2-839-757 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

ERA is for Everyone badge owned by Sally Ride, ca. 1972. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was introduced to Congress for the first time in 1923, and passed both houses of Congress in 1972. It failed, however, to be ratified by the necessary number of states by the extended deadline of June 1982. American physicist Sally K. Ride followed the ERA campaign, and would stop patronizing companies if she knew that they did not support the ERA. When Ride became the first American woman in space during the STS-7 mission of 1983, her exemplary performance as a Mission Specialist challenged perceptions of women as the "weaker sex."