WI - US Equal Rights Amendment is passed and ratified in 1970s

What-If the Equal Rights Amendment was passed and ratified in all US states in the 1970s given its OTL opposition by both traditionalists and feminists with regards to women no longer being exempt to the draft as well as other aspects?
 
No major change, especially because there hasn't been a "draft" in the US since the 1970's. Also, it is entirely unclear if passage of the ERA would have automatically meant that women would be equally liable for the military draft in reality. Specific laws would still have to be passed and regulations written to comply with the ERA and they could probably still be tailored to address such concerns (such as the common argument by opponents that ERA would eliminate separate "mens" and "womens" restrooms). I am also unaware that any "feminists" opposed the ERA for this or any other reason.

The fact is that the ERA was basically a "feel good" amendment that codified societal trends that were already evolving in the US. Both its supporters and its opponents gave it far more importance than it actually deserved.
 

jahenders

Banned
While that may be largely true, such things have a tendency to be quickly used for expanded purposes by advocates, the courts, etc. Title IX is one such example -- it's being used for many things today that its authors/supporters said would NEVER happen.

The fact is that the ERA was basically a "feel good" amendment that codified societal trends that were already evolving in the US. Both its supporters and its opponents gave it far more importance than it actually deserved.
 
While that may be largely true, such things have a tendency to be quickly used for expanded purposes by advocates, the courts, etc. Title IX is one such example -- it's being used for many things today that its authors/supporters said would NEVER happen.

The language of Title IX is quite broad:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.
 

jahenders

Banned
It's both the athletic funding, the sexual assault pressure, and other aspects.

While initially it pushed colleges to fund more women's sports (a good thing), it eventually got reinterpreted to imply that the (scholarship) funding had to be equivalent. This led some schools (who could NEVER fund women's sports at the level of a football team) to instead kill some male sports teams, or at least scholarship funding thereto. So, in some cases it's improved gross "equality" by dragging one side down, not raising the other.

The more recent twist to use it as a wedge to force colleges to be extremely zealous in efforts to curb any form of sexual assault, harassment, etc. has (coupled with crazy ivory tower thinking) created an atmosphere where men in such cases are "guilty until proven innocent" and are likely severely harmed, even if proved innocent.

He needs to address this, but I suspect it is the athletic funding issue...which remains highly controversial in many areas.
 
Straight up, if we look at Penn State and a number of other cases, I don't think we'd conclude the universities were extremely zealous.

Now, yes, I would be open to the argument that institutions swing back and forth, often being clumsy and awkward both when they're trying and when they're trying to ignore and sweep it under the rug.

I am not a dad, but I would be interested in what a dad of a young woman starting college has to say about this. Or maybe a dad of a young woman at one college and a young man at another.
 
Regarding the ERA, it DOES need to be noted that when the ERA was passed in 1972, feminists claimed that it could leave women open to the draft but that women would be secretaries and nurses. Come 1980, and Reagan stated he was opposed to women in combat but women would have to be a vital part of the military, just not deployed in front of the brigade rear boundary. Since "behind the brigade rear boundary" is a LOT more dangerous than "nurses and secretaries", many people felt they'd been the victims of a bait-and-switch, and that contributed to the defeat of the ERA.
 
I'd agree, there could be issues around Title IX, & an earlier ERA makes an earlier OTL-style Title IX ruling more likely IMO. It also enables a challenge to the "no women in combat" ban (if not leading to a "female draft", which is a positive act I find unlikely).

There's another issue: pay equity. Could this lead to lawsuits where women claim they're putatively discriminated against, by losing pay while on maternity leave? (IMO, granting pay amounts to discriminating against men, who don't have to take it, & so don't lose seniority; this is the root of the commonly repeated nonsense "women are paid 20% less than men.)
 
I don't see any logical link between the two except that the cultural mind set that would have accepted ERA might be closed to the one that would accept gay marriage.

The logical link between the two is simple. "To put the point purely formally: the ground on which X, a female, is forbidden to marry Y, another female, is her sex." https://books.google.com/books?id=hHY_kjkAYKQC&pg=PT343 At least one state Supreme Court did find the "banning same-sex marriages is sex discrimination" argument convincing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baehr_v._Miike
 
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