Textbook Reading
Nancy E. McGlen, Karen O'Connor, Laura van Assendelft, Wendy Gunther-Canada
Suffrage Not Enough - The Beginning of the End
-Anothony Amendment not appease desire of NWP for full equality
-Once suffrage secured, base of mvement disintegrated
-National League of Women Voters formed in 1919 in spite.
-Nothing for women to rally around now
Women's Joint Congressional Committee
-Formed in late 1920
-Membership of 10 mil
-Controversy over goals
The NWP and the ERA
-1st in Congress 12/1923 by Daniel Anthony
- Militant feminists: NWP leaders, worked for equality only
-Social Feminists looked for peace, birth control + social reform
-National Consumers' League against ERA because negate all protective labor legislation
-1940 Rep Party has support of ERA on platform
-Congress has ERA every session between 1923-1971, passed in 1950 and 1953 saying protective legislature not to be affected
Drive for Women's Political Rights
-Everyone shared goal of greater representation
-"silken curtain of prejudice" - a NOW letter
-1967 political equalities different from those in suffrage + woman's movement
-wmn already enjoy most basic rights, old branches devoted to economic, educational + social improvement
-younger branch think political system corrupt or can't work through it
-younger branch argued oppression/discrimination against womn end when supproting structures abolished, patriarical, social, political + capitalist economics must be overthrown
-activist work at local level in rape centers, battered wmns shelters + health clinics
-writers want unity between theory and practice
-some want reform through court system, like Betty Friedan: liberal feminists
-Other wmn see society=misogynistic
-examined how heterosexuality + patriarchy oppress women
-revolution called for by socialists, communists + New Politicians
-all agreed changes had to be had
The Presidents Commission on the Status of Women and NOW
-1961: JFK created Presidents Commission on Status of Wmn when he appointed few major female political leaders. commission headed by former 1st lady Eleanor Roosevelt
-June 1963: American Woman calls for increased appointment of wmn in important political positions
-NOW endorses ERA in 1967, some people resign in protect because it could negate protective labor legislation
-Most who testified in May 1970 senate meeting spoke against amendment
-1970: Citizens Advisory Council on Status of Wmn told Pres Nixon that amendment = necessary
-Senate votes for ERA 84 to 8 on March 22, 1972
The Ratification Effort
-Controversy of ERA affecting family relations, divorce, child support an alimony
-Supreme Court ruled down most protective legislation under Civil Rights Act of 1964 which brought many socialist feminists to the ERA
-March 1972-January 1973, 28 states ratified, few in the South
- No spokesperson for the movement, no head group, few state affiliates
ERA-The First Stage (1972-1977)
-NOW, LWV, + National Federation of Businees + Professional Wmn's Clubs )BPW all working
-Only 5 states ratified ERA afer 193
-BPW suggest wmns rights groups ban together + funded its members to make ERAmerica in Jan 1976, relatively poor and powerless
- 3 groups struggle against each other
ERA-The Second Stage (1977-1979)
-1977: NOW's new tactic make them leading proponent of ERA: boycott of states that hadn't ratified
-Impending deadline for all ratification = March 1979 and lobbied for another 7 years, got 39 months.
-All strategies=national even though they needed state ratification
-Phyllis Schlafly organized STOP ERA early as 1967
-Arguments: coed private schools, coed sports teams, same income tax regardless of income, abortions=gov funded, homosexuals=schools teachers, women forced to combat, men refuse to support wives, womans right to home + support of children = denied, homosexual marriages=legal, homosexuals allowed to adopt children
-Also, legalize unisex toilets + pornography
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