The fight to enshrine the ERA in the Constitution depends on the same First Amendment freedoms that have powered generations of women’s activism.
This is part of a new miniseries FEMINIST 250: Democracy’s Feminist Future, a special Ms. series examining the next chapter of American democracy through a feminist lens. As the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, the series explores how women and marginalized communities have shaped democratic progress, what lessons history offers for the challenges ahead, and how a more inclusive, representative and equitable democracy can be built for the next 250 years.
Donald Trump’s jingoistic whitewashing of the 250th anniversary of the founding of our country will no doubt celebrate the 1773 Boston Tea Party, where the Sons of Liberty protested oppressive British import taxes.
But what about the Daughters of Liberty? Will Trump acknowledge that one of its leaders, Sarah Bradlee Fulton, devised the plan to fool the British by disguising the rebels as Mohawks? Or that Elizabeth Nichols Dyar painted their faces?
Founded in 1765, the Daughters of Liberty were active in protesting the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts of 1767. The group organized the often-overlooked Coffee Party, to protest the exorbitant price of coffee, by boycotting British goods, making their own clothes and purchasing only goods made in America. The famed leader of the Sons of Liberty, Samuel Adams, is reported to have said, “With ladies on our side, we can make every Tory tremble.”
Throughout American history, women have been making patriarchal governments tremble, by taking full advantage of the precious rights protected by the First Amendment: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to peaceably assemble, and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.
Among them:
- Amelia Jenks Bloomer, a suffragist and temperance activist, exercised her freedom of expression by wearing the style of pants named after her that became a symbol of the women’s rights movement. She wrote and edited The Lily, a newspaper for and by women and attended the 1848 Seneca Falls, N.Y., convention on women’s rights.
- Ida B. Wells-Barnett, born into slavery, was a talented investigative journalist, an advocate for gender and racial equality, a staunch opponent of lynchings and a founder of the NAACP. She published the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight newspaper until it was destroyed by a white mob. She marched in the 1913 women’s suffrage parade in Washington, D.C. with the Illinois delegation, despite organizers telling Black women to march at the back of the parade. She declared the “way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.”
- Alice Paul, founder of the National Women’s Party, conducted hunger strikes and picketed outside Woodrow Wilson’s White House for over two years. She planned the 1913 Woman Suffrage Parade in Washington, D.C., and after the 19th Amendment guaranteed women the right to vote she drafted the first Equal Rights Amendment in 1921. In her later years she advocated for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include protections from discrimination based on sex.
But the vision of these and legions of other brave women will never be fully realized until women’s equality is once and for all enshrined in the U.S. Constitution by the adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment. We need to unleash the robust, full-throated power of the First Amendment to make the ERA a top priority on the American agenda.
In majestically simple terms, the ERA provides that “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” By 2020—six years ago!—the ERA was ratified by the requisite 38 states. The national archivist has refused to officially register and certify it, while opponents have succeeded in blocking its implementation, though legal scholars and the American Bar Association make clear that those arguments are baseless.
… We all must commit to an unrelenting campaign that ensures the ERA is registered and certified.
The United States is an outlier in its refusal to recognize the ERA as the 28th Amendment. Today, a full 85 percent of the 194 U.N. member states have provisions in their constitutions explicitly addressing gender equality, and 115 have provisions prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex. Citing the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and other recent developments, the American Bar Association has declared that “the need for the ERA is greater now than ever before.”
In the spirit of Bloomer, Stanton, Anthony, Sanger, Wells-Barnett, Paul and all the outspoken women (and their male allies) who have fought for equality and justice, we all must commit to an unrelenting campaign that ensures the ERA is registered and certified.
Enter the First Amendment. Supporters of the ERA—political leaders, celebrities and everyday people—need to speak up and out, and make the ERA part of the national conversation.
In 2026 and beyond, candidates for political office must be pressured to make the adoption of the ERA part of their platforms. The ERA needs to be a topic at candidate debates and town halls.
As for the rest of us, the ERA needs to be front and center at every No Kings Day rally, every protest, every get-out-the-vote mobilization. State ERAs—including those recently utilized by the courts (Pennsylvania), those recently passed (New York) and those on the ballot this year (Vermont)—similarly require our full support and attention.
The founding declaration that “All men are created equal,” requires the ERA to ensure it truly means “All people are created equal.” The First Amendment is our most essential tool.
Continue Exploring FEMINIST 250
This essay is part of FEMINIST 250: Democracy’s Feminist Future, Ms. magazine’s sweeping series marking America’s 250th anniversary through a feminist lens. Much of the project is already live, including Founding Feminists, which reexamines the nation’s history through the women who shaped it; Feminist Lessons, which explores the defining victories, setbacks and organizing strategies of each decade since the 1970s; and the ongoing Democracy’s Feminist Future section, which looks ahead to the challenges and possibilities facing the next generation. We invite you to explore the full series and catch up on earlier essays, interviews and reported features examining how feminist movements have transformed the nation—and where the fight for a more inclusive democracy goes next.
