The National Organization for Women (NOW) was founded

Transcription

1 National Organization for Women Complete text of Bill of Rights for Women in 1968 Originally issued at NOW convention, Reprinted from Takin It to the Streets: A Sixties Reader, 2003; also available online at ~hst203/documents/nowrights.html The National Organization for Women (NOW) was founded on June 30, 1966, in Washington, D.C., by twentyeight participants in the Third National Conference of the Commission on the Status of Women who were angered by the conference s dismissal of equal rights issues. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) had been established to enforce Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Title VII made it illegal for employers to discriminate against people based on their gender. Within its first five years, it received fifty thousand sex discrimination complaints, but at the conference it became known that the EEOC had done little to address these complaints. We demand that women be protected by law to ensure their rights to return to their jobs within a reasonable time after childbirth without loss of seniority or other accrued benefits, and be paid maternity leave as a form of social security and/or employee benefit. NOW was formed to push the government to enforce the protections it had established for women, and more. Betty Friedan (1921 ), author of The Feminine Mystique (1963), was elected NOW s first president. The organization dedicated itself to making legal, political, social, and economic change in order to eliminate sexism or stereotyping people according to sex roles and to eliminate other forms of inequality that deny rights or privileges to certain groups. 87

2 National Organization for Women (NOW) leaders Betty Friedan, right, and Dr. Kathryn Clarenbach announce that NOW has adopted a Bill of Rights for Women in 1968, November 20, Bettmann/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. NOW worked toward its goals by organizing marches, rallies, pickets, counter-demonstrations, and nonviolent civil disobedience protests. (Civil disobedience is the peaceful expression of objection to certain laws by refusing to obey them.) NOW also developed political lobbying efforts and litigation, including class-action lawsuits, which are lawsuits brought by a group of people who have been harmed in a similar way. To get one of its points across to the public, the group popularized the slogan, Every Mother Is a Working Mother. Friedan and Rev. Pauli Murray, the first African-American woman Episcopal priest, co-authored NOW s original Statement of Purpose which begins: The purpose of NOW is to take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men. At its national conference in 1967 NOW adopted a Bill of Rights for Women in 1968 that listed the group s goals for Congress and society. The Bill of Rights for Women 88 The Sixties in America: Primary Sources

3 in 1968 highlights how different life was for women in the 1960s than it was in the early 2000s. Things to remember while reading the National Organization for Women s Bill of Rights for Women in 1968 : NOW was formed as the women s liberation movement and civil rights movement were reaching their peaks. In Bowe v. Colgate-Palmolive Company, in 1969, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that women who met the necessary physical requirements could work in jobs once open only to men. In the 1971 ruling in Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corporation the U.S. Supreme Court prohibited private employers from refusing to hire women with preschool children. National Organization for Women Bill of Rights in 1968 (Adopted at the 1967 National Conference) I. Equal Rights Constitutional Amendment II. Enforce Law Banning Sex Discrimination in Employment III. Maternity Leave Rights in Employment and in Social Security Benefits IV. Tax Deduction for Home and Child Care Expenses for Working Parents V. Child Day Care Centers VI. Equal and Unsegregated Education VII. Equal Job Training Opportunities and Allowances for Women in Poverty VIII. The Right of Women to Control their Reproductive Lives WE DEMAND: Feminist Perspectives: National Organization for Women 89

4 National Organization for Women members demonstrate outside the White House in 1969 asking for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, as stated in Section I of the Bill of Rights for Women in Bettmann/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. Prohibitions: Restrictions. I. That the U.S. Congress immediately pass the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution to provide that Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex and that such then be immediately ratified by the several States. II. That equal employment opportunity be guaranteed to all women, as well as men, by insisting that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission enforces the prohibitions against sex discrimination in employment under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the same vigor as it enforces the prohibitions against racial discrimination. III. That women be protected by law to ensure their rights to return to their jobs within a reasonable time after childbirth without loss of seniority or other accrued benefits, and be paid maternity leave as a form of social security and/or employee benefit. IV. Immediate revision of tax laws to permit the deduction of home and child-care expenses for working parents. 90 The Sixties in America: Primary Sources

5 V. That child-care facilities be established by law on the same basis as parks, libraries, and public schools, adequate to the needs of children, from the pre-school years through adolescence, as a community resource to be used by all citizens from all income levels. VI. That the right of women to be educated to their full potential equally with men be secured by Federal and State legislation, eliminating all discrimination and segregation by sex, written and unwritten, at all levels of education including college, graduate and professional schools, loans and fellowships and Federal and State training programs, such as the Job Corps. VII. The right of women in poverty to secure job training, housing, and family allowances on equal terms with men, but without prejudice to a parent s right to remain at home to care for his or her children; revision of welfare legislation and poverty programs which deny women dignity, privacy and self-respect. VIII. The right of women to control their own reproductive lives by removing from penal codes the laws limiting access to contraceptive information and devices, and by repealing penal laws governing abortion. What happened next Once formed, the National Organization for Women grew at a quick rate. Using political strategies that resembled those used by civil rights groups, NOW campaigned for equal rights for women in education, employment, and politics. The tactics ultimately worked for many of NOW s demands. The Equal Rights Amendment that stated that men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and in every place subject to its jurisdiction, was first proposed in 1923, just after women were granted the right to vote. Although the amendment had been presented to Congress for twenty years, it was the political pressure of the women s liberation movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s that finally passed the amendment through Congress in By 1973 thirty states had ratified the amendment, and only eight more were needed. Even though Congress extended the ratification Segregation: Separation. Penal codes: Laws relating to crime and their offenses. Feminist Perspectives: National Organization for Women 91

6 deadline until 1982, the amendment never gained the votes needed. Although the Equal Rights Amendment ultimately was not added to the Constitution, the political efforts of NOW and other women s groups had brought the social and political inequality of women, children, blacks, and other groups to the public s attention. By the end of the 1970s, court decisions and laws granted women more equality and society began to accept the idea that women were more than mothers and wives. By 2004 NOW continued to be the largest women s political activist organization. NOW remained focused on its goals and helped push several influential legislative bills through Congress and brought many class-action suits to court that resulted in more freedoms for women and others. Did you know In 1967 NOW became the first national organization to work toward the legalization of abortion and for the repeal of all anti-abortion laws. NOW launched a nationwide campaign to pass an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the U.S. Constitution in the 1970s. As part of the campaign, NOW distributed buttons reading 59 to draw attention to the figure that represented the median wage then paid to women for every dollar paid to men. NOW, in 1971, became the first major national women s organization to support lesbian rights (the social and legal rights of homosexual women for equal treatment). In the 1973 decisions of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, the U.S. Supreme Court made abortion legal in the United States. NOW grew to become a network of more than five hundred thousand grassroots activists with members in each of the fifty states. Consider the following NOW placed an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution high on its list of priorities in Some people, 92 The Sixties in America: Primary Sources

7 including the executive vice chairman of the President s Commission on the Status of Women, Esther Peterson, thought an Equal Rights Amendment would do more harm to women than good. Describe your opinion. Although the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution ultimately failed to be ratified by enough states, NOW succeeded in securing many of the ERA s objectives for women in various separate laws. Some people think these separate laws are more powerful securities for women than a sweeping amendment to the Constitution. What do you think? Women, gays, and racial minorities worked together to change laws in the 1960s and 1970s. How would they have had to change their strategies to succeed without each other s help? For More Information Books Blau, Justine. Betty Friedan. New York: Chelsea House, Hurley, Jennifer A. The 1960s. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven, Web sites National Organization for Women. (accessed on August 1, 2004). Feminist Perspectives: National Organization for Women 93