The Equal Rights Amendment is basically the holy grail for any equal gender rights movement in the USA. It would enshrine in the constitution that US laws cannot discriminate by gender.

If the Equal Rights Amendment passed, many forms of discrimination against men could be fought more easily:

  • Fighting against the gendered draft: the NCFM's win against Selective Service - would have been much easier had we been able to cite the Equal Rights Amendment as precedent.

  • Government funding for domestic violence initiatives - with the Equal Rights Amendment it would be easy to argue that male victims should be covered equally - equally here meaning, at least resources proportional to the number of victims who need it. E.g. (these are hypothetical, made up numbers) if even 20% of victims are men, but only 1% of shelters serve men, we should probably build a lot more shelters for men!

  • In states that strip parental rights from rapist fathers but not mothers, we could fix that so that female rapists lose their rights too. If this allows male rape victims to take custody of the kid (and if they want, put them up for adoption), this would also prevent disgusting cases like Hermesmann v. Seyer which let a rapist sue her victim for child support.

  • Any other legally allowed discrimination against men, e.g. insurer's charging more for male drivers than female drivers.

As I've said elsewhere, I think feminism has good parts and questionable parts, and the Equal Rights Amendment (which was proposed by feminists decades ago) is definitely one of the good parts. So supporting the Equal Rights Amendment is also a chance for us to build bridges with (the good kind of) feminists who support true equality.

So what are our best options for supporting the Equal Rights Amendment?

  • Political action: write to your congressional representatives, presidential candidates, etc and tell them to support it.

  • Work with feminist groups at universities, political campaigns, etc to increase academic and political momentum for it.

  • Raise awareness of its benefits in men's issues communities. Try to get MRA groups like NFCM to make supporting it a core part of their mission.

Any other thoughts on how we can support it?