Sex, Gender, and the Politics of ERA: A State and the Nation
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was a legal/political issue that touched a raw national nerve. Using North Carolina as a case study, the authors see the ERA as a heavily loaded social symbol that catalyzed women and men into translating very personal definitions of sex and power into political action. The first half of their study details the history of the ERA in North Carolina, the scene of six intense ratification battles. The remainder is fiercely analytical, examining what the ERA meant to the three main parties in the drama--the feminists, the anti-ERA women, the male state legislators--and the dynamic interplay of individual feeling and public discourse. There is little room for bias in this perspective; the authors present each point of view as legitimate. The research is stunning in its exhaustiveness. A worthy addition to graduate-level social science collections.- Donna L. Schulman, Cornell Univ. ILR Lib., New YorkCopyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.