Figure 6.16 The diffusion of suffrage for women in the United States and of the Equal Rights Amendment. The suffrage movement achieved victory through a constitutional amendment in 1920. Both the suffrage movement and the campaign for an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) for women failed to gain approval in the Deep South, an area that also lags behind most of the remainder of the country in the election of women to public office. What might be the barriers to diffusion in the Deep South? The states failing to ratify the ERA lay mostly in the same area. The ERA movement did not succeed, in contrast to the earlier suffrage movement. (Source: Adapted in part from Paulin and Wright, 1932.)