Yesterday marked the 89th anniversary of American women’s right to vote.  In 1971, Congress declared August 26th as Women’s Equality Day.  The proclamation read,

“WHEREAS, the women of the United States have been treated as second-class citizens and have not been entitled the full rights and privileges, public or private, legal or institutional, which are available to male citizens of the United States; and

WHEREAS, the women of the United States have united to assure that these rights and privileges are available to all citizens equally regardless of sex; and

WHEREAS, the women of the United States have designated August 26th, the anniversary date of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, as symbol of the continued fight for equal rights: and

WHEREAS, the women of United States are to be commended and supported in their organizations and activities,

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that August 26th of each year is designated as “Women’s Equality Day,” and the President is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation annually in commemoration of that day in 1920, on which the women of America were first given the right to vote, and that day in 1970, on which a nationwide demonstration for women’s rights took place.”

What do you think needs to happen to make women’s rights more of reality in America?

What do you need to do to make it happen?

This week, we celebrated Women’s Equality Day which marked the 89^th anniversary of the passage of the 19^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, extending the right to vote to include women.

Suffragists worked—and worked hard—for over seven decades to fight for women’s voting rights. They picketed the White House, silently holding signs that read “Mr. President, how long will women wait for liberty?” and “We shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts–for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments,” a quote from a speech that Woodrow Wilson had given himself.

President Wilson ignored the picketers, who were assaulted, both physically and verbally, and were arrested by the police on minor charges. To advocate for their cause, the women went on hunger strikes and were subjected to sleep deprivation in jail. Some were given worm-infested bread to eat while imprisoned, or force fed through a tube if they were on a hunger strike. They endured brutal beatings by police officers until public opinion turned and the president finally came forward to support women’s suffrage.

Too often, the struggle for women’s voting rights is framed as something that was “given” to women or something that suffragists vaguely “fought” for, without an examination or acknowledgement of the bravery and courage these women had in facing such obstacles. Today, we say thank you to those women, who stood strong in the face of true adversity to help ensure that their daughters and granddaughters would live in a more equal world.

And we do live in a more equal world, but there is still work to be done. Fundamental rights are constantly under attack, like the right to control your reproductive life. Or the right not to be evicted, fired or harassed simply because you’re lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Or the right to play sports and receive equal treatment and opportunity as your male peers. Or the right to be free from violence in your own home. Or the right to make the same wages as your male colleague who does the same work as you.

These rights will not just be “given” to us; we will have to continue working hard for many years, like our foremothers did, to win them. Will you help us?

The public is invited to participate in a

WOMEN’S EQUALITY DAY FORUM

6:30 pm, Wednesday 26 August 2009
Newcomb College Center for Research on Women
Caroline Richardson Hall
62 Newcomb Place, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA

Women’s Equality Day, August 26th, celebrates the passage of the 19th
Amendment which granted full voting rights for women in 1920. 2009
marks another historic moment for women. Shortly after being sworn
into office last January, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter
Fair Pay Restoration Act, which extends the statute of limitations to
file for wage discrimination. Our administration formally recognized
that women continue to face gender discrimination in the workplace—
nationally; women earn about 77 cents to every dollar that their male
counterparts earn. In Louisiana the earnings ratio is much worse:
women earn about 65 cents to every dollar that men earn. Despite this
inequity, the Louisiana Equal Pay for Women Act failed in the last
legislative session. Pay discrimination is just one of many issues
women experience in Louisiana today. Gender discrimination, access to
services and opportunities, healthcare and workforce issues continue
to affect women locally and nationally. Please join us on August
26th at 6:30 for a panel discussion moderated by Councilwoman Cynthia
Willard Lewis.

Panelists:

Representative Barbara Norton, Author Louisiana Equal Pay for Women Act

Gwen Adams, ACORN

Brenda Robichaux, Principal Chief, United Houma Nation

Beth Willinger, Executive Director Emeritus Newcomb College at Tulane

Julie Cherry, Secretary Treasurer, Louisiana AFL-CIO

by Katie

We’re far from “equal,” ladies. There’s the wage gap, lack of access to health care, rape and sexual assault, violence against women, sexism in the media, the persistent marketing of pink shit as being “for women”…… I could go on. But on the other hand, we’ve got voting rights and birth control, we outnumber men in undergraduate institutions, we’re record-breaking athletes, we can have babies, and damnit, we’re cuter, too! So today let’s celebrate Women’s Equality Day, also known as the anniversary of the 19th amendment’s passage, by acknowledging how far we’ve come and recommitting ourselves to the battles ahead!

