STOP ERA Tactics

STOP ERA members also engaged in a wide range of tactics. Like NOW, they held rallies and marches and wrote letters to politicians encouraging them to vote against the ERA. Unlike NOW, STOP ERA members carried out actions that reflected their “traditional” view of women such as:

Ensuring women with children attended their public gatherings.
Appearing in public with ladylike dignity: only women under 25 years of age could wear “STOP ERA” t-shirts; women over 25 years were to be age-appropriately dressed.
Baking and delivering gifts of homemade bread, pies, and jams to state legislators to emphasize women’s traditional roles and make them appear less militant.
Working with other conservative religious and political organizations to expand potential supporters and fund-raising opportunities.

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1977 STOP ERA Counter Rally

At the 1977 National Women’s Conference in Houston, TX, opponents of feminism and the ERA united behind Phyllis Schlafly and staged a counter-rally. Fifteen thousand pro-family supporters declared their opposition to abortion, lesbian rights, and the Equal Rights Amendment.

1977 STOP ERA White House Picket

STOP ERA supporters, led by Phyllis Schlafly, picketed outside the White House to protest First Lady Rosalyn Carter’s involvement in efforts to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. Approximately 150 protesters denounced Mrs. Carter’s activism and support for the amendment.

Transcript

NARRATOR: And it seemed she never ran out of arguments.

PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY: Women would have to be drafted, just like men and put in military combat, just like men.

GLORIA STEINEM: People would get in touch with her, you know, and say, “You know, it wouldn’t do that. She would say, “Oh, thank you so much.” And then she would just go to the next place and say exactly the same thing.

SCHLAFLY: They want to give the homosexuals and the lesbians the same dignity as husbands and wives.

WOMEN IN ERA PARADE: ERA has nothing to do with abortion, it has nothing to do with homosexuality, but they tie these emotional issues to it and it scares people.

NARRATOR: By 1977 Schlafly’s anti-ERA campaign had aligned with Evangelical, Catholic, and Mormon faith groups.

RICK PERLSTEIN: In politics, everything is about coalitions and these groups are learning to work together. By 1977, there really is no daylight between issues like the ERA, gay rights, and abortion. And the reason Phyllis Schlafly is such an important figure in this is, she’s able to encompass all these threads, and bring ‘em together.

SCHLAFLY: I am informed that there are 15,000 inside and several thousand more who have, unfortunately, were turned away.

NARRATOR: The coalition gathered in Houston, Texas that November. They did so because across town about 20,000 women were attending the first ever convention promoting equality between the sexes.

BELLA ABZUG: This is the time we will make women and men share equally in the greatness of America.

WOMEN: (shouting) ERA, ERA, ERA!

PERLSTEIN: And on that stage, you saw the First Lady of the United States, Rosalynn Carter, the previous First Lady, Republican Betty Ford, this was a bipartisan group of people, and they were all advocating very strongly for the Equal Rights Amendment. Both parties in 1970s still had liberal factions and conservative factions. And one of the things that the ERA hastens is this sorting into Republican equals conservative and Democrats equal liberal.

SCHLAFLY: I know that you have the energy and the dedication to defeat this assault on the family, you can turn back this tide all across the country. If you stay with us, the Equal Rights Amendment will die.

NARRATOR: As the 1980 presidential election approached, the emerging religious right threw its support behind Ronald Reagan. At the convention conservatives were seated as delegates on the platform committee.

JOURNALIST: Chairman John Tower barely had time to gavel the platform resolutions committee to order this morning, before the single most controversial issue the committee must deal with surfaced: the Equal Rights Amendment.

NARRATOR: With Schlafly looking on, the party would step to the right.

ELEANOR SMEAL: They repositioned the party to be the party against abortion, and the party against gay rights, and the party against the Equal Rights Amendment.

JOHN CHANCELLOR: They voted to end the Republican party’s 40 years of support for the Equal Rights Amendment.

MORTON DEAN: While retreating from the party’s past support for the ERA, the subcommittee endorsed a plank that would strengthen the party’s opposition to legalized abortion.

NARRATOR: Within two years of Reagan taking office, the final deadline expired. Thirty-five states had ratified – three short of what was needed to change the Constitution.

Identify STOP ERA’s strategies and tactics by placing an “X” in each appropriate box.

Tactic	NOW	STOP-ERA
1. Shaped public awareness and opinion
2. Created economic pressure
3. Built coalitions
4. Organized locally and nationally
5. Created political pressure
6. Used the legal system

Based on the information you gathered in the chart above, do you believe that NOW or STOP-ERA was more effective in its tactics and strategies? Explain your answer.

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