(gentle chiming music) - [Narrator] In Betty's mind, women did not have to choose between embracing traditional aspects of being a mother and a wife and embracing new norms that provided increased freedom, voice, and choice for women.

(gentle bright music) In fact, one of the issues Betty was especially vocal about was rallying support for the Equal Rights Amendment to be added to the Constitution.

For context, the Equal Rights Amendment, or ERA for short, was not a new concept in the 1970s.

It was actually something championed by women's suffrage activist Alice Paul in 1923.

If added to the Constitution, it would officially prohibit discrimination based on a person's sex in all parts of the United States, and it would formalize women's equality to men under the law.

By 1972, the necessary 2/3 of Congressmembers finally approved of the proposed amendment.

The next step was getting the necessary 3/4 of the states to ratify the amendment so that it could be added to the Constitution.

And the states were given a seven-year window to get this done.

Betty was determined to do her part to persuade others to ratify the ERA, whether that meant speaking openly about her support for it in televised interviews, making calls to state legislatures, or making it the focus of her acceptance speech when she was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree from the University of Michigan.

Betty was even able to put her support for an increased role for women into action by encouraging Gerald Ford to appoint more women to the administration than any previous president before him and by persuading him to create the National Commission on Observance of the International Women's Year in 1975.

However, Betty's outspoken stance on women's rights was not something all people supported.

She and President Ford did receive some backlash, especially when it came to her making calls from the White House on a line funded by taxpayers.

Nevertheless, any suggestion that Betty Ford should dial back her advocacy for the ERA left her and President Ford unfazed.

- As First Lady, she actually had a special private telephone installed in the White House so she could campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment.

So she was very strong-minded, and she was very, again, human.

- [Narrator] While the ERA still has not been ratified or added to the Constitution, Betty goes down in history for going the extra mile in order to continue influencing another era of women to revive the push for their constitutional equality.