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UNBOUGHT AND UNBOSSED - SHIRLEY
CHISHOLM
Equal Rights for Women
Go here for more about
Shirley Chisholm.
Go here for more about
Shirley Chisholm's Equal Rights for
Women speech.
It follows the full text transcript of
Shirley Chisholm's Equal Rights for Women speech, delivered at
Washington D.C. - May 21, 1969.
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Mr. Speaker, |
When a young woman
graduates from college and starts looking for a
job, she is likely to have a frustrating and
even demeaning experience ahead of her. If she
walks into an office for an interview, the first
question she will be asked is, "Do you type?''
There is a calculated system of prejudice that
lies unspoken behind that question. Why is it
acceptable for women to be secretaries,
librarians, and teachers, but totally
unacceptable for them to be managers,
administrators, doctors, lawyers, and Members of
Congress.
The unspoken assumption is that women are
different. They do not have executive ability
orderly minds, stability, leadership skills, and
they are too emotional.
It has been observed before, that society for a
long time, discriminated against another
minority, the blacks, on the same basis - that
they were different and inferior. The happy
little homemaker and the contented "old darkey"
on the plantation were both produced by
prejudice.
As a black person, I am no stranger to race
prejudice. But the truth is that in the
political world I have been far oftener
discriminated against because I am a woman than
because I am black.
Prejudice against blacks is becoming
unacceptable although it will take years to
eliminate it. But it is doomed because, slowly,
white America is beginning to admit that it
exists. Prejudice against women is still
acceptable. There is very little understanding
yet of the immorality involved in double pay
scales and the classification of most of the
better jobs as "for men only."
More than half of the population of the United
States is female. But women occupy only 2
percent of the managerial positions. They have
not even reached the level of tokenism yet No
women sit on the AFL-CIO council or Supreme
Court There have been only two women who have
held Cabinet rank, and at present there are
none. Only two women now hold ambassadorial rank
in the diplomatic corps. In Congress, we are
down to one Senator and 10 Representatives.
Considering that there are about 3 1/2 million
more women in the United States than men, this
situation is outrageous.
It is true that part of the problem has been
that women have not been aggressive in demanding
their rights. This was also true of the black
population for many years. They submitted to
oppression and even cooperated with it. Women
have done the same thing. But now there is an
awareness of this situation particularly among
the younger segment of the population.
As in the field of equal rights for blacks,
Spanish-Americans, the Indians, and other
groups, laws will not change such deep-seated
problems overnight But they can be used to
provide protection for those who are most
abused, and to begin the process of evolutionary
change by compelling the insensitive majority to
reexamine it's unconscious attitudes.
It is for this reason that I wish to introduce
today a proposal that has been before every
Congress for the last 40 years and that sooner
or later must become part of the basic law of
the land - the Equal Rights Amendment.
Let me note and try to refute two of the
commonest arguments that are offered against
this amendment. One is that women are already
protected under the law and do not need
legislation. Existing laws are not adequate to
secure equal rights for women. Sufficient proof
of this is the concentration of women in lower
paying, menial, unrewarding jobs, and their
incredible scarcity in the upper level jobs. If
women are already equal, why is it such an event
whenever one happens to be elected to Congress?
It is obvious that discrimination exists. Women
do not have the opportunities that men do. And
women that do not conform to the system, who try
to break with the accepted patterns, are
stigmatized as odd and unfeminine. The fact is
that a woman who aspires to be chairman of the
board, or a Member of the House, does so for
exactly the same reasons as any man. Basically,
these are that she thinks she can do the job and
she wants to try.
A second argument often heard against the Equal
Rights Amendment is that is would eliminate
legislation that many States and the Federal
Government have enacted giving special
protection to women and that it would throw the
marriage and divorce laws into chaos.
As for the marriage laws, they are due for a
sweeping reform, and an excellent beginning
would be to wipe the existing ones off the
books. Regarding special protection for working
women, I cannot understand why it should be
needed. Women need no protection that men do not
need. What we need are laws to protect working
people, to guarantee them fair pay, safe working
conditions, protection against sickness and
layoffs, and provision for dignified,
comfortable retirement.
Men and women need
these things equally. That one sex needs
protection more than the other is a male
supremacist myth as ridiculous and unworthy of
respect as the white supremacist myths that
society is trying to cure itself of at this
time.
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