ERA in the News: JANUARY 24, 2026 - FEBRUARY 6, 2026

NATIONAL

Jan. 24 Political Scientists Finally Recognize We Have a Problem “Arguably, one of Democrats core issues, women’s rights and bodily autonomy, has been addressed by the E.R.A. (Equal Rights Amendment). Legislation to cement the rights expressed in that amendment need to be enacted, as clearly Supreme Court decisions by the current right wingers ignoring the 13th and 14th amendments show.” Daily KOS

Jan. 28 I Need The ERA Because … Online Abuse Can Lead to Offline Harm “Online sexual exploitation and abuse (OSEA) is part of a broader continuum of gender-based violence that causes real-world harm. This factsheet explains how gaps in US constitutional and statutory protections limit effective responses to OSEA, and how the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) could strengthen prevention and accountability mechanisms, enabling better access to justice. By establishing sex equality as a constitutional mandate, the ERA would support coordinated, rights-based action to address the gendered nature of online abuse and its offline impacts.” Equality Now

Jan. 31 When Feminists Feared the Lavender Menace of Lesbians - And How Those Lesbians Fought Back “At a 1969 NOW meeting, Friedan declared that the movement was being threatened by a “lavender menace,” that is, lesbians…Friedan went on to purge lesbians from NOW, including Rita Mae Brown, then editor of NOW’s newsletter and soon to be an iconic author, and Ivy Bottini, who had designed the organization’s logo.” Advocate

Feb. 3 Before Obama and Harris: Black Pioneers Who Ran For President “At a 1969 NOW meeting, Friedan declared that the movement was being threatened by a “lavender menace,” that is, lesbians…Friedan went on to purge lesbians from NOW, including Rita Mae Brown, then editor of NOW’s newsletter and soon to be an iconic author, and Ivy Bottini, who had designed the organization’s logo.” Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder

Feb. 5 Meet the Mastermind Behind Trump’s Definition of “Woman” "The right slowed the momentum for women’s equality when it killed the Equal Rights Amendment in the early 1980s and turned abortion into a wedge issue. Decades later, the anti-trans movement’s emphasis on strictly defining sex as “biological” has given conservatives a new weapon to claw back the feminist movement’s earlier gains, Ziegler says. The term “biological sex,” she says, has become “the new takedown strategy for anti-discrimination law.” Mother Jones