The eventual dwindling of the women’s rights movement was hastened by NOW’s singular focus on passage of the ERA. Owing to the efforts of women such as Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan, and Gloria Steinem, the ERA passed Congress in 1972. But its ratification by the states became a rallying point for the backlash against feminism. Anti-feminists such as Phyllis Schlafly organized a crusade against the amendment, warning—correctly or not—that it would, among other things, invalidate state sodomy laws, outlaw single-sex restrooms in public places, legalize same-sex marriage, and make taxpayer-funded abortion a constitutional right. Needing ratification by 38 states within 10 years of its passage by Congress, the amendment fell three states short.
Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense made the colonist realised that these rights were something that they wanted and it made them begin to stand up for themselves since they saw that they way they were being treated wrongly and that its a better way to live life.
