Protesters are pictured wearing chains and being arrested in a Mormons for ERA newsletter from January 1981 [Click image to enlarge.]

(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Collection MSS 225, Box 3, Folder 1.)

MERA embraced their criminal depiction and promoted it throughout their newsletters. In several articles, women describe obtaining bail money in case of arrest, and in one newsletter, MERA President Sonia Johnson describes her “elation” at being arrested.[1] Johnson goes further in her commitment to ERA saying, “women must be willing to die to gain equal rights.”[2] In their newsletters they discuss the merits of civil disobedience and advocate for its use. In one mailer they write, “civil disobedience is the order of the day for the women’s movement. We have to give our message to the men in power: you have a formidable enemy.”[3]