150 PART TWO INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS CHAPTER 7 EQUAL RIGHTS:STRUGGLING TOWARD EAIRNESS 151 to U.S.Department of Labor statistics,the unemployment rate for blacks in 1955 was 1.2 times higher than that for whites,but by 1985 it was 2.3 times higher.Black Americans'income also declined in proportion to white Ameri- cans'income during the same period.In the mid-1980s,reversing a previous trend,the proportion of young blacks going to college began to decline. WOMEN In view可this entire The United States carried over from English common law a political disregard disfrancitisement of one-half the for women,forbidding them to vote,hold public office,and serve on juries. Upon marriage,a woman essentially lost her identity as an individual and becnuse women do feel usually surrendered her right to own and dispose of property without her husband's consent. and frauduiently deprived of The first women's rights convention in America was held in 1848 in Seneca hei巾w5 t sacred rigi,w insist that they habe inmediate Falls,New York,after Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton had been admission to all the rights and barred from the main floor of an antislavery convention.Thereafter,however, privileges which belong to them the movement for women's rights became closely aligned with the abolitionist as citizens of the UInited States. movement,and women had some expectation that black emancipation would The Equal Rights Amendment Elizabeth Cady Stanton also bring them their civil rights.However,the passage of the post-Civil War fell three states short of et al.. constitutional amendments proved to be a setback for the women's movement. ratification in 1982.(Paul The Thirteenth,Fourteenth,and Fifteenth amendments barred discrimination Conklin) Falis Corventon by color but not by sex."Finally,in 1920,the Nineteenth Amendment was adopted,forbidding denial of the right to vote"by the United States or by any men)favored the ERA,36 percent were opposed,and9 percent had no opinion. state on account of sex." Nevertheless,the ERA failed to gain the support of a majority of state legislators @》T起心NEHm in the thirty-eight states needed for ratification.The proposed amendment was three states short when the deadline for ratification came and went in 1982. Women's Equality The Equal Rights Amendment Although conflict b ween groups universal,the Equality of rights tnder the law In 1923 women's leaders proposed another constitutional amendment,one that Women's Legal Gains nature of the conflict is often shail not be denied or abridged would guarantee equal rights for women.The amendment failed to gain 的the United States or by amy congressional approval then and on several subsequent attempts.Finally,in Although the ERA did not become part of the Constitution,it helped bring particularized.Racial confkt in the United States cannat slate o accotont of ser 1973,the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)received congressional approval and women's rights to the forefront at a time when developments in Congress and ead y be compared wit. Proposed Equal the courts were contributing significantly to the legal equality of the sexes. say,religious conflict in Rights Amendment went to the state legislatures for ratifcation.The proposed amendment stated: Northem Ireland.The one "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United Among the congressional initiatives that have helped women are the Equal Pay States or by any state on account of sex." Act of 1963,which prohibits sex discrimination in salary and wages by some all nations is that of gender: Congressional support for the ERA was an outgrowth of the 1960s civil rights categories of employers;the Civil Rights Act of 1964,which prohibits sex omen everywhete are not movement and of the changing demands of women.Families were smaller,and discrimination in programs that receive federal funding:Title IX of the equal to men in law oc in more women were entering the labor force."Proponents of the ERA argued that Education Amendment of 1972,which prohibits sex discrimination in educa- fact.But there are large tences between countries. women cannot truly be equal and sexism-discrimination on the basis of tion;and the Equal Credit Act of 1974,as amended in 1976,which prohibits sex sex-cannot be eliminated as long as legal distinctions between men and discrimination in the granting of financial credit. A1988st如中y by the Population Crisis Committee women are maintained.Ratification of the ERA was opposed by traditionalists, The Fourteenth Amendment's equal-protection clause has also become an placed the United Sates third who argued that there is a need to retain special legal protections for women, instrument of women's equality.The Broion decision encouraged women's rall in women's equality. behind only Sweden and mainly in the areas of the draft,working conditions,and family life."A 1982 rights activists to believe that the equal-protection clause could be the basis for Finland (see Chapter 1). Gallup survey indicated that 55 percent of Americans (including 53 percent of sex-discrimination rulings.In Reed v.Reed(1971)the Supreme Court invoked equal protection for the first time in a case involving women's rights,declaring unconstitutional an Idaho statute that gave preference to men in appointments MPor a histary of the wamen's rights movement,see Eleanof Flexer,Centary of Sirggle,rev.ed. as administrators of the estates of dead children.3 (Cambridge,Mass:Harvard University Press,1975) See Ellen Carol DuBois,Fewin The 1984 Grove City case,which involved alleged sex discrimination,was a in Americg,1848-1869 (lthaca,N.Y.:C mnell University Press,1978)Susan Cary Nicholas,Rights setback:the Supreme Court concluded that the antidiscrimination requirements and Wrongs (Old Westbury.N.Y.:Feminist Presa,1979). See 5uzanne M.Bianchi and Daphne Spain,Americen Women in Trensition (New York:Russel Sage Foundation,1986). See Joyce Gelb and Marian Lef Palley,Wowren and Public Policies(Princeton.N.L:Princeton University Preas,19821. See Janet K.Boles,The Palitics of the Egunl Rights Amendment (New York:Longman,1977) Reed v.Reed,404 US.71 (1971)