U.S. President Joe Biden called the Equal Rights Amendment "the law of the land," on Friday, backing an effort to enshrine the change into the U.S. Constitution even though it long ago failed to secure the approval of enough states to become an amendment.

The ERA’s deadline expired decades ago, but the president argues that recent approvals by three states put the amendment over the top.

The struggle over the Equal Rights Amendment started more than a century ago when suffragist Alice Paul first proposed it shortly after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the