Virginia Ratifies the Equal Rights Amendment, and Conservatives Fight Like It’s 1979

Time to bring back bell-bottom jeans and Disco Inferno: the Equal Rights Amendment, which passed Congress in 1972 and became a feminist cause celébre in the 1970s and 1980s, has just been ratified by 38 states, making it part of the Constitution.Maybe.On Wednesday, the Commonwealth of Virginia ratified the ERA as both houses of the state legislature approved the amendment by comfortable margins. Democratic Governor Ralph Northam also backs the measure. The ERA states, simply, that “