The Equal Rights Amendment "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." In 1923, this statement was admitted to Congress under the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The ERA was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution granting equality between men and women under the law. If the Era was passed, it would have made unconstitutional any laws that grant one sex different rights than the other. However, in the 1970s, the Era was not passed, and therefore did not become law. The idea for an equal rights amendment first became acknowledged in the early