| Re: .20
Here's the statement of purpose from when NOW was founded.
Since NOW is a grass-roots organization (the national organiza-
tion is interested in what the state delegates tell it to be interest-
ed in, the state chapters in what the local chapters tell them, and
the local chapters in what the members tell them), it's hard to get a
statement of "NOW's doctrine." The closest thing to that would be the
record of the national convention, which is more-or-less equivalent to
a political party's platform. That is a fair sized book, though, and
I shudder at the thought of typing it in.
Brian Hetrick
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NOW Statement of Purpose
(Adopted at the organizing conference in Washington, DC, October 29,
1966)
We, men and women who hereby constitute ourselves as the National
Organization for Women, believe that the time has come for a new
movement toward true equality for all women in America, and toward a
fully equal partner-ship of the sexes, as part of the world-wide
revolution of human rights now taking place within and beyond our
national borders.
The purpose of NOW is to take action to bring women into full
participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising
all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal
partnership with men.
We believe the time has come to move beyond the abstract arguments,
discussion and symposia over the status and special nature of women
which has raged in America in recent years; the time has come to
confront, with concrete action, the conditions that now prevent women
from enjoying the equality of opportunity and freedom of choice which
is their right, as individual Americans, and as human beings.
NOW is dedicated to the proposition that women, first and foremost,
are human beings, who, like all other people in our society, must have
the chance to develop their fullest human potential. We believe that
women can achieve such equality only by accepting to the full the
challenges and responsibilities they share with all other people in
our society, as part of the decision-making mainstream of American
political, economic and social life.
We organize to initiate or support action, nationally, or in any part
of this nation, by individuals and organizations, to break through the
silken curtain of prejudice and discrimination against women in
government, industry, the professions, the churches, the political
parties, the judiciary, the labor unions, in education, science,
medicine, law, religion and every other field of importance in
American society.
Enormous changes taking place in our society make it both possible and
urgently necessary to advance the unfinished revolution of women
toward equality, now. With a life span lengthened to nearly 75 years
it is no longer either necessary or possible for women to devote the
greater part of their lives to child-rearing; yet childbearing and
rearing which continues to be a most important part of most women's
lives--still is used to justify barring women from equal professional
and economic participation and advance.
Today's technology has reduced most of the productive chores which
women once performed in the home and in mass-production industries
based upon routine unskilled labor. This same technology has
virtually eliminated the quality of muscular strength as a criterion
for filling most jobs, while intensifying American industry's need for
creative intelligence. In view of this new industrial revolution
created by automation in the mid-twentieth century, women can and must
participate in old and new fields of society in full equality -- or
become permanent outsiders.
Despite all the talk about the status of American women in recent
years, the actual position of women in the United States has declined,
and is declining, to an alarming degree throughout the 1950's and
60's. Although 46.4% of all American women between the ages of 18 and
65 now work outside the home, the overwhelming majority -- 75% -- are
in routine clerical, sales, or factory jobs, or they are household
workers, cleaning women, hospital attendants. About two-thirds of
Negro women workers are in the lowest paid service occupations.
Working women are becoming increasingly -- not less -- concentrated on
the bottom of the job ladder. As a consequence full-time women
workers today earn on the average only 60% of what men earn, and that
wage gap has been increasing over the past twenty-five years in every
major industry group. In 1964, of all women with a yearly income, 89%
earned under $5,000 a year; half of all full-time year round women
workers earned less than $3,690; only 1.4% of full-time year round
women workers had an annual income of $10,000 or more.
Further, with higher education increasingly essential in today's
society, too few women are entering and finishing college or going on
to graduate or professional school. Today, women earn only one in
three of the B.A.'s and M.A.'s granted, and one in ten of the Ph.D.'s.
In all the professions considered of importance to society, and in the
executive ranks of industry and government, women are losing ground.
Where they are present it is only a token handful. Women comprise
less than 1% of federal judges; less than 4% of all lawyers; 7% of
doctors. Yet women represent 51% of the U.S. population. And,
increasingly, men are replacing women in the top positions in
secondary and elementary schools, in social work, and in libraries --
once thought to be women's fields.
Official pronouncements of the advance in the status of women hide not
only the reality of this dangerous decline, but the fact that nothing
is being done to stop [it]. The excellent reports of the President's
Commission on the Status of Women and of the State Commissions have
not been fully implemented. Such Commissions have power only to
advise. They have no power to enforce their recommendations; nor have
they the freedom to organize American women and men to press for
action on them. The reports of these commissions have, however,
created a basis upon which it is now possible to build.
Discrimination in employment on the basis of sex is now prohibited by
federal law, in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But
although nearly one-third of the cases brought before the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission during the first year dealt with sex
discrimination and the proportion is increasing dramatically, the
Commission has not made clear its intention to enforce the law with
the same seriousness on behalf of women as of other victims of
discrimination. Many of these cases were Negro women, who are the
victims of the double discrimination of race and sex. Until now, too
few women's organizations and official spokesmen have been willing to
speak out against these dangers facing women. Too many women have
been restrained by the fear of being called ``feminist.''
There is no civil rights movement to speak for women, as there has
been for Negroes and other victims of discrimination. The National
Organization for Women must therefore begin to speak.
