Feminism and Policy Making since 1965: The Equal Opportunities Issues - Essay Example

16 May Feminism and Policy Making since 1965: The Equal Opportunities Issues This essay will deal with the influence of feminist ideas on the policy making since 1965, with the emphasis on the impact of feminism on the formation of modern equal opportunities systems. Proceeding from the examples of policy making in the United States of America, it will be argued that feminism played important role in the formation of equal opportunities policies, even though its influence on this matter has diminished with time. THE SECOND-WAVE FEMINISM AND EQUALITY LEGISLATION IN THE USA of the 1960S AND 1970S The emergence of the second-wave feminism in the United States had an important impact on the legislative implementation of equal rights and anti-discriminatory measures. While the first wave of feminism was primarily concerned with formal political rights, the second generation of feminist thinkers laid the emphasis on the issues of workplace and marital equality, as well as those of women’s representation in public agencies. This had an important impact on further policy making. National Organization of Women and the Struggle for Women’s Rights. While the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was founded in 1965 in order to combat the gender discriminatory practices in the sphere of employment, its activity was judged to be unsatisfactory by many activists of women’s movement. In 1966, liberal feminists led by Betty Friedan, a celebrated author of The Feminine Mystique, formed the National Organization for Women (NOW) that aimed at integrating women “into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, assuming all privileges and responsibilities...in truly equal partnership with men” (qtd. in Thornham 25). The foundation of NOW was caused by repeated refusal of the EEOC officials to seriously confront the prevalent discriminatory practices in the labour relations (Banks 212). Nevertheless, NOW did not play a proactive role in formulating the post-1965 equality legislation; it could be better regarded as pressure group within the framework of the previously established legislative structures. For instance, during the year of Johnson Presidency, NOW focussed on such issues as equal employment opportunity, prohibition of sex discrimination in education, and equal protection of women’s rights under the U.S. Constitution (Harrison 198). The activities of NOW mainly concentrated on creating publicity for the organisation, which was expressed through pickets and other public demonstrations, and on lobbying political establishment, including the Presidency. Nevertheless, their actions eventually proved rather fruitful for the further development of women’s movement and the adoption of equality legislation. The first influence of feminist movement on equal opportunities policies in the USA after 1965 may be traced in the controversy surrounding the inclusion of provision on sex discrimination in Executive Order 11246, which aimed at creating affirmative action programmes for racial minorities. As the 1964 Civil Rights Act had already provided for prevention of sexual discrimination in employment, the omission of sex discrimination clause in that Executive Order was regarded as an expression of neglect for the needs of women. Consequently, the efforts of several women’s organisations, including the National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs and Federal Women’s Award Study Group, led to the inclusion of the provision against sex discrimination in the text of Executive Order in October 1967, with the NOW leadership asserting that it was a victory for their ideas (Harrison 202). Later on, NOW repeatedly clashed with the EEOC apparatus with regard to protective labour legislation. In 1967 EEOC was forced to back away from its previous non-interventionist attitude on such issues as labour rights for female workers and age and marital status discrimination at the workplace, with air flight companies being the most notorious case (Cobble 75-76). The question of sex-segregated job advertising in mass media was also an object of intense controversy, with NOW staging demonstrations and sit-ins against the laxity of EEOC in dealing with this problem. The repeated legal interventions of NOW activists, as well as the publicity gained by pickets at the offices of EEOC across the nation, forced the commission to reconsider its previous non-interventionist line and ban sex-segregated job advertisements (Harrison 204). Nevertheless, the final ban on discrimination in job advertisements came only in 1973, with the relevant decision of the U.S. Supreme Court made it forbidden (Berkeley 33). Women’s Equity Action League and Title IX. The new, “pragmatic”, liberal feminist organisation, the Women’s Equity Action League (WEAL), founded in December 1967 after the split in NOW on the issue of abortion repeal, played important part in facilitating the new efforts with regard to adoption of equal opportunities legislation (Berkeley 34). Unlike NOW, WEAL tried to safeguard the interest of relatively privileged female professionals and entrepreneurs, and eschewed picketing and other types of direct action in favour of lobbying. The leader of WEAL, Elizabeth Boyer, regarded the achievement of equal opportunities for women in education and professional employment as a major aim of the group (Hole and Levine 95-96). Accordingly, WEAL’s activities were concentrated on such issues as equity in estate taxation, eliminating sex discrimination in education and vocational programs in particular, and the general implementation of affirmative action for women in high education. The implementation of modern policies with regard to sex discrimination in the academia was