National Organization for Women

PUBLIC RELATIONS COMMITTEE REPORT

November 18, 1967

Our public relations efforts in NOW’s first year of life have pursued three main goals: 1.) To educate the public and public officials on the prevalence of discrimination based upon sex-with emphasis on the illegality of such discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 2.) To tell the world about NOW as an organization, and to publicize NOW campaigns. 3.) To help create a dignified new image of American women, and to help revise long-established cliches in the communications media that foster “self-denigration, dependence, and evasion of responsibility” among women. We trust that our efforts have achieved some success toward those three goals.

On the whole, NOW has been treated by the press with respect and fairness. Press conferences have been well attended; and although certain newspapers restrict NOW coverage to the woman’s page, most papers carry our stories in the general news section. Thanks to cover- age by Associated Press, NOW has appeared on the front page of many leading American newspapers.

Television and radio have been especially generous, with networks and local stations carrying NOW stories on their top night-time newscasts. The NBC-TV network TODAY show presented a two-hour program on discrimination against women; largely as a result of a NOW memorandum; Betty Friedan appeared on this program with Senator Maurine Neuberger and Dr. Bruno Bettelheim. The NBC radio network then produced a three-program series on the same subject with the same three experts.

This Week magazine carried a three-page picture story about NOW, titled “Sex and Civil Rights,” to its 26 million readers. The National Observer and True magazine did features- the former on page One. Major stories quoting NOW in sex discrimination are currently in the works at five other leading magazines. Although most women’s magazines (Mademoiselle, Vogue; Glamour, McCall’s, Redbook, etc.) have written about NOW, some were critical. (Vogue’s comments might be summarized thus: Girls, why settle for job equality, when it’s more fun to dream about finding a rich husband to support you.)

Local NOW chapters and individual NOW members might profit from this brief summary of NOW’s main news stories thus far:

l) Our organizing conference in Washington. (Local Chapters: How about local publicity when you become an official chapter, or when you elect officers? Good-quality news pictures of your officers should be welcome at the newspapers and TV stations. Ask your radio and TV stations if they’ d like to interview your chapter officers.)

2) NOW’s first press conference, stating its immediate goals. (Local Chapters: Your press conference could reveal your state and local objectives.)

3) NOW’s petition to the EEOC regarding sex-segregated “Help Wanted” ads. (Local Chapters: Any local issues worthy of a NOW-sponsored petition?)

4) A press conference in Washington following meetings between representatives and key Washington officials. (Local Chapters: When you have a solid, newsworthy issue, how about a call on your Mayor, and Governor, perhaps followed by a press conference?)

5) Interviews with prominent men and women who are members of NOW. (Prominent members, don’t be modest. Your local press is interested.)

6) Press conferences following NOW national board meetings in certain cities.

7) Press conferences and news releases expressing NOW support for victims of sex discrimination. For example, NOW has received nationwide publicity for its assistance to Pauline Dziob, who was denied a yeoman (clerk-typist) job aboard ship on the grounds that this was “man’s work,” and for its intervention in the”Mengelkoch case” protesting a California state labor law which restricts women (but not men) in hours of overtime work in factories. (Dramatic case histories are always welcomed by the press. But check all the facts carefully first! The national NOW legal committee can advise you.)

A FEW WORDS OF CAUTION: Don’t let the press lure you into a battle-of-the-sexes approach. Emphasize that NOW has many men members, and that we are working for equal partnership between men and women-with no discrimination against either sex. . . . Don’t participate in a discussion that pokes fun at women. Sure we all have a good sense of humor; but let’s try to promote the image of American woman as a serious, responsible person-not a helpless object for ridicule. . . . When you are interviewed as a NOW representative, use good judgment if the press tries to draw you out on controversial issues not covered by NOW policy. Remember, the public might erroneously get the impression that you are stating NOW policy, rather than your own personal opinions as an individual. Also, if your local NOW chapter has taken a certain stand which is not the policy of the national NOW organization, please be sure to emphasize in press interviews that you are speaking for your local chapter only. If in doubt about a future statement or interview, please check first with your local NOW chapter president or with a NOW national officer.

NOW keeps a scrapbook of national and local publicity. This helps us tell our story to prospective members, financial supporters and allies. Would you kindly send any and all NOW clippings you come across to Muriel Fox, 43 East 83rd St. New York City 10028. If you wish, we will xerox your clippings and return the originals to you In the next mail.

A special word of thanks to Patricia Perry, Barbara Ireton, Linda Waring and Bette Jerome for their publicity work in Washington; and to Marsha Lane and Dolores Alexander for their work in New York.

Respectfully submitted

Muriel Fox, Public Relations Chairman

TASK FORCE ON THE FAMILY (1967)

Guiding Ideology:

The basic ideological goal of NOW is a society in which men and women have an equitable balance in the time and interest with which they participate in work, family and community. NOW should seek and advocate personal and institutional measures which would reduce the disproportionate involvement of men in work at the expense of meaningful participation in family and community, and the disproportionate involvement of women in family at the expense of participation in work and community.