WE BELIEVE that the power of American law, and the protection
guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution to the civil rights of all
individuals, must be effectively applied and enforced to isolate and
remove patterns of sex discrimination, to ensure equality of
opportunity in employment and education, and equality of civil and
political rights and responsibilities on behalf of women as well as
for Negroes and other deprived groups.
We realize that women's problems are linked to many broader questions
of social justice; their solution will require concerted action by
many groups. Therefore, convinced that human rights for all are
indivisible, we expect to give active support to the common cause of
equal rights for all those who suffer discrimination and deprivation,
and we call upon other organizations committed to such goals to
support our efforts toward equality for women.
WE DO NOT ACCEPT the token appointment of a few women to high-level
positions in government and industry as a substitute for a serious
continuing effort to recruit and advance women according to their
individual abilities. To this end, we urge American government and
industry to mobilize the same resources of ingenuity and command with
which they have solved problems of far greater difficulty than those
now impeding the progress of women.
WE BELIEVE that this nation has a capacity at least as great as other
nations, to innovate new social institutions which will enable women
to enjoy true equality of opportunity and responsibility in society,
without conflict with their responsibilities as mothers and
homemakers. In such innovations, America does not lead the Western
world, but lags by decades behind many European countries. We do not
accept the traditional assumption that a woman has to choose between
marriage and motherhood, on the one hand, and serious participation in
industry or the professions on the other. We question the current
expectation that all normal women will retire from job or profession
for 10 to 15 years, to devote their full time to raising children,
only to reenter the job market at a relatively minor level. This, in
itself, is a deterrent to the aspirations of women, to their
acceptance into management or professional training courses, and to
the very possibility of equality of opportunity or real choice, for
all but a few women. Above all, we reject the assumption that these
problems are the unique responsibility of each individual woman,
rather than a basic social dilemma which society must solve. True
equality of opportunity and freedom of choice for women requires such
practical, and possible innovations as a nationwide network of
child-care centers, which will make it unnecessary for women to retire
completely from society until their children are grown, and national
programs to provide retraining for women who have chosen to care for
their own children full-time.
WE BELIEVE that it is as essential for every girl to be educated to
her full potential of human ability as it is for every boy -- with the
knowledge that such education is the key to effective participation in
today's economy and that, for a girl as for a boy, education can only
be serious where there is expectation that it will be used in society.
We believe that American educators are capable of devising means of
imparting such expectations to girl students. Moreover, we consider
the decline in the proportion of women receiving higher and
professional education to be evidence of discrimination. This
discrimination make take the form of quotas against the admission of
women to colleges and professional schools; lack of encouragement by
parents, counsellors and educators; denial of loans or fellowships; or
the tradtional or arbitrary procedures in graduate and professional
training geared in terms of men, which inadvertently discriminate
against women. We believe that the same serious attention must be
given to high school dropouts who are girls as to boys.
WE REJECT the current assumption that a man must carry the sole burden
of supporting himself, his wife, and family, and that a women is
automatically entitled to lifelong support by a man upon her marriage,
or that marriage, home and family are primarily woman's world and
responsibility -- hers, to dominate -- his to support. We believe
that a true partnership between the sexes demands a different concept
of marriage, an equitable sharing of the responsibilities of home and
children and of the economic burdens of their support. We believe
that proper recognition should be given to the economic and social
value of homemaking and child-care. To these ends, we will seek to
open a reexamination of laws and mores governing marriage and divorce,
for we believe that the current state of ``half-equality'' between the
sexes discriminates against both men and women, and is the cause of
much unnecessary hostility between the sexes.
WE BELIEVE that women must now exercise their political rights and
responsibilities as American citizens. They must refuse to be
segregated on the basis of sex into separate-and-not-equal ladies'
auxiliaries in the political parties, and they must demand
representation according to their numbers in the regularly constituted
party committees -- at local, state, and national levels -- and in the
informal power structure, participating fully in the selection of
candidates and poltical decision-making, and running for office
themselves.
IN THE INTERESTS OF THE HUMAN DIGNITY OF WOMEN, we will protest, and
endeavor to change, the false image of women now prevalent in the mass
media, and in the texts, ceremonies, laws, and practices of our major
social institutions. Such images perpetuate contempt for women by
society and by women for themselves. We are similarly opposed to all
policies and practices -- in church, state, college, factory, or
office -- which, in the guise of protectiveness, not only deny
opportunities but also foster in women self-denigration, dependence,
and evasion of responsibility, undermine their confidence in their own
abilities and foster contempt for women.
NOW WILL HOLD ITSELF INDEPENDENT OF ANY POLITICAL PARTY in order to
mobilize the political power of all women and men intent on our goals.
We will strive to ensure that no party, candidate, president, senator,
governor, congressman, or any public official who betrays or ignores
the principle of full equality between the sexes is elected or
appointed to office. If it is necessary to mobilize the votes of men
and women who believe in our cause, in order to win for women the
final right to be fully free and equal human beings, we so commit
ourselves.
WE BELIEVE THAT women will do most to create a new image of women by
acting now, and by speaking out in behalf of their own equality,
freedom, and human dignity -- not in pleas for special privilege, nor
in emnity toward men, who are also victims of the current,
half-equality between the sexes -- but in an active, self-respecting
partnership with men. By so doing, women will develop confidence in
their own ability to determine actively, in partnership with men, the
conditions of their life, their choices, their future and their
society.
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