The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which would have guaranteed women the same equal rights as men, passed Congress with an overwhelming majority in 1972. During the following ten years, the public repeatedly endorsed it in opinion surveys. Yet, for all the favor it enjoyed in the abstract, the ERA was never able to muster concrete support in enough states to become the law of the land. In this provocative and controversial book, the author explains why, as she argues that the ERA failed because it did not result in substantive changes in the position of women.