1970s National Spotlight
1970s National Spotlight
Our Bodies, Our Government
Our Bodies, Our Government
The ERA, Title IX, and Roe v. Wade begin to improve the outlook for equality.
In the early 1970s, women gained critical footholds in the struggle to obtain recognition for their legal personhood. The Equal Rights Amendment, guaranteeing equality regardless of gender, easily passed in the House in early 1972. A few months later, Congress passed Title IX of the Education Amendments, which prohibited gender-based discrimination by any educational institution or program receiving federal funding. (Awareness of sexual assault was later included as a form of discrimination.) And in January 1973, Roe v. Wade established that the choice of whether to continue a pregnancy was a privacy right belonging to the pregnant person, rather than governments or hospital boards. The ERA, Title IX, and Roe v. Wade begin to improve the outlook for equality.
