Schlafly's Argumentative Analysis

On the occasion of her death in 2016, the New York Times noted that the defeat of the ERA was Schlafly’s “lasting legacy”. Yet on closer inspection what type of world has emerged in the thirty-five years since the ERA fell three states short. Schlafly may or may not have used the specter of shared gender restroom as a boogeyman but in 2016 President Obama issued a directive allowing transgender to use whichever restroom suited their gender identity. While President Obama’s decision remains to be litigated and is still controversial to many, it was once seen as too horrible to fathom but has since come to pass. Similarly, the fear of women serving in combat roles no longer is an issue as of Jan 1, 2018, women who turn 18 will need to register for the selective service just as their male …show more content…
While there is no draft in the United States, the Selective Service could at a moment’s notice turn into a draft board, and with women being a larger percent of the population, women would shoulder a larger share of the burden in a future war. The ‘Equal Protection’ clause of the 14th Amendment has been used to expand the right of marriage to same-sex couples, in much the same way it has been expanded to cover much of what the ERA was meant to without overturning the special protections women has traditionally possessed. Schlafly’s ultimate argument was one that American women did not need a constitutional amendment to protect rights that she believed women already possessed and she foresaw an ERA as only working take away protections women had