Equality Before the Law: Men and Women

Military Husbands and Wives.

The Equal Rights Amendment was not ratified, but even as the states considered it, the Supreme Court was contemplating the extent to which the law could treat men and women differently. Sharron Frontiero, a lieutenant in the United States Air Force, challenged the military's benefits rules. Military wives were automatically extended health and medical benefits. But when Frontiero asked for those benefits for her husband, she was turned down. Frontiero claimed that the policy discriminated against women, violating the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of "equal protection of the laws."

Gross, Stereotyped Distinctions.

In Frontiero v. Richardson (1973), the Supreme Court decided that the military policy violated the equal protection clause. The Court said that the government had to have a good reason to treat men and women differently because of their sex. It was not enough...

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