Opposition to the Lucretia Mott Amendment
Between 1921 to 1925, seven major organizations opposed the Lucretia Mott Amendment:
-The National League of Women Voters
-The American Association of University Women
-The Young Women’s Christian Association
-The National Consumers’ League
-The National Women’s Trade Union League.
Each of the groups appealed to Congress to oppose the amendment on the ground that since the existing inequalities in law that affected women and men were so complicated in character, only specific legislation could effectively reverse or overturn them.
Instead, the Equal Rights Bill proposed by the National Woman’s Party would endanger existing protective statutes providing “penalties for rape, a 48-hour week, 8 or 9 hour day, additional industrial pension laws, support laws for deserted mothers, and various other laws applicable or necessary to one gender but not to the other.” (Equal Rights Magazine 1925) Those who opposed the amendment maintained that because of women’s domestic demeanor, weaker body build, and their “special contribution to the universe,” they needed protection. (Equal Rights Magazine 1923)
For example, the first state to legislate an Equal Rights Bill was the state of Wisconsin in 1921. The bill stated: “Women shall have the same rights and privileges under the law as men in the exercise of suffrage, freedom of contract, choice of residence for voting purposes, jury service, holding office, holding and conveying property, care and custody of children, and in all other respects.” (Equal Rights Magazine 1924) The law was left purposely broad. Many sponsors referred to it as a blanket measure that aimed to grant women the same rights as men, except for the special protection and privileges which they enjoyed for their general welfare.
The opposition, which included women such as Florence Kelley, founder and secretary of the National Consumers’ League, believed that the broadness of the equal rights law would render it ineffective, leaving it open to court and local interpretation. They argued that the Equal Rights Bill proposed by the National Woman’s Party would endanger existing protective statutes providing “penalties for rape, a 48-hour week, 8 or 9 hour day, additional industrial pension laws, and various other laws applicable or necessary to one gender but not to the other.” (Equal Rights Magazine 1925)
Kelley argued: “Why should wage-earning women be thus forbidden to get laws for their own health and welfare and that of their unborn children? Why should they be made subject to the preferences of wage-earning men? ...If there were no other way of promoting more perfect equality for women, an argument could perhaps be sustained for taking these risks. But why take them when every desirable measure attainable through the blanket bill can be enacted in the ordinary way?” (Search, 1922)