SUGGESTED MEASURES TO IMPLEMENT THIS GOAL:

Section 1 –

Cultivation of a wide spectrum of interests and skills among both girls and boys. If men and women are to participate as equal partners in adult life, boys must be encouraged to develop broad non-vocational interests, domestic skills and eagerness for community service, and young girls must be exposed to a wide range of career possibilities and encouraged to make career choices consistent with their true interests rather than social expectations of appropriate female fields. Only by changes in childhood experience and exposure can we counteract the work-achievement-science-money focus of American men, and the narrow home-nurturance-culture-beauty focus of American women.

Section 2 –

Later age at marriage and first pregnancy. If more women finished their educational training and acquired work experience relevant to their long range occupational goal before marriage and maternity, they would acquire more of the motivation, self-confidence and independence necessary for a balanced pattern of work and family life involvement after marriage. NOW should encourage wider opportunity of choice as to when or whether a person should marry or remarry, have or not have children.

Section 3 –

Individual control of reproductive life. NOW endorses the principle that it is a basic right of every woman to control her reproductive life, and therefore NOW supports the furthering of the sexual revolution of our century by pressing for widespread sex education, provision of birth control information and contraceptives, and urges that all laws penalizing abortion be repealed.

Section 4 –

Expansion and change in home maintenance services. NOW urges the upgrading of the status and competence of domestic service occupations. This is a necessary change both to improve the social and economic lot of household employees, and to enable women who have to work or wish to work, to minimize the length of time they withdraw from the labor force due to family and home responsibilities.

Section 5 –

Expansion and change in child care services. If women are to participate on an equitable basis with men in the world of work and of community service, child-care facilities must become as much a part of our community facilities as parks and libraries are, to be used or not used at the discretion of individual parents. NOW encourages the development of a variety of child-care facilities available on an all-day, all-year basis, adequate to the needs of children from the preschool years through early adolescence. This can be accomplished by the upgrading of skills and licensing of “mother substitutes” similar to the development of practical nursing, as well as by child-care centers administered as an added employee facility by private or public employers at the place of work, as a logical extension of the local educational system. Standards for facilities and personnel should be established by law.

Section 6 –

Revision of divorce laws and alimony arrangements so that unsuccessful marriages may be terminated without hypocrisy, and new marriages contracted without undue financial hardship to either man or woman

Section 7 –

Loosening of nepotism rulings and practices so that husbands and wives can work for the same enterprise in business, government or the educational system.

Section 8 –

Revision of tax laws to permit the deduction of full home and child-care expenses in income taxes of working parents.

Section 9 –

Revision of social security laws to assure equitable coverage for married and widowed women who have worked, as they now do for married women who did not work, and to eliminate discrimination based on sex or marital status in the conferring of benefits thereunder. (The question of divorced women was raised and was referred to the Legal Committee for clarification.)

Section 10 –

Maternity Benefits. Since bearing and rearing of children is an important and valued contribution to the perpetuation of our society, maternity should not involve any penalties to women who have to or wish to work. NOW encourages a campaign to eliminate discrimination on the basis of maternity by the protection of a woman’s right to return to her job within a reasonable time after childbirth, determined by the woman herself, without loss of her disability credits or seniority.

Section 11 –

Expansion of “sick leave” to family members of employees. Men and women should be able to use sick leave to cover illnesses of children or spouses, not merely themselves. This is a needed social change both to revise our thinking from the needs of the individual to the needs of the family unit and to facilitate the sharing by men and women of their parental and marital responsibilities. Permit the deduction of full home and child-care expenses in income taxes of working parents.

Section 12 –

Employment laws designed to shorten hours of work should be revised to require equal treatment of male and female workers. As a current example, many women cannot work overtime if they wish to and many men feel compelled to work more overtime than they wish to. State employment laws should be reviewed and revised to assure that male and female employees have the right to refuse overtime work beyond a specified legal limit on overtime hours per week. Only by such equitable treatment can working fathers and mother participate equally in the pleasures and responsibilities of home care and child rearing.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PRIORITY:

(1) CHILD CARE

(a) Everyone opposes H.R. 12080 as passed by the House of Representatives. Urge support of the Kennedy amendment.

(b) NOW should take vigorous action to disassociate child care centers from “poor children of welfare cases.” Child care facilities should be community resources like parks and libraries, to be used or not at the discretion of individual citizens.

(2) Cultivation of wide spectrum of interests and skills among young boys and girls. Urge Image and Education Task Forces to concern themselves with books in elementary schools re image of what women do.

(3) Urge all members of NOW to affiliate with National Committee for Day Care of Children, 114 East 32nd St., New York, NY 10016.

(4) Urge and recommend that NOW have more detailed discussion of maternity benefit issue before taking any action on this issue.

MOTIONS:

Propose the motion that 4 articles be approved to the Bill of Rights of 1968:

(1) Right of women who have to or want to work by protecting her right to remain on the job during pregnancy and return to her job after childbirth without loss of disability credits or seniority.

(2) Revision of tax laws to make child care and home maintenance tax deductible.

(3) Encourage the development of child care facilities for all preschool children and older children for hours they are not in school, to be used or not used at the discretion of individual citizens, much as parks and libraries are.

(4) NOW endorses the human right of every woman to control her reproductive life.