Question

The excerpt below comes from the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA):

Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.

Which statement explains why some women's rights activists opposed passage of the ERA?

They worried about a backlash against women if feminists gained power too quickly.

They believed that women already enjoyed more power than men in many areas of life.

They were worried that ratification of the ERA would erase legal benefits women had gained during the 1960s.

They did not think the ERA was strong enough

Answer 1

the first one I believe. :)

Answer 2

The second to last. One of the problems with strict equality is it forbids special benefits as well as special prejudice. So, for example, the ERA would have prohibited women's colleges, or affirmative action programs, because those discriminate against men. It's likely school districts would have had to implement massive affirmative action programs to try to hire more male teachers in the lower grades (which are completely dominated by women). And so on.

There were many soi-disant feminists who did not want a world of strict equality, but rather one in which women enjoyed special privileges in some areas, either to compensate for past inequalities or to compensate for special privileges enjoyed by men in other areas, or just because.