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1 Introduction The Elusive Search for Equal Rights in the Twentieth Century Sex equality is elusive, and depending on context, can be vitally signi¤cant or virtually meaningless. It categorizes women according to both difference and sameness. In both cases, men set the standard. Treating women like men is not equivalent to treating men and women equally. —Zillah Eisenstein, The Female Body and the Law [P]atriarchy has always played women off against each other and manipulated differences among women for its own purposes. Nevertheless, feminists must confront and negotiate differences among women—differences of class, race, culture, age, political af¤liation, and sexual practices—if they are to transform such differences into positive rather than negative forces in women’s lives. —Barbara Johnson, “The Postmodern Feminism” This book began in the early 1990s as a biography of Alice Paul. Stories of her tenacious and intrepid leadership during the suffrage movements in England and the United States, and as the author of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), brought to life a charismatic woman who refused to compromise her principles as she advanced a legislative agenda to establish full political and legal equality for women. However, after examining the perspectives of women who criticized Paul and her organization, the National Woman’s Party (NWP), divergent interpretations of her leadership quickly unfolded. Most notably, Ethel M. Smith, Legislative Secretary of the National Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL), earned distinction in the early 1920s as a recognized leader of the opposition to the ERA, championing a widely accepted alternative to Paul’s vision. Though she supported the principle of equal rights for both women and men, she also believed such legislative efforts should be tailored to women’s distinct needs, especially as new and permanent members of the labor force. Both women engaged in a heated debate over the most effective methods to achieve their legislative goals. Their differences were based on competing personal politics and class-based political philosophies. Paul believed that legislative enactment of the ERA would fully emancipate women by eradicating all political and legal discriminations based on sex. By integrating the principle that men and women were the same into the legal fabric of American law and politics, women 2 The Elusive Search for Equal Rights in the Twentieth Century would then be free to compete equally with men not only in the workplace, but in all aspects of social and economic life. She particularly opposed efforts to regulate the conditions of women’s labor, describing protective legislation as an unnecessary interference in women’s capacity to demonstrate the full range of their professional interests and talents. Passage of the ERA, Paul believed, would bene¤t all of society because women could then pursue the profession of their choice, without restrictions on hours of work or rate of pay, and play an important role in the development of a prosperous economy. While her views have become more accepted in the past ¤fty years, at the time they undermined the hard-won legislative victories achieved by women such as Ethel Smith. Smith questioned Paul’s approach to women’s equality predominantly because it bene¤ted professional and business women at the expense of her primary constituency—wage-earning women. She believed the principle of equal rights had little meaning if it failed to recognize women’s distinct experiences in the labor force. These experiences varied according to each woman’s class status, family responsibilities , degree of union activity, and type of work performed. Smith understood labor laws as the most effective means to equalize women’s place in the labor force. She fought vehemently for the passage of eight-hour, minimum wage, and health/hygiene laws to mitigate tenacious forms of gender-based exploitation that resulted in low wages, long hours, and limited job opportunities. She did not see such legislation as an indication that women were weaker than or inferior to men. Rather, she believed women’s labor laws established the foundation of a women’s labor movement that complemented the goals of male-dominated unions, while at the same time ensured that women’s unique experiences as workers were integrated into the ¤ght to establish standards in industry. Smith envisioned a society in which diverse interests, regardless of gender or class, worked collectively to build a partnership between labor, business, and government. This tripartite alliance , she believed, would not only strengthen the ef¤cacy of individual groups, but society as a whole. Because Paul’s equal rights...

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