specifically influenced by the resolute action of WEAL members. Although President Johnson signed Executive Act 11375 in 1968, providing for the legal basis for proscribing sex discrimination in federal employment, the implementation of this Act was only partial, as its provisions ignored the problems of female students (Carleton 172). In 1970 the members of WEAL began mass campaign for the correction of this legislation gap, charging federal high education facilities with systematic discrimination of female students (Carleton 173). Accordingly, the scale of the campaign and the publicity it gained led to the initiation of legislative procedure on the issue, which culminated in adoption of Title IX (The Education Amendments) bill, which was signed by President Nixon on 23 June 1972 (Carleton 175). The basic provisions of Title IX were influenced by the WEAL agenda and reflected its concerns for gender equality in educational institutions. The Feminist Influence in ERA Campaign. The campaign around the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was also deeply impacted by feminist ideas and activities of feminist political organisations. The ERA was originally proposed by National Woman’s Party (NWP) in 1923, with the aim of eliminating sex discrimination that was left untouched by the Nineteenth Amendment (Berry 57). The failure of this initiative in the 1920s left the proponents of ERA without perspective of further political development until the end of the 1960s, when the beginning of the new wave of feminist movement galvanised the supporters of this cause. NOW announced its endorsement of ERA in 1967, which caused the split in the organisation (see sub-section above). Even though WEAL later enthusiastically participated in ERA ratification campaign of the 1970s, it was NOW that devoted the bulk of its resources to this issue. For instance, in 1968 both NOW and National Woman’s Party consistently urged the Democratic candidates to support the amendment, garnering support of such political leaders as Eugene McCarthy and Hubert Humphrey (Harrison 206). The right-wing politicians, including Richard Nixon (centre-right) and even George Wallace (hard right), favoured the ERA as well, apparently viewing it as an instrument of undermining the influence of radical/socialist currents in feminist movement. Nevertheless, after 1972 the conservative groups began to vehemently oppose ERA, alleging that it was a part of “anti-American” left-wing conspiracy (Berry 65). The feminists, on the other hand, actively participated in the ratification campaign of the 1970s, with the organisation of economic boycotts and issuing of manifestos that denounced the anti-feminist bigotry. Still, the disparate character of the pro-ERA campaign and the organised efforts of conservative oppositions prevented ERA from becoming ratified by the necessary majority of the states, and it was for all purposes excluded from the national political agenda after the period for its adoption elapsed in 1982. REAGAN’S YEARS AND FEMINIST INFLUENCES IN POLICY MAKING Anti-feminist backlash under Reagan. While the period of the 1960s and 1970s was marked by significant influence of feminist discourse on equal opportunities policy making, the years of Reagan Presidency witnessed the major curtailment of feminist influence in policy making, with the New Right threatening the gains of previous decade in this regard. The Title IX liberal provisions were challenged by the attempted adoption of Family Protection Act in 1982-1983 that aimed at re-establishing traditional gender stereotypes in public school. The general anti-welfare state climate of Reagan years deeply impacted the spheres of affirmative action for women and racial minorities, while the resurgence of patriarchal ideas in neo-conservative establishment led to ideological weakening of feminism as a coherent political creed. Such neo-conservative activists as Michael Levin or George Gilder denounced feminism as hostile to basic social values, which, in their judgment, required the differential treatment of men and women (Eisenstein). While the expansion of government’s equal opportunities programs and relevant increase in numbers of female professionals in public sectors greatly contributed to the rise in social status of women, Reagan’s austerity programs implicitly sought to curb the alleged excesses of public sector, which directly hit the career prospects of many female professionals, as 49.9% of the latter were employed by the U.S. government at the beginning of the 1980s (Eisenstein 253). Even more so, the gradual dismantlement of “Great Society” programs effected by Johnson Administration and continued under Nixon, had an adverse impact on the job perspectives of black women, as 28% of them were classified as public sector workers/employees in 1980 (Eisenstein 253). The basic aim of Reagan’s measures in the field of equal opportunities seemed to be a realignment of balance of forces between welfare state and traditional family in favour of the latter. Such policies as effective abandonment of numerical hiring goals by EEOC in 1986 (Eisenstein 254) were aimed at dismantlement of still undeveloped affirmative action system in public sector, while the anti-ERA position of many prominent officials of Reagan Administration was a tacit expression of their opposition to the continuing involvement of women in “non-traditional” spheres such as on labour market. However, the needs of the U.S. economy prevented the triumphant New Right of the 1980s from making any significant moves against equal opportunities for women in employment, education and public spheres. In fact, the progressing number of appointment of female professionals in Reagan Administration represented Reagan’s ironic recognition of infeasibility of anti-feminist policies