The legacy of women's roles in the development of our country and our Constitution has largely been ignored by historians and educators--until now. Informative and enlightening, Women, Politics and the Constitution is one of the few books that recognizes and provides an understanding of women's early political contributions. It is an absolutely essential volume for an educated public. Experts, both women and men, debate, discuss, and commemorate the significance of the United States Constitution on women's history, rights, and present status. Chapters are written by legal and academic leaders who are playing a critical role both in interpreting and in determining the constitutional status of women. Highlights include: an overview of the history of women and the United States constitution by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who explores the exclusion of women from most political and economic protections provided to men and addresses the impact on women of various interpretations made by the United States Supreme Court a review of one pioneering woman's contributions to the content of the Constitution a discussion of the implications of the Constitution for African-American women an examination of how New Jersey women secured the right to vote in the late eighteenth century and their subsequent disenfranchisement an investigation of the significance of the Nineteenth Amendment for contemporary gender gap politics a look at sex discrimination cases decided by the Burger Court--both before and after the appointment of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor--to determine her impact on the Court as a whole and upon individual justices criticism of the Supreme Court's approach to constitutional gender equality, with suggestions for a new type of review for gender-based classifications under the Equal Protection Clause an exploration of the theoretical foundations of American sex discrimination law an examination of the content and success rate of constitutional changes relating to women's issues that were proposed in the 50 states between 1977 and 1985 Women, Politics and the Constitution is an outgrowth of the conference Women and the Constitution: A Bicentennial Perspective which was held recently in Atlanta, Georgia, and was sponsored by the Carter Center of Emory University, the Jimmy Carter Library, and Georgia State University.

The legacy of women's roles in the development of our country and our Constitution has largely been ignored by historians and educators--until now. Informative and enlightening, Women, Politics and the Constitution is one of the few books that recognizes and provides an understanding of women's early political contributions. It is an absolutely essential volume for an educated public. Experts, both women and men, debate, discuss, and commemorate the significance of the United States Constitution on women's history, rights, and present status. Chapters are written by legal and academic leaders who are playing a critical role both in interpreting and in determining the constitutional status of women. Highlights include: an overview of the history of women and the United States constitution by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who explores the exclusion of women from most political and economic protections provided to men and addresses the impact on women of various interpretations made by the United States Supreme Court a review of one pioneering woman's contributions to the content of the Constitution a discussion of the implications of the Constitution for African-American women an examination of how New Jersey women secured the right to vote in the late eighteenth century and their subsequent disenfranchisement an investigation of the significance of the Nineteenth Amendment for contemporary gender gap politics a look at sex discrimination cases decided by the Burger Court--both before and after the appointment of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor--to determine her impact on the Court as a whole and upon individual justices criticism of the Supreme Court's approach to constitutional gender equality, with suggestions for a new type of review for gender-based classifications under the Equal Protection Clause an exploration of the theoretical foundations of American sex discrimination law an examination of the content and success rate of constitutional changes relating to women's issues that were proposed in the 50 states between 1977 and 1985 Women, Politics and the Constitution is an outgrowth of the conference Women and the Constitution: A Bicentennial Perspective which was held recently in Atlanta, Georgia, and was sponsored by the Carter Center of Emory University, the Jimmy Carter Library, and Georgia State University.

That a constitution should express the will of 'the people' is a long-standing principle, but the identity of 'the people' has historically been narrow. Women, in particular, were not included. A shift, however, has recently occurred. Women's participation in constitution-making is now recognised as a democratic right. Women's demands to have their voices heard in both the processes of constitution-making and the text of their country's constitution, are gaining recognition. Campaigning for inclusion in their country's constitution-making, women have adopted innovative strategies to express their constitutional aspirations. This collection offers, for the first time, comprehensive case studies of women's campaigns for constitutional equality in nine different countries that have undergone constitutional transformations in the 'participatory era'. Against a richly-contextualised historical and political background, each charts the actions and strategies of women participants, both formal and informal, and records their successes, failures and continuing hopes for constitutional equality.

This book focuses on gender and civic membership in American constitutional politics from the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment through Second Wave Feminism. It examines how American civic membership is gendered, and how the terms of civic membership available to men and women shape their political identities, aspirations, and behavior. The book also explores the dynamics of American constitutional development through a focus on civic membership--a legal and political construct at the heart of the constitutional order. This is a book about gender politics and constitutional development, and about what each of these can tell us about the other. It considers the options and choices faced by women’s rights activists in the United States as they voiced their claims for civic inclusion from Reconstruction through Second Wave Feminism, and it makes evident the limits of liberal citizenship for women.

In this landmark book, the historian Linda K. Kerber opens up this important and neglected subject for the first time. She begins during the Revolution, when married women did not have the same obligation as their husbands to be "patriots," and ends in the present, when men and women still have different obligations to serve in the armed forces.

As a result, American women played a peripheral role in constitutional history until 1920. This pamphlet looks at this role as it developed throughout the nineteenth-century, culminating in 1920 with the passing of the women's sufferage amendment in 1920.

Why ERA Failed looks at the systemic problems of politics and the amending process. The author, Mary Frances Berry, considers the behavior of the two sides from the perspective of a historian and lawyer. She describes the history of the amending process, from the Constitutional Convention to the present day, and its application to the struggles for amendments concerned with the status of blacks after the Civil War, income tax, prohibition, child labor, and woman suffrage. Berry concludes that ERA approval was problematic at best and defeat predictable. Supporters did too little of what is required for ratification of a substantive proposal too late. Furthermore, the large number of state ratifications gained was deceptive. Support was eroding instead of increasing in the final stages of the campaign.