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The Fund for Women’s Equality promotes legal and lived equality for women in the United States by increasing public understanding of the need for comprehensive, fair and equal treatment of women and girls under the law and the need to end sex inequality in all its forms.
The Fund for Women’s Equality is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization.
The Fund for Women’s Equality (FFWE) is a national organization that promotes sex equality in the United States. We seek bold change and are helping lead a community and political movement for Constitutional recognition. We increase public understanding of the need for codifying the equal treatment of people on the basis of sex in the Constitution, and the need to end sex inequality in all its forms.
We are a sister organization to the ERA Coalition, which works for the passage and ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and broader Constitutional equality.
Meet the dedicated staff behind the Fund for Women’s Equality/ERA Coalition
Meet the diverse and experienced leaders guiding the work of the Fund for Women’s Equality/ERA Coalition.
A proposed Amendment to the Constitution, granting equal rights to all Americans under law, regardless of sex. The text of the Amendment is as follows: Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
The joint resolution that introduced the ERA included a time limit for ratification. It said the ERA would become part of the Constitution when ratified by three- quarters of the states within seven years. Congress later passed another resolution, extending the time limit to 1982. When 1982 came and went, the movement stalled, though broad support for the ERA has continued. Every session since 1982, a bill has been introduced in Congress that would start the process over again.
Today, there are also bills pending that would do something different: they would eliminate the time limit and recognize the validity of the Equal Rights Amendment as ratified today. This is possible because the original time limit appeared in a joint resolution, rather than in the text of the Amendment itself. A joint resolution can be changed, under the basic principle that one Congress cannot bind subsequent Congresses.
If the time limit remains in place, courts will be asked to decide whether a time limit in a joint resolution can really be effective to stop an Amendment from becoming part of the Constitution once it has been ratified by three-quarters of the states. But to avoid that issue altogether—and to express Congress’s intent that the Amendment be effective with the ratification of the 38th state, as the framers of the Constitution intended— Congress can vote now to eliminate the time limit.
Yes. An Equal Rights Amendment would create additional avenues of legal recourse for people who face discrimination under the law on the basis of sex, and ensure that the Supreme Court applies the same standard of review for sex discrimination cases as it applies to cases of discrimination based on race and national origin. It will also give Congress more power to enact laws that ensure better legal protection against sexual assault and domestic violence, and confirm the rightful place of sex equality in all aspects of life.
Many federal, state, and local laws prohibit discrimination. For example, Title VII is a federal law that prohibits corporate and government employers from discriminating based on sex, race, color, national origin, or religion. Title IX is a federal law that (with certain exceptions) requires schools that receive federal funds to give students equal opportunities regardless of sex.
The ERA addresses discrimination from a different perspective: it prohibits discrimination under the law, including in statutes, regulations, government employment, and law enforcement. And it would enshrine those protections in the Constitution, which can’t be changed as easily as other laws can.
A Pew Research poll found that nearly 80% of respondents, 78%, would support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to guarantee equality for women and men, and that 73% of Americans think we already have an Equal Rights Amendment published in the Constitution. The public understands that the ERA is an important protection for sex equality and every member of society. All recent votes that have been taken on ratification of the ERA, both at the state and federal level, have had broad and bi-partisan support.