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108 Conclusion Two Paths to Equality The Difference It Makes The preceding chapters portray the ERA debate between 1921 and 1923 as a case study of the legislative and legal strategies used by national women’s organizations in the ¤rst half of the twentieth century to advance equal rights for women. Using a biographical method, this study responds to more than twenty-¤ve years of historiography portraying the debate as either a feminist dichotomy or a disagreement over women’s sameness to or difference from men. Focusing on the two main leaders of the debate reveals that Paul and Smith were savvy political actors who believed in the power of the political system and accepted the concept of equality as the most effective means to equalize women’s position in society. Both believed that a rights-based approach to women’s equality would confront stereotypical notions of gender in law and culture and eliminate gender-based pay inequities and workplace segmentation. Their con¶ict is a telling story of the inextricable relationship between personal politics, collective action, and the intersection of law and culture on the social construction of gender. Paul’s and Smith’s personal politics shared a number of commonalities. Both women turned to the language of rights in response to the inequities of unregulated industrial capitalism. Smith’s relationship with her father bore direct relation to her burgeoning interest in equal rights. His enduring ¤nancial struggle and faith in the merit system instilled in Smith a tenacity of spirit and moral commitment to protecting the interests of working women. Paul’s ¤rsthand experience with the urban poor propelled her away from social work as a means to mitigate the vicissitudes of an industrial economy. Instead she opted for the militancy of the WSPU and their impatient demand for equal rights with men without delay. Both women suffered from poor health and exhaustion as they worked tirelessly to defend their beliefs. Their personal politics reveal the centrality of class to their de¤nition of women’s equality and choice of constituencies. Paul and Smith believed that women should organize as women to demand their full rights as citizens. By mobilizing on the basis of their shared experiences with gender exploitation, both believed that their constituencies could wield substantial political power and change society and culture. To accomplish this, Paul organized her members into professional councils to raise awareness among women about the discriminations limiting their economic opportunities and to motivate them to work for their removal.1 At the same time, Smith worked to bring women workers into the labor movement , arguing, “We’ve got to make our own ¤ght, women for women.”2 The Difference It Makes 109 Both believed that women needed to learn how to use their in¶uence for social and economic change. Paul relied on extravagant pageants to evoke the history of women’s demand for equal rights in the United States, to publicly challenge women’s culturally ascribed role, to generate sensational media attention, and to motivate women to join ranks with the NWP to advance the ERA. Smith promoted the power of unionization to mobilize a vocal women’s labor movement, and she developed and implemented an aggressive public education campaign through national media and labor movement publications, public speaking engagements , and congressional testimony. She argued that men ignored women out of habit, and that the gradual integration of organized women into the larger labor movement would help break down such gender stereotypes and build respect for women as permanent members of the labor force. Paul and Smith disagreed, however, over social constructions of womanhood, as well as over the impact of class and the role of the state in regulating the lives of women. As Paul worked to mobilize her followers into professional councils and to educate a broader constituency, she increasingly focused on the needs and interests of upwardly mobile women. Working almost exclusively on behalf of mid-to-upperclass women not only provided her with the ¤nancial means to sustain the NWP at a time in which her membership plummeted but also lent some respectability to her organization at a time during which the nation turned inward and suspicious ofthose who challenged the status quo too forcefully. Conversely, Smith believed that true equality mustbe based on the considerationof different social and economic circumstances of women’s lives. She advocated for a cross-class approach to mobilize women as a group, focusing primarily on the importance of unionizing and...

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