National Organization for Women
The National Organization for Women (NOW) both symbolized and spearheaded women's growing involvement in politics. Feminist leaders formed NOW in 1966, three years after the publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique and two years after Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had guaranteed women legal protection against discrimination. The organization's agenda included better education and employment and political opportunities for women. It also sought equal pay for equal work. In the liberal climate of the 1960s, now grew rapidly. It pioneered the use of "Ms." as a salutation and helped make two-career families more acceptable in middle-class society.
NOW activists use both traditional and non-traditional means to push for social change. NOW activists do extensive electoral and lobbying work and bring lawsuits. They also organize mass marches, rallies, pickets, non-violent civil disobedience and immediate, responsive "zap" actions. NOW re-instituted mass marches for women's rights in the face of conventional wisdom that marches were a technique that went out with the 1960s.
[TABLE OF CONTENTS]
Civil Rights Restoration Act
Passed on March 22, 1988, the Civil Rights Restoration Act was designed to restore the broad scope of coverage and clarify the application of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This act specifies that any institution that receives federal financial assistance is prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability or age.
[TABLE OF CONTENTS]
Equal Rights Amendment
The ERA was written in 1923 by Alice Paul, suffragist leader and founder of the National Woman's Party. She and the NWP considered the ERA to be the next necessary step after the 19th Amendment (Woman Suffrage) in guaranteeing "equal justice under law" to all citizens.
The ERA was introduced into every session of Congress between 1923 and 1972, when it was passed and sent to the states for ratification. The seven-year time limit in the ERA's proposing clause was extended by Congress to June 30, 1982, but at the deadline, the ERA had been ratified by 35 states, leaving it three states short of the 38 required for ratification. It has been reintroduced into every Congress since that time.
An alternative strategy for ERA ratification has arisen from the "Madison Amendment," concerning changes in Congressional pay, which was passed by Congress in 1789 and finally ratified in 1992 as the 27th Amendment to the Constitution. The acceptance of an amendment after a 203-year ratification period has led some ERA supporters to propose that Congress has the power to maintain the legal viability of the ERA’s existing 35 state ratifications. If three more states vote yes, the ERA will become the 28th Amendment.
[TABLE OF CONTENTS]
|
