Irving, Helen --- "Introduction" [2017] ELECD 834; in Irving, Helen (ed), "Constitutions and Gender" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 1

Book Title: Constitutions and Gender

Editor(s): Irving, Helen

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781784716950

Section Title: Introduction

Author(s): Irving, Helen

Number of pages: 16

Extract:

Introduction
Helen Irving



The idea that a country's constitution is `gendered' ­ having a disparate
or differential impact upon women and men ­ challenges traditional
views of constitutions and constitutionalism. It is, however, not new. It
was expressed, indirectly, by the `Founding Mothers' of the United States
(De Pauw 1975; Norton 1996; Roberts 2004) and in the French Revolu-
tion (Elson-Roessler 1996; Heuer 2005). It was recognized by American
women who protested against the reference to voting rights for male
citizens alone in the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Consti-
tution (1868) (Morais 1988), and then against the wording of the
Fifteenth Amendment (1870) that prohibits denial of the franchise only
on grounds of race. It was understood by women who campaigned for or
against the federation of the Australian colonies in the 1890s and those
who petitioned for women's rights to be included in the new Australian
Constitution (Irving 1999). It was asserted by American women who
(unsuccessfully) brought constitutional challenges to laws that excluded
women from voting, as well as from certain professions.1 It was
understood by those who campaigned for the constitutional entrenchment
of temperance, including in the United States ratification of the Eight-
eenth Amendment in 1919 and its subsequent repeal in 1933 (Rose
1996). It was at the heart of the campaign for an Equal Rights
Amendment to the US Constitution which began in 1923 and continued,
unabated, until its defeat in 1982. It was affirmed by the `Famous Five' in
1929 ...