How Activism and International Women’s Year Fueled U.S. Efforts for Equality

On January 9, 1975, President Gerald Ford signed Executive Order 11832 creating a National Commission on the Observance of International Women’s Year. For more than two decades, people around the world had been organizing and advocating for women’s freedom and equality as deep cultural changes emerged after World War II. In 1965, the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) had begun working to obtain passage of a declaration to secure women’s human rights. The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (DEDAW) was passed by the UN General Assembly in 1967 and contained eleven articles calling for the elimination of gender discrimination in education, electoral processes, and legal rights, among others.

U.S. Involvement in the Global Movement

As DEDAW helped the fight for women’s rights gain momentum on a global stage, there were also large-scale efforts by activists in the U.S. to extend equal legal protections to women. In the 1960s and 70s, the push for legal equality had several legislative successes. For instance, the Education Amendments of 1972 expanded the reach of the Equal Pay Act of 1963 to include professional and administrative jobs in which a higher number of women were employed. Title IX of the Higher Education Act of 1972, which was coauthored by Representative Patsy Takemoto Mink, prohibited discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities that receive federal funding. However, President Ford understood that these legislative expansions did not address all aspects of discrimination that women faced. He wrote, “significant progress continues in advancing the rights and responsibilities of women, in opening new opportunities, and in overcoming political, legal, social, and economic handicaps to which women have long been subject. Americans must now deal with those inequities that still linger as barriers to the full participation of women in our Nation's life” (1).

As the global fight for women’s rights continued in the years following DEDAW, the Commission on the Status of Women set their sights on establishing an international women’s year and conference to address women’s inequality. In 1972, the UN General Assembly approved their proposal and proclaimed 1975 as International Women’s Year, and Mexico City agreed to host the first UN World Conference on Women. President Ford noted that the UN proclaiming 1975 as International Women’s Year “has offered us an exceptional opportunity to focus attention throughout the country on the rights and responsibilities of women” (1). His executive order established a commission of 35 members tasked with “encouraging cooperative activity in the field of women’s rights and responsibilities” and to promoting “equality between men and women”(1).

Examining the Barriers to Equality

The United States participated in International Women’s Year at home and abroad. In addition to sending three delegates to attend the World Conference on Women in Mexico City, thousands of International Women’s Year events took place across the United States throughout 1975 (2). The commission established in President Ford’s executive order worked with two hundred nongovernmental organizations related to women’s rights and held numerous public hearings before issuing their report: “’…To Form a More Perfect Union…’ Justice for American Women.” Some of the larger hearings took place in Window Rock, Arizona at the Southwest Indian Women’s Conference; Boston, Massachusetts sponsored by Wheaton College; and in Austin, Texas at the Conference on Women in Public Life sponsored by the University of Texas (2). Women’s Week activities were also held at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.

The commission spent a year researching, studying, and listening to partner organizations before they issued their report in 1976. The 400-page report includes 115 recommendations in subjects including women’s roles in the workplace, ending discrimination in divorce legal processes, increasing women’s access to credit, improving criminal handling of sexual assault allegations, changing how women are portrayed in the media, and many more. As the report was issued to the president, it was also issued to the public. Jill Ruckelshaus, the commission’s presiding officer, urged “all Americans, women and men, government policymakers and private citizens alike, to read this report thoughtfully and to use the recommendations ‘to form a more perfect Union’” (2).

The Legacy of International Women’s Year

In response to increasing grassroots support and activism around women’s rights, Congress extended the commission from 1975 to 1978. Events continued to take place across the country for the next three years, and the commission’s work culminated in the first National Women’s Conference (NWC) in 1977 in Houston, Texas. President Jimmy Carter publicly supported the commission when he took office in January of 1977. First Lady Rosalynn Carter and former First Lady Betty Ford were both outspoken supporters of women’s rights, and both spoke at the National Women’s Conference. Chaired by Congresswoman Bella Abzug, the NWC was the first of its kind to receive federal funding.

The goal of the NWC was to compile a “Plan of Order” to be presented to the Carter administration. Each of the twenty-six resolutions in the plan were presented to the conference attendees and voted on collectively. The commission published its final report, The Spirit of Houston, in March of 1978, but little action was taken in response. The conference and subsequent report included several controversial issues that divided some activists and resulted in a loss of bipartisan political support. Though President Carter did establish the National Advisory Committee for Women to continue the commission’s work beyond 1978, no further action was taken to address the issues presented in their report.

International Women’s Year marked a high tide for women’s rights activists in the United States. National activism at a grassroots level, along with the commission established by President Ford, brought the United States into a global movement for equality. The two reports that came from the commission remain some of the most comprehensive surveys of issues affecting women. The resulting NWC in 1977 contributed to the rise of political activism by women of diverse backgrounds by building a more inclusive platform that expanded the scope of “women’s issues” across racial, economic, and political divides.

Notes

1. Executive Order 11832—Establishing a National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year, 1975, The American Presidency Project.
2. "’... to form a more perfect union ...’ : Justice for American Women” Report of the National Commission on the Observance of International Women’s year, 1976, HathiTrust Digital Library.

Further Reading:

International Women's Year (1975) Research Guide, Harvard Radcliffe Institute Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America.

Report of the World Conference of the International Women's Year, Mexico City, 19 June-2 July 1975, United Nations, 1976, United Nations Digital Library.

The Spirit of Houston, An Official Report to the President, the Congress and the People of the United States, National Commission on the Observance of International Women’s Year, 1978, University of Houston Digital Collections.

Related Reading:

• Voices on Independence: Four Oral Histories About Building Women’s Economic Power
• Political Women: A Seat at the Table from the Mid 1880s Through 2016
• On Their Merit: The First American Women to Fly in Combat

Meredith Herndon | READ MORE

Meredith Herndon is the writer and editor for the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum.