BHS US History II Practice Test

This item tests how an amendment aimed at guaranteeing gender equality would have worked if it had become part of the Constitution. The Equal Rights Amendment would have banned discrimination on the basis of sex, requiring equal treatment under the law for men and women in all areas, from education and employment to legal rights and protections.

It was passed by Congress in the early 1970s and sent to the states for ratification, but it did not receive the necessary three-fourths of states before the deadline, so it never became law. That gap between congressional approval and state ratification is what this question is probing.

The other amendments mentioned involve different issues: one defined presidential succession and disability, another secured women’s right to vote, and another established a federal income tax. None of those would have banned gender discrimination across the entire law in the same explicit, all-encompassing way as the Equal Rights Amendment.