I would like to nominate this song as the Top 1 Song About Suffrage. Any other contenders?

In the 19th century, the paramount moral challenge was slavery. In the 20th century, it was totalitarianism. In this century, it is the brutality inflicted on so many women and girls around the globe: sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings and mass rape. – Read More Here

Today, August 26, in 1920 the Nineteenth Amendment was passed, giving women the right to vote.

While the day has a nice ring to it: Women’s Equality Day, make no mistake—women still make less than men in the workplace even when doing the exact same job, and the disparity is far greater when we talk about women of color. Sure there are finally laws banning gender discrimination, but equality has not yet been reached.

So celebrate how far we’ve come, and look to the future. Then look far from home where women fight every day for education, freedom of speech, freedom from involuntary genital mutilation, and so many more freedoms we have been comfortable enough to take for granted. Find an organization that focuses on the rights of women, and get involved. There is so very much to be done.

Did you see the Sunday New York Times this past week? There is a harrowing account of girls in Afghanistan who were accosted and had acid sprayed in their faces simply because they were going to school. Girls seeking an education was far too great a threat and they have been scarred for life—for wanting to learn.

Equality? Ya think?

Today we celebrate the ratification of the 19th amendment that gave women the right to vote. Let’s all take a moment today to thank the women who came before us and made this day possible. This generation has been handed an amazing opportunity to live and work freely in this country.

But as we celebrate our foremothers, we must also carry on their work. In this country and around the world, gender discrimination is alive and well.

• Women are paid 78 cents for every dollar earned by a man.
• The U.S. has no guaranteed medical leave for childbirth
• Women only make up 16% of our representatives in Congress
• Abortion and contraceptives are constantly challenged by right wing state governments and religious extremists. Some states require women to view sonograms before an abortion. In Illinois a young woman’s parents must be notified before the procedure.
•  Each and every day of our lives we are confronted by magazines, TV ads and movies that challenge our self esteem and our feelings of self worth so that we will buy their product.

This is only a fraction of the things we must continue to fight. So, today, let us be thankful, but let us also be vigilant of the rights we must protect and let us be active in the fight to obtain the rights that we deserve.

Today, good reader, is Women’s Equality Day. There is much to celebrate – but still more sexism to overcome.

For my part I am still pleased at having retrained myhusband not to ask what’s for tea the moment he (or worse, I) step through the door from work. I can’t get him to stop asking while I’m still in the whirl of tea/bedtime routines for our daughter – but perhaps one day… *sigh*

Irritating as this piece of domestic grit is, I’m well aware that being married to a man with slightly old-fashioned views is nothing compared to the lives of so many women here in the UK and around the world.

A quick visit to Amnesty’s Women’s Action Network page tells the same tragic stories: women being stoned to death for adultery (a horrible reminder of the fate of Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, the 13-year-old girl stoned to death for being raped); women raped as part of war; women imprisoned for standing up for their basic human rights.

There are plenty of people who don’t believe you or I can change any of that. They are wrong. I’d like you to prove that today. Make a small donation to a women’s refuge. Stand up to casual sexism in the workplace, on the bus, or in your own home. Write a letter to support one of the causes on the Women’ Action Network webpage. If you’re a woman, stand up for yourself when someone puts you down.

And then, do it all again tomorrow, or the day after, or perhaps every Wednesday, or the last Wednesday of the month? Once you get in the habit of making small changes, it’s amazing how easy it is, and the difference you can make.

A Call to Action – Tell Your Senators to Take Action on CEDAW.

Join advocates from around the country in a National CEDAW Ratification Call-in Day. On Wednesday, August 26, 2009, Senators from around the nation need to hear from you! Eighty-nine years ago, U.S. women won the right to vote after many years of painstaking struggle and hard work by courageous suffragists. This historic moment is commemorated each year on Women’s Equality Day, August 26.

