We the Women: The Unstoppable Mothers of the Equal Rights Amendment

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Professor Julie Suk, a distinguished legal scholar, builds off a century of momentum, telling the heroic stories of women who protested, resisted, and persisted to establish their constitutional rights.

The year 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women's constitutional right to vote. But have we come far enough

After the adoption and ratification of the 19th Amendment, a bold group of women proposed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). It took Congress almost 50 years to adopt it in 1972. The fight for ratification in the states took another 50 years, culminating in Virginia's historic ratification in January 2020.

Why did the ERA take so long Is it too late to add it to the Constitution And what could it do for women

InWe the Women,Suk follows the history of the ERA through the voices of the relentless women who pursued it. For over 100 years, women's efforts to enshrine their rights in the Constitution have faced opposition and subterfuge. And, despite significant gains, the triumphs of gender equality have not met the needs of all women- especially working mothers. Exploring the ERA's past and future, Suk explains hot-button issues such as pregnancy discrimination, violence against women, and unequal pay.

Reviews

Every man I know needs to read this book. Every legislator in America needs to read this book. Its a compelling examination of the history of the fight for equal rights in our nation dating back to our earliest days and making an undeniable case for the necessity of the Equal Rights Amendment in the twenty-first century.
ALYSSA MILANO, actress and political activist

We talk as if only men make constitutions. Julie Suk changes this. She introduces us to the diverse cast of women constitution makers who supported, and opposed, the Equal Rights Amendment over the last century. Their quest showcases concerns missing in standard accounts of the Founding, and shows us how these concerns differed among women and over time. Essential reading for those interested in the future of gender justice.
REVA SIEGEL, Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Professor, Yale Law School

Julie Suks We the Women is a fascinating and nuanced recounting of the history of the ERA. It brings to light the many women who made constitutional equality for women across generations, highlighting complexities not widely known; documents the unending opposition; and showcases the potential of the ERAs meaning for the twenty-first century. It will soon be recognized as the go-to resource for the ERAs long legislative history.
LOUISE MELLING, Deputy Legal Director, American Civil Liberties Union

Meticulously researched and compulsively readable, We the Women draws important connections between the past and present, making clear how, despite long odds and many obstacles, generations of women have come together to debate and demand the conditions necessary for a more perfect union.
MELISSA MURRAY, Frederick I. & Grace Stokes Professor of Law, NYU School of Law

In We the Women, Julie Suk shows us that the Equal Rights Amendment at its core wasand still isabout freedom and power. The mothers of the ERA laid the groundwork of the battle waging in this country today, and though this campaign can feel long and arduous, We the Women has left me more hopeful.
FATIMA GOSS GRAVES, President and CEO, National Womens Law Center

Smart, readable, incisive. Required reading for anyone who wants to understand why we need the ERA. A must for students, activists, and anyone simply wanting to know the history of this hundred-year long fight. We The Women resurrects a diverse and brilliant cast of ERA foremothers. Suk gives us the ERA America needs right nowan amendment that takes into account the realities of motherhood, sexual harassment, and unequal pay. Suk convincingly persuades us that this essential recognition of women's equal standing in the nation has been denied too longand is, at long last, within our grasp.
KIRSTEN SWINTH, author of Feminisms Forgotten Fight: The Unfinished Struggle for Work and Family and Professor of History at Fordham University

We the Womenprovides a riveting and nuanced history of women's fight for equality and enfranchisement in the United States. Julie Suk brilliantly threads together early suffragist movements with the continued fight for women's constitutional equality and ratification of the ERA.This timely book should be a companion to all readings on voting rights and in the hands of all students and readers of constitutional law.
MICHELE GOODWIN, Chancellors Professor, UC-Irvine, and author of Policing the Womb

Author Bio

JULIE C. SUK is Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law. She has previously taught at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, University of Chicago, UCLA, and Cardozo Law Schools. She is an expert and frequent media commentator on gender and constitutions around the world. She lives in New York City. Follow @JulieCSuk on Twitter.