has been a while since my last post. It has been hard to return to this blog (or anything for that matter), since my father passed away. But I have kept myself busy with my kids and my book. And, I am happy to note that I’ve made decent progress on the book, which I hope to discuss in another post at some other point.

But, for now, I want to share some exciting news. Last month, I had the honor to be interviewed by award-winning journalist Jane Marie of the production house Little Everywhere for Focus Features’ podcast special on the Equal Rights Amendment.

This podcast marks the release of Focus Features’ new film On the Basis of Sex, which follows the story of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her fight for gender equality. During the interview, I provided a historical perspective on the current struggle for the ERA, and I touched upon the research I am conducting for my forthcoming book, Gendered Citizenship, which will be published by The University of Nebraska Press. https://focusfeatures.podbean.com/e/focus-on-the-equal-rights-amendment/

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My Book

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The other day, while I was preparing my two-year-old son old for his afternoon nap, my three-year-old daughter looked up at me and asked what I had been working on earlier in the day. That day had been one of my workdays, a day in which I have a sitter come to watch my kids for three hours while I work in my home office.

Looking at my daughter, I gave her a sly smile and asked: “Holland, did you know mama is a doctor?”

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The Equal Rights Amendment and the Rise of Emancipationism

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I am thrilled to see my article, “The Equal Rights Amendment and the Rise of Emancipationism,” published in Frontiers‘ special issue on the ERA. My article is based on a paper that I presented at “The ERA in the 21st Century” conference in November 2013. It also builds upon two chapters from my PhD dissertation, which I successfully defended in March 2014.

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Historical Research: Philosophy and Practice

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To borrow from Joyce Appleby, I consider myself a practitioner of “practical realism.” I appreciate post-modern theorists’ suspicion of supposed essential universal truths; however, I still strive to obtain a degree of professional objectivity in my reconstructions and interpretations of the past.

Joyce Appleby
Joyce Appleby

In general, I investigate the interplay between language and ideas, particularly in the realms of religion, politics, gender, and the law. My current research examines the dueling civic ideologies embedded in the conflict over the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in order to shed light on the gendered ideas that have influenced social initiatives, political positions, and legal philosophies. In total, my work seeks to explore how the construction of ideas through language helps to create communal identities and values.

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Historical Perspectives on Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.

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In a recent American Historical Association (AHA) roundtable, historians Ruth Bloch, Naomi Lamoreaux, Alonzo Hamby, and John Fea offer insightful discussions on the historical implications of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores.

Ruth Bloch and Naomi Lamoreaux retrace the history of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on corporate personhood to argue that Justice Samuel A. Alito’s opinion breaks with a long line of decisions that treated for-profit companies as “persons’ under the Constitution only for the purpose of protecting property rights-not the liberties-of individual members.”

As well, Alonzo Hamby discusses the relationship between Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and Hobby Lobby. He contends that Hobby Lobby reflects a growing cultural conflict that will continue to divide American society well into the foreseeable future.

John Fea reminds us that corporate personhood has a long history; to this point, he notes that in post-Civil War America the Supreme Court on several occasions affirmed that corporations (primarily railroads) were covered under the Fourteenth Amendment. Yet, he also encourages us to further reflect upon the extent to which a for-profit company can posses a soul and practice a religious conscience. As he puts it, “Religious liberty was an inherently Protestant concept. It stemmed from the belief that people could read the Bible for themselves and draw their own religious conclusions. It has always been a religious idea applied to individual human beings.”

Hobby Lobby also touches upon some of the themes that I examine in my own research. As discussed in other posts, my Ph.D. dissertation looks at the competing civic ideologies embedded in the conflict over the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) from 1920-1963. Throughout the original ERA conflict, ERA supporters documented the numerous times the Supreme Court had restricted women’s standing under the Fourteenth Amendment (Bradwell v. Illinois 1872; Minor v. Happersett 1874; Mackenzie v. Hare 1915; Goesaert v. Cleary 1947, etc.). Put simply, the Court maintained that the Fourteenth Amendment did not guarantee equal treatment before the law for men and women citizens. For ERA proponents, such rulings denied women their full standing as “persons under the law.” Moreover, amendment proponents insisted that the ERA would remedy this problem by affirming complete constitutional sexual equality and ensuring the full constitutional incorporation of women into the sovereign power of the people.

~Rebecca DeWolf, Ph.D.