Today, the work of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers remains unfinished. The United States remains the only democracy in the world that has not ratified the CEDAW treaty. The CEDAW treaty for the rights of women, formally known as the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, provides a universal standard for women’s human rights. It addresses discrimination in areas such as education, employment, marriage and family relations, health care, politics, finance and law.

One hundred eighty-six countries, or over 95 percent of United Nations members, have ratified CEDAW. Yet the United States still has not. The U.S. is long overdue in ratifying it. Contact your senators and tell them the time is now! WANT TO CALL? Call your Senators at 202-224-3121 and urge them to support ratification of the CEDAW treaty for the Rights of Women today! You will have to make two calls; one to each Senator.

Give them the message below: “As your constituent, I am calling because I do not understand why the U.S. Senate has not ratified the CEDAW treaty for the rights of women, which is critical to ending violence against women and girls and to providing economic opportunity. I urge you to support immediate ratification.”

The United States remains the only democracy in the world that has not ratified the CEDAW treaty, putting our country in the company of nations such as Iran, Somalia and Sudan. One hundred eighty-six countries, over 95 percent of United Nations members, have ratified CEDAW. It provides a fundamental framework for ending international violence against women, ensuring girls access to education, and promoting economic opportunity and political participation for women. The U.S. is long overdue in ratifying it.

The CEDAW treaty for the rights of women, formally known as the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, provides a universal standard for women’s human rights.  It addresses discrimination in areas such as education, employment, marriage and family relations, health care, politics, finance and law.

Full Text of CEDAW

Call your senators at 202-224-3121 and urge them to support ratification of the CEDAW treaty for the Rights of Women today!

SAMPLE MESSAGE

As your constituent, I am calling to urge you to support immediate ratification of the CEDAW treaty for the rights of women, which is critical to ending violence against women and girls and to providing economic opportunity.
SAMPLE E-MAIL

Dear Senator,

I am writing to urge your support for women’s human rights globally by ratifying the CEDAW
treaty for the rights of women.

The CEDAW treaty provides a universal standard for women’s human rights. It provides a fundamental framework for ending international violence against women, ensuring girls access to education, and promoting economic opportunity and political participation for women. To date, 186 countries have ratified CEDAW. The United States is the only democratic nation that has failed to do so, and as such is in the company of countries such as Sudan, Iran and Somalia.

The United States should strive to be a leader and set an example for the rest of world in its
commitment to women and expanding women’s rights.  I urge you to work to ensure immediate ratification of the CEDAW treaty.

Just when I was starting to get excited about the new cast of Dancing With the Stars, the DNC convention coverage on C-SPAN converged with my life as a Human Resources blogger.

Instead of focusing on Kim Kardashian and other celebrity gossip, I feel compelled to reprint Lily Ledbetter’s remarks to the DNC convention delegates.

Good evening. Many of you are probably asking: Who is that grandmother from Alabama at the podium? I can assure you, nobody is more surprised, or humbled, than I am. I’m here to talk about America’s commitment to fairness and equality, and how people like me — and like you — suffer when that commitment is betrayed.

How fitting that I speak to you on Women’s Equality Day, when we celebrate ratification of the amendment that gave women the right to vote. Even as we celebrate, let’s also remind ourselves: the fight for equality is not over. I know that from personal experience. I was a trailblazer when I went to work as a female supervisor at a Goodyear tire plant in Gadsden, Alabama.

My job demanded a lot, and I gave it 100 percent. I kept up with every one of my male co-workers. But toward the end of my 19 years at Goodyear, I began to suspect that I wasn’t getting paid as much as men doing the same job. An anonymous note in my mailbox confirmed that I was right. Despite praising me for my work, Goodyear gave me smaller raises than my male co-managers, over and over.

Those differences affected my family’s quality of life then, and they affect my retirement now. When I discovered the injustice, I thought about moving on. But in the end, I couldn’t ignore the discrimination. So I went to court. A jury agreed with me. They found that my employer had violated the law and awarded me what I was owed.

