Recalling a Proud Moment for U.S. Women

From November 18 to 21, 1977, over 20,000 people gathered in Houston, Texas at the National Women’s Conference (NWC) to evaluate the discrimination faced by American women because of their sex and to develop recommendations for reform. The conference, now regarded as a major turning point in the campaign for women’s equality in the United States, was a first in many ways.

Never before had the federal government authorized and financed a national gathering to promote equal rights and equal opportunities for women. Never before had women come together as elected representatives from every single State and Territory in the nation to focus on what changes were needed to ensure justice and equality for all American women. And, never before had such a diverse group of women gathered in one place to share the realities of their lives, educating each other about the unique challenges they face as a result of violence, poverty, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, age, geography, physical disability, and other individual circumstances. Conference attendees included former First Ladies Betty Ford and Lady Bird Johnson, and Rosalyn Carter who was First Lady at the time. The First Ladies were joined by influential women’s leaders such as Barbara Jordan, Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Eleanor Smeal, Ann Richards and Coretta Scott King.

Under the leadership of its’ Presiding Officer, Bella Abzug, the Conference delegates enacted a comprehensive National Plan of Action, consisting of 26 planks that not only had the Equal Rights Amendment as its centerpiece, but also included major planks on abortion and lesbian rights. Ultimately, the conference clarified a national agenda for the women’s movement, invigorated national organizations and spawned grass-roots women’s advocacy organizations at the state and local levels that continue to work for women’s equality today.

Thirty years later, the NWC remains an unparalleled event in modern American women’s history. Like its historical antecedent, the 1848 Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York, the National Women’s Conference powerfully impacted individual participants and shaped the emerging feminist movement for decades to follow.

Anna Quindlen, who reported on the events at the Houston conference, recalls that “Reading over the stories I produced there, I am chagrined at how bloodless I made an event that was the human equivalent of a four-day fireworks display.”

Now 30 years later, let’s make sure that we remember and honor those who worked so hard for the issues that continue to define our lives.

If you would like to do a NWHP house party or other event celebrating this 30th anniversary, please let me know right away at ednasmolly@aol.com. A list of events that are already scheduled throughout the country are listed below. If you know of others, please post them on our Blog.

If we don’t celebrate the anniversary of this amazing event, who will?