ERA ratification vote brings bittersweet memories from 1970s

Law and Public Issues

By Ann M. Lousin

Ann M. Lousin has been a professor at The John Marshall Law School since 1975. Before then, she was a research assistant at the 1969-1970 Illinois constitutional convention and parliamentarian of the Illinois House of Representatives. Her treatise “The Illinois State Constitution: A Reference Guide” was published in December 2009. She can be contacted at 7lousin@jmls.edu.

Posted June 20, 2018 12:33 PM

On May 30, Illinois ratified the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. When I heard the news, my mind went back to the first ERA fight in Illinois in the 1970s, a fight in which I took part.I also thought of four women who did not live to see ratification: Goudyloch “Giddy” Dyer, Eugenia Chapman, Esther Saperstein and Peg Blaser. Giddy and Genie were the members of the Illinois House who sponsored ERA from its introduction in the spring of 1972; Esther, the only woman in the Illinois Senate in 1972 …

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