I hoped the verdict would make my company feel the sting, learn a lesson and never again treat women unfairly. But they appealed, all the way to the Supreme Court, and in a 5-to-4 decision our highest court sided with big business. They said I should have filed my complaint within six months of Goodyear’s first decision to pay me less, even though I didn’t know that’s what they were doing.

In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that the ruling made no sense in the real world. She was right. The House of Representatives passed a bill that would make sure what was done to me couldn’t happen again. But when it got to the Senate, enough Republicans opposed it to prevent a vote.

We can’t afford more of the same votes that deny women their equal rights. Barack Obama is on our side. He is fighting to fix this terrible ruling, and as president, he has promised to appoint justices who will enforce laws that protect everyday people like me. But this isn’t a Democratic or a Republican issue. It’s a fairness issue. And fortunately, there are some Republicans — and a lot of Democrats — who are on our side.

My case is over. I will never receive the pay I deserve. But there will be a far richer reward if we secure fair pay. For our children and grandchildren, so that no one will ever again experience the discrimination that I did. Equal pay for equal work is a fundamental American principle. We need leaders in this country who will fight for it. With all of us working together, we can have the change we need and the opportunity we all deserve.

Thank you.

Kind of interesting to hear the Paycheck Fairness Act described in such simple language by the woman who started it all.

Today, August 26th, Women’s Equality Day, commemorates the 88th year since the ratification of the 19th Amendment. However, I am not so sure the holiday is appropriately named. If we are celebrating women’s equal right to vote, why not call it “Women’s Suffrage Day” or “Those without penis privilege get the right to vote day.” By calling it “Women’s Equality Day,” there is some indication that we are celebrating the fact that women actually have equality in this country, which of course, we do not.

A number of factors would need to change for women to have equality in the USA. Archcrone from The Crone Speaks reminds us that “women have not yet realized equal status with men,” detailing the following facts in her “Happy Equality Day” post:

• Women only make $.77 to a man’s dollar. Could you use the extra 23 cents?
• The US has no guaranteed medical leave for childbirth; we’re trailing 168 countries in the company of only Lesotho, Liberia, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.
• The US is near the bottom of the list – again – in our public support for quality childcare for children of working parents.
• Our access to affordable birth control is now under attack.
• And our right to safe, accessible, legal abortion is threatened as never before.
• And finally, women still only make up 16 percent of our representatives in Congress.

George W. Bush, far less wise than Archcrone, in his proclamation released by the White House, puts quite a different spin on the day:

As we look back on the journey to women gaining suffrage, we remember the sacrifices of people like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. More than 160 years after the Seneca Falls Convention, we celebrate the spirit, leadership, and hard work of those pioneering women. We also recognize the women who continue in this tradition by acting as role models in their communities, helping raise the next generation of Americans, leading in their professions, and serving in the Armed Forces protecting our country. These women are continuing on the path set by those who came before them, so that all Americans can realize the great promise of our Nation.

Hmmm, I wonder about his emphasis on recognizing women as “role models in their communities” and even more so about women as “helping to raise the next generation of Americans.” Role models? Who is exactly a good role model according to GW? Can such a role model be a feminist, can she be queer, can she resist the militarized imperialism of this ‘promising Nation’ and still be a good role model?

Even more patronizing though is the nod to women’s primary role being that of mother, of “helping raise the next generation of Americans.” Pardon me George, but your proclamation smacks of paternalism, of letting women be ‘good role models’ and ‘good mothers’ – or, in other words, nice to look at, nice to ‘model’ the supposed ideals of our patriarchal nation, and nice to raise your kids.

As for GWs reference to women “serving in the Armed Forces protecting our country” – well, he conveniently leaves out that on the one hand, women are not allowed to serve in equal capacities in the Armed Forces and when they do serve, they are very likely to be raped and sexually harassed, and on the other, that this so-called war on terror is not about “protecting our country” but about spreading US imperialism. He of course also forgets about that very important mother — Julia Ward Howe– who called for “Mother’s Day for Peace” not so we could all buy Hallmark cards and hothouse flowers, but as a day to resist war and empire.

So, George, forgive me if I find your proclamation patronizing and vapid. I am sure you did not write it yourself. You are hardly qualified to give a speech on women’s equality, let alone a speech that would lend credible analysis regarding just how far we have yet to go before women have full equality in this nation. I look forward to that day. Sadly, it has not yet arrived.

