Doesn’t the 14th Amendment make it unnecessary?

Not exactly. The E.R.A. was first proposed in 1923 but wasn’t passed by Congress until 1972. It then needed to be ratified by 38 states by 1982 (a mostly arbitrary deadline) to be added to the Constitution, but only 35 states ratified it in time.

During the 1970s and ’80s, Ruth Bader Ginsburg helped to persuade the Supreme Court to extend the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to prohibit unequal treatment on the basis of sex — similar to what the E.R.A. would have done. But supporters said that clause doesn’t go far enough, particularly when it comes to violence against women, sexual harassment and equal pay.

The amendment also has symbolic value. “I would like to be able to take out my pocket Constitution and say that the equal citizenship stature of men and women is a fundamental tenet of our society like free speech,” Justice Ginsburg said in 2017.

[READ MORE: Do American Women Still Need an Equal Rights Amendment?]

Why did the E.R.A. stall?

The undoing of the E.R.A. is largely considered the handiwork of one woman: Phyllis Schlafly, a proudly anti-feminist Republican, who rallied housewives to fight the amendment in the 1970s.

Her argument was mostly that women already had equal rights, but also that the E.R.A. would tear apart the traditional family structure and strip women of remaining privileges, such as having separate bathrooms and college dormitories for men and women. These are the same arguments opponents have made in recent years as E.R.A. efforts picked up steam.

Why are we talking about it again now?

In 2017, Nevada ratified the amendment, an effort led by State Senator Pat Spearman, a Democrat. “It was then that other states said, ‘Wait a minute, you mean we can still do that?’” Robles-Román told me.

In 2018, Illinois followed suit. And last month, Virginia came close to being the 38th and final state needed to ratify the amendment — until the state House killed its progress.