Women's Economic Equity

Putting ERA Aside for Other Concerns

The equal rights amendment may have gone down to defeat nearly three years ago, but women's push for equal treatment at home, on the job and in American society did not die with the unsuccessful constitutional amendment.1 Much of the energy once channeled into the drive to ratify ERA has been redirected toward women's economic issues: equal pay for women and men who hold different jobs of “comparable worth”; reforms in Social Security, insurance and pension laws to eliminate discrimination based on sex; and parental leave for child care plus improved day care for children.

The overriding issue is economic equity. For every dollar earned by the average working man in the United States, the average working ...