Happy Women’s Equality Day! Today is the 88th anniversary of the 19th amendment. If you don’t know, the 19th amendment is the one that allows women to vote. Hurray! In honor of this special day, make sure you’re registered to vote so that this November 4, you can party like it’s 1920 at the ballot box. If you’re feeling really gung-ho, rent the movie Iron Jawed Angels and watch it and pretend that Alice Paul and Lucy Burns are your best friends. This is also a great way to learn about the struggle for women’s right to vote, and what these women went through (unlawful arrest and force-feeing and torture — very graphic).

If you’re already registered to vote and you’ve seen Iron Jawed Angels, then now might be a great time to learn about the still unratified Equal Right Amendment. Happy Women’s Equality Day!

Alice Paul unfurling the ratification banner 88 years ago today

I wish I could say that we are doing better, but, women are still fighting for the same rights they have always been fighting for, things like access to adequate health care, equal pay.

While today honors the 19th Amendment, this day also reminds us that women are not equal in pay, representation, in doctors offices (including research),

“Article-, Section 1. – The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
“Section 2. – Congress shall have power, by appropriate legislation, to enforce the provisions of this article.”

Some 88 years ago, the TN legislature was the 36th state to ratify women’s right to vote. (Of course, today, you’d never know that TN was that progressive towards women’s rights.)

One hundred and forty-four years after the Declaration of Independence, American women had earned the constitutional right to vote–thanks in large part to a woman named Febb Ensminger Burn and her son, Harry.

And I said in my opening, women hav not yet realized equal status with men.

• Women only make $.77 to a man’s dollar. Could you use the extra 23 cents?
• The US has no guaranteed medical leave for childbirth; we’re trailing 168 countries in the company of only Lesotho, Liberia, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.
• The US is near the bottom of the list — again — in our public support for quality childcare for children of working parents.
• Our access to affordable birth control is now under attack.
• And our right to safe, accessible, legal abortion is threatened as never before.
• And finally, women still only make up 16 percent of our representatives in Congress.

While I am glad to have the rights I do have, I am sick and tired of fighting the backlash these rights have brought from the less progressive, it’s-all-about-me, GOP. It’s time to put equality into practice, a daddy nation continually brings us destruction and despair.

Did you know that August 26th is a special day in our nation’s history? The passage of the 19th Amendment on this day in 1920 legally gave American women the right to vote, after a 72-year struggle. According to the National Women’s History Museum, it was “the first time in history that a group of people picketed the White House” for a cause.

Also on this day, but in 1970, the National Orgazanization of Women (NOW) held a Women’s Strike for Equality, with women from all over the country and across the political spectrum protesting and calling for equal opportunities in employment and education and more available childcare.

The Brown Library has many books and resources about the Suffrage movement and women’s quest for equality, including:

• Hannam, June. The International Encyclopedia of Women’s Suffrage. Reference collection, call number JF851.H28 2000
• Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. History of Woman Suffrage. Circulating collection, call number JK1896.S8 1969
• A Voice of Their Own: The Woman Suffrage Press, 1840-1910. Circulating collection, call number PN4888.W65 V65 1991
• Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn. African-American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1850-1920. Circulating collection, call number JK1896.T47 1998
• Goldsmith, Barbara. Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull. Circulating collection, call number HQ1413.W66 G65 1998
• Cooper, Mary H. Voting Rights [electronic resource]. Internet—Books—Online Access. CQresearcher.com

Looking for something to do to commemorate Women’s Equality Day?

Press Release on Women’s Equality, 26th August 2008
by
Mothers and Sisters Initiative (MASI) and All India Forgotten Women (AIFW)

Women’s empowerment and gender equality are two of the oft-repeated phrases today. It is sad enough that there are many who take great pride in wearing these labels while remaining completely oblivious of their true import. What is worse is that radical women’s groups and vested interests have successfully subverted the real meaning and purpose of women’s empowerment and gender equality and are promoting discrimination, injustice and serious human rights abuses in the name of women’s rights.