lobbied by the New Right. Feminist initiatives in equal opportunities policy making in the 1980s. Although the Reagan years were characterised by rather hostile public attitude towards feminist ideas and political practice, feminist organisations still had an opportunity to lobby for their ideas in the public bodies. In this period, feminist groups and individual feminists acted mostly through umbrella women’s advocacy organisations that lobbied the Democrat-dominated Congress for adoption of pro-women’s rights legislation (Ferree and Martin 113). The examples of feminist influences on equal opportunities policy making was WEAL-initiated Women in the Military Project (Ferree and Martin 113), which pushed for continuing assimilation of servicewomen in the U.S. military and strove to overwhelm any discriminatory practices in this field. The efforts of Women in the Military Project were particularly felt in struggle over women’s exclusion from many military specialties (Ferree and Martin 113). In 1991 feminist campaigners played an important role in achieving the adoption of major equal employment legislation (1991 Civil Rights Bill), although such feminist organizations as NOW deemed certain provisions of new law not far-reaching enough. Nevertheless, in general the decade of the 1980s was characterised by progressive reduction of feminist influences in the field of policy making and the decline in previously achieved accomplishments in this regard. FEMINIST IDEAS AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES POLICIES IN THE 1990S AND 2000S The Return of Political Feminism under Clinton Administration. While George H. Bush basically continued the policies of his predecessor with regard to marginalisation of feminist ideas in policy making, the return to power of Democrats under Bill Clinton in 1993 seemed to promise the resumption of previous aspirations on occupational and educational equality. The participation of such feminist organisations as WLDF in the struggle over adoption and implementation of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, with the rhetoric of family issues being used for the first time to bolster feminist attempts to improve the situation of working women (Ferree and Martin 118) culminated in Clinton signing the Act into law after his inauguration. During the years of Clinton Administration, many important initiatives on equal opportunities for men and women were proposed, with particular emphasis on pay equity, ending workplace discrimination against working mothers and providing for training programs for working women. Clinton made some unprecedented appointments of female officials in his administration, with women taking 27% of top executive positions and 20% of the President’s judicial appointments (Gelb 15). This fact, as well as a prominent influence of such female officials as Madeleine Albright, and the First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, showed the level of concessions to feminist paradigm made under Clinton. The actual influence of feminists in equal opportunities policies of the 1990s seems to have been rather limited. Such moderate organisations as Fund for Feminist Majority (FFM) and Congressional Caucus on Women’s Issues (CCWI) did not define the Administration’s policies in the sphere of equal opportunities; rather, Clinton used their basic ideas to formulate his own policy initiatives as he saw fit. Nevertheless, the widespread perception of the existence of ‘feminist lobby’ under Clinton alienated many conservative, predominantly male voters, and may have contributed to masculinist backlash under George W. Bush’s presidency. Feminist influence on equal opportunities policy making under Bush and Obama. The defeat of Democrats in 2000 signified the new reduction of influence of feminism in the public policies of the USA. Generally masculinist character of many policies of the Bush Administration, both internal and external, led to erasure of the gains of the 1990s, while his “compassionate conservatism” agenda led to the undermining of many institutions that traditionally deal with job and education discrimination against women. For instance, the continuous underfunding of budgetary expenses of such institutions as EEOC, with $9 million being cut only in 2002 (Ford 311) led to the increasing complications in effectively preventing gender discrimination in private sector. At the same time, the Bush Administration effectively ignored the calls of feminist organisations with regard to overcoming of “gender gap” in employment, with its officials arguing that the phenomenon actually resulted from deliberate choices of women themselves (Ford 311). Finally, Bush’s opposition to Paycheck Fairness Act also contributed to the freezing of gender inequality during his presidency. The Obama presidency seems to be inclined towards the same feminist-friendly policies with regard to equal opportunities as espoused by Clinton in the 1990s. Such policy moves of Barack Obama as the signing of Fair Pay Act and the creation of White House Council on Women and Girls, with the view to promoting equal opportunities, indicate that the incumbent administration seems to pursue rather pro-women’s rights course. Nevertheless, there still remain major obstacles on this path. CONCLUSION While feminist ideas had important impact on policy making in the sphere of equal opportunities in the 1960s and 1970s, their influence seems to have diminished since Reagan era. Nevertheless, feminist political discourse continues to play important role in the U.S. politics, which contributes to fairer representation of women’s rights issues in national policies. Works Cited Banks, Olive. Becoming a Feminist: The Social Origins of "First Wave" Feminism. 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