Traces the history of the Equal Rights Amendment, explains why it failed to pass, and assesses its chances for future passage
In this brief, balanced account, Steiner surveys the history of the equal rights movement, beginning with the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention and early 20th-century developments. But he focuses primarily on recent events, the frenetic 15-year struggle to enact the ERA. The earlier campaigns, he observes, ran athwart trade union opposition, because of the belief that the ERA would end protective labor laws giving work-place advantages to women workers and of the indifference or hostility of successive presidents, Richard Nixon excepted. Then, as labor moved slowly toward endorsement of the ERA, came Roe v. Wade (1973) and the linkage with abortion and compulsory military service for women that prompts Steiner to be justifiably bearish about the amendment's future. Neutral in tone and careful in presentation, his book will be useful to anyone interested in the topic. Milton Cantor, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst
Copyright 1985 Cahners Business Information, Inc.