The Equal Rights Amendment has a long history, but the climax of its journey occurred between 1972 and 1982. During these years, the proponents of the Amendments sought ratification from the States, while facing steep opposition from the STOP ERA countermovement. STOP ERA, headed by Phyllis Schlafly, fueled the spread of a pervasive and persuasive counter-narrative, and is given credit for defeating the passage of the ERA. This essay postulates that once the narrative of a social movement has become the dominant narrative, countermovements necessarily create their own counter-narratives built on the foundation of the perceived weaknesses of the social movement. The rhetoric of STOP ERA is a prime example of a counter-narrative created by a countermovement. By demonstrating that Schlafly uses the dominant narrative as the foundation for her own counter-narrative, this paper seeks to establish the inherency of counter-narratives to the existence and success of countermovements. STOP ERA was massively persuasive, and managed to kill an amendment whose failure was deemed incomprehensible. This essay seeks to establish that the countermovement and counter-narrative are inseparable, and that they developed in tandem by using the weaknesses of the pro-ERA social movement to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment.