On Women’s Equality Day, 26th August, 2008, members of Mothers and Sisters Initiative (MASI) and All India Forgotten Women (AIFW) highlight how various discriminatory laws claiming to empower and protect women are serving as weapons that promote family destruction and perpetrate large scale human rights abuses against men, women and children.

Data from the National Crime Records Bureau indicates that every year, over 1 lakh innocent persons (one innocent person every 5 minutes) are arrested under IPC Section 498A. Every year, close to 30,000 innocent women (one innocent woman every 20 minutes) and 4,000 innocent senior citizens (one innocent elderly person every 2.5 hours) are arrested under IPC Section 498A. Every year close to 350 children (one child per day) are arrested under IPC Section 498A.

Is allowing arrests of innocent citizens and treating them as “guilty until proven innocent” a measure to promote Women’s Equality?

At present, unnatural death of a woman within seven years of her marriage is considered as dowry death, attracting punishment to the accused husband and relatives under IPC Section 304(B). While the current seven year rule and the automatic presumption of “dowry death” is in itself absurd, the National Commission for Women (NCW) is now pressuring the Government to broaden the scope of Dowry Prohibition Act so that unnatural death of a woman at ANY stage of her marriage qualifies as dowry death. While every death of a young married woman is converted into a case of dowry death leading to immediate arrest of the husband and in-laws, large-scale suicides of men do not cause any outrage. While husbands and their relatives are under constant suspicion leading to frequent violation of their basic human rights, wives are rarely ever questioned leave alone prosecuted if a husband dies or ends his life under similar circumstances.

Is this outright discrimination against men and their families a means to promote Women’s Equality?

The Domestic Violence Act claims to protect women from physical, verbal, emotional, sexual and economical abuse. According to the law an aggrieved person is always a woman and the aggressor is always a man. Thus, the law only recognizes domestic violence committed by a man on a woman. While this law is heavily biased against men, there are many gross inconsistencies in the law, which prove that the DV Act is not good for women either. The DV Act allows legally wedded women, divorced women and girlfriends (former or present) to subject a man and his relatives to domestic violence and legal harassment. The law also allows a daughter-in-law to evict the husband along with his dependent mother, father, brothers and sisters from their own property.

Does providing a woman the ability to have a man stripped of his possessions and kicked out of his house along with his family members (on the mere basis of her accusation of domestic violence) qualify as Women’s Equality?

CrPC 125 is a Criminal Section which is biased towards women. Under this section, any legally married woman who cannot sustain life on her own can legally claim maintenance from the husband, while an impoverished husband cannot claim maintenance from his gainfully-employed wife. It is a well-known fact that a large proportion of women who are well educated, employed or qualified enough to find gainful employment are approaching courts to demand maintenance from the husband. Such women also simultaneously entangle the husband and his family in false criminal cases under Section 498A and Dowry Prohibition Act. They also use civil provisions like the Domestic Violence Act and Section 24 of Hindu Marriage Act (in addition to CrPC 125) to demand maintenance from the husband. NCW is now pushing for providing maintenance not only to legally wedded/separated/divorced wives but also to female live-in partners. Another major amendment sought by NCW in Section 125 of CrPC is that women who have violated the sanctity and the legal contract of marriage by committing adultery should be considered as victims and also provided maintenance.

Does allowing women to treat men as ATM machines and encouraging them to lead a parasitic life qualify as Women’s Equality?

Women also misuse legal provisions to alienate children from fathers when marriages break down. Many fathers suffer immensely due to separation from their children and many children are deprived of access to fatherly love and care.

Is misuse of the judicial process to violate a child’s right to both parents a symbol of Women’s Equality?

Many representations have been made to the Ministry of Women and Child Development to correct the laws and to make them gender neutral in the interest of equality, fairness and justice to men and women. Requests have been made to include gender neutral, family friendly organizations like Mothers and Sisters Initiative (MASI) and All India Forgotten Women (AIFW) in the discussion, draft and review of laws related to women. While the Ministry of Women and Child Development, in its Round Table Conference conducted on 25 June 2008, admitted that the present pro-women laws are being grossly misused, no measures have been taken to curb the large scale misuse of the laws and the ensuing human rights abuses.

