National Women's Political Caucus
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National Women's Political Caucus
Frustrated with legislative opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, in 1971 Bella Abzug, Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, and Betty Friedan held an organizing conference in Washington, D.C., attended by more than 320 women from twenty-six states. That conference resulted in the formation of the National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC), a national, bipartisan, grassroots membership organization dedicated to increasing the number of women in all levels of political life. At that time, there were 362 women in state legislatures, compared with 1,656 in 2001, and 15 women in the 92nd Congress, compared with 72 in the 107th Congress. In 1975, the NWPC formed the Candidate Support Committee to give campaign funds to women candidates; it was the first political action committee for that purpose. A year later the NWPC organized the Coalition for Women's Appointments (CWA) specifically to increase the number of prochoice women in policymaking positions. By 1979, the number of women in such posts had grown by 10 percent since CAW's formation.
The NWPC was instrumental in getting Geraldine Ferraro named as the Democratic vice presidential nominee (1984), in defeating the Robert Bork nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court (1987), pressuring Congress to allow Anita Hill to be heard at Clarence Thomas's U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings in the Senate (1991), in getting Janet Reno (attorney general), Donna Shalala (secretary of health and human services), and Madeleine Albright (secretary of state) appointed to cabinet-level positions (1993), as well as Ann Veneman (secretary of agriculture), Elaine Chao (secretary of labor), and Gale Norton (secretary of the Interior) appointed to the Bush cabinet (2001).
The NWPC identifies, recruits, trains, and supports pro-choice women for electoral races and for appointive political positions. Meanwhile, it works to ensure equality for all women in all spheres of life.
Bibliography
Freeman, Jo. A Room at a Time: How Women Entered Party Politics. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000.
Thomas, Sue, and Clyde Wilcox, eds. Women and Elective Office: Past, Present, and Future. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
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National Women's Political Caucus
The National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC) is a national multi-partisan grassroots organization in the United States dedicated to recruiting, training, and supporting women who seek elected and appointed offices.[1]
NWPC was founded in 1971 by Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan, Myrlie Evers, several congresswomen, heads of national organizations, and others who shared the vision of gender equality including Dolores Delahanty of Kentucky and writer and journalist Letty Cottin Pogrebin. They established three main issues: reproductive freedom, affordable childcare, and passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. Also important are addressing male–female income disparity in the United States and diversity at the decision-making levels.
The current president of the NWPC is Linda Young. Linda Young previously served as the 1st Vice President and Vice President of Development for the National Women's Political Caucus. She has served on the national board for over ten years, first as a Regional Director, and later as Vice President for Development. Young served more than 10 years on the NWPC-Texas board in various capacities, including serving twice as state president. On behalf of the Caucus, she recruited the first two co-chairs for the President's Circle, Liz Carpenter and Luci Baines Johnson, and has begun the groundwork for establishing the first endowment for the Caucus.
Young currently serves as Special Assistant to the President for External Affairs for Austin Community College District, the eighth largest community college in the country. Her professional career has included significant development work for education institutions and for public and private organizations, with more than $18 million in funds raised through Young's efforts. Young served as CEO of a small start-up state agency for five years in Texas, beginning during Governor Ann Richards’s administration. With almost four decades dedicated to working on women’s issues and equality, Young received the Medal of Honor/Veteran Feminists of America. Linda was one of the early recipients of the national leadership award for women, the Athena Award.
The National Women’s Political Caucus organizes campaign workshops across the country to teach the nuts and bolts of running a successful candidacy at all levels of government. The Caucus Political Planning Committee vets women candidates for endorsement and the political action committee raises money to support endorsed candidates with campaign contributions. The Caucus also offers workshops on political appointments and collaborates with other women’s political organizations to promote good women candidates for gubernatorial and presidential appointments to key posts within the government.
NWPC has local caucuses in communities across the country to help identify candidates, needs and issues specific to their state or county.
References
External links
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Gale Encyclopedia of US History
Encyclopedia of American History Copyright © 2006 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Mentioned in
Gloria Steinem
(American journalist, sociologist & politician)
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(American sociologist & politician)
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