NCW is trivializing the extent of misuse of these laws by women and is exaggerating statistics of dowry harassment, dowry death and domestic abuse in order to attract funds from foreign agencies like UNIFEM and USAID and to push for more stringent legal provisions. NCW has blatantly denied any help to innocent mothers and sisters who have been falsely accused and harassed under IPC Section 498A and Section 304(B). NCW is pressuring the Government to ignore any recommendations to amend IPC Section 498A and Domestic Violence Act which might make the provisions gender neutral and less prone to misuse.

NCW is denying domestic abuse against our fathers, brothers and sons and refusing protection to husbands and their male and female relatives from abusive wives. As a result, twice as many married men, compared to women, are committing suicide every year unable to endure physical, emotional, verbal and economic abuse and legal harassment.

Is the pain of a mother who lost a son to domestic abuse or legal terrorism any less than that of a mother who lost a daughter? How many more mothers and sisters should lose their sons and brothers before measures are taken to alleviate their sufferings?
Aren’t mothers and sisters women? Don’t they deserve a life of dignity and respect?
Does penalizing innocent mothers and sisters under false cases bring justice to genuinely abused women?
Does women’s empowerment mean destroying family harmony and creating a fatherless society?
Is protection of women’s rights synonymous with gross violation of basic human rights?
Is legal terrorism the solution to all women’s problems?

These are the questions we have posed time and again to the National Commission for Women and the Ministry of Women and Child Development, while they conveniently ignore and divert attention from these very pertinent and pressing issues.

On the occasion of Women’s Equality Day, we the members of MASI and AIFW make the following demands:

1. Mrs. Renuka Chowdhury should resign from the position of Minister for Women and Child Development, and Girija Vyas should be removed as the Chairperson of NCW, both for having miserably failed to protect innocent citizens, especially women, children and elders, from being arrested without trial/investigation in cases filed under Section 498A IPC and Section 304(B).
2. Grievances of mothers and sisters who are falsely accused and harassed under IPC Section 498A, Dowry Prohibition Act, Section 304(B) and Domestic Violence Act must be heard and redressed by State Women Commissions as well as National Commission for Women and the Women and Child Development Ministry.
3. No arrests of any of the accused (man, woman or child) should be made without proper investigation and written approval of police officials of the rank of DCP or above.
4. Persons filing false cases should be severely punished for misusing the judicial process and blocking the path of justice for genuine victims. The State should initiate prosecution suo motu against those found to be misusing laws to settle personal scores.
5. All civil and criminal laws should be made applicable to men and women equally. Specifically, provisions of IPC 498A, Domestic Violence Act, adultery laws, laws against rape and sexual harassment and family laws (divorce, maintenance and child custody) should be made gender-neutral.
6. Equal protection should be given to men and women against verbal, emotional, economic, physical and sexual abuse at home and in the work place.
7. Family friendly, gender neutral organizations like MASI and AIFW should be included in every discussion, draft and review committee on laws related to women.

Memorandum on Women’s Equality Day 2008

:hugs:

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
August 6, 2007

Women’s Equality Day, 2007

A Proclamation by the President of the United States

White House News

On Women’s Equality Day, we commemorate the adoption of the 19th Amendment to our Constitution and the strong leadership of extraordinary women who have made America a more perfect Union by advancing women’s suffrage.

At the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, a group of visionaries gathered to proclaim the ideas that “all men and women are created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” That gathering grew into a national movement that led to the ratification of the 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote. This achievement reflects the vision and determination of the suffragists who stood for a freer society and changed our Nation’s history.

Since the passage of the 19th Amendment, pioneers such as Margaret Chase Smith and Sandra Day O’Connor rose above obstacles and broke down barriers to equality. Today, American women are shaping our Nation and the world by serving in all walks of life. Many brave women volunteer to wear the uniform of the United States, and they serve as an inspiration to all.

Our Nation is grateful for the bold leadership of American women who have opened doors of opportunity for women of future generations. On Women’s Equality Day we honor the suffragists and all those who seek to expand equality in our world.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim August 26, 2007, as Women’s Equality Day. I call upon the people of the United States to celebrate the achievements of women and observe this day with appropriate programs and activities.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this sixth day of August, in the year of our Lord two thousand seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-second.

GEORGE W. BUSH