Presidential Commission on the Status of Women
The President's Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) was established to advise the President of the United States on issues concerning the status of women. It was created by John F. Kennedy's Executive Order 10980 signed December 14, 1961.[2] In 1975 it became the National Association of Commissions for Women.
PCSW Commission and committee members came from professional organizations, trade unions, and religious groups, as well as presidents of colleges and the Secretaries of all the relevant executive branch agencies. An effort was made to diversify membership, although most were white. Several men served on the various committees.
Rawalt helped found the National Organization for Women after she served on the PCSW.
"American Women"[edit]
On October 11, 1963, coinciding with what would have been Eleanor Roosevelt's 79th birthday,[7] the PCSW issued its final report, entitled "American Women", documenting the status of American women and making recommendations for further action.
The report criticized inequalities facing the American woman in a "free" society while acknowledging the importance of women's traditional gender roles.
Reflecting the then-position of labor and Kennedy's labor ties, the report avoided a flat statement about the Equal Rights Amendment. Instead, it stated that constitutional equality between men and women was essential and should be achieved through a Supreme Court decision holding that women were protected by the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause. The Commission stated that because women were already entitled to constitutional protection against discrimination, it did not "now" endorse a constitutional amendment. However, some key members of the Commission said privately that they would support an equal rights amendment if the Court refused to extend the Fourteenth Amendment to cover women.
Coverage of the Commission and Report[edit]
U.S. Department of Labor Women’s Bureau head Esther Peterson appeared on The Today Show to discuss commission findings and ramifications.
The Associated Press ran a four-part nationwide story on the final report recommendations, and a 1965 mass-market book was published of the findings.
By 1962, the creation of a national commission encouraged states and localities (cities, colleges and universities, etc.) to begin studying women's status in their areas. All fifty states had commissions in operation by 1967.
In 1970 these commissions formed the Interstate Association of Commissions on the Status of Women (IACSW) and in 1975, the IACSW became the National Association of Commissions for Women (NACW) (www
PCSW influences the creation of the National Organization for Women[edit]
The PCSW research on women's status, as well as the research conducted by state commissions, demonstrated that discrimination against women was a serious problem. In 1964, the U.S. Department of Labor began to bring members of state commissions to Washington annually to discuss best practices to combat such discrimination.
At the 1966 meeting of commissions in Washington, several of the attendees began talking with each other about their frustrations with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) failure to enforce the provision barring sex discrimination in employment. Howard W. Smith (Virginia) had added "sex" into the employment provision (Title VII) of the 1964 Civil Rights Act at the request of the Virginia branch of the National Woman's Party so that white women would be protected by the Civil Rights Act. Smith, a long-time supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment, noted in his campaign literature in November 1964 that he was responsible for this amendment. The Act passed into law without additional floor debate. For the first time, the United States had a law against all sex discrimination in private employment.
Because the women interested in pressuring the EEOC were not allowed to pass such a resolution at the 1966 meeting of the state commissions on women, they decided they needed to create an independent organization—an "NAACP for women" which would press for enforcement of this law and for achieving other objectives.
The National Organization for Women (NOW) was founded by conference attendees in October 1966, the first new feminist organization of the "second wave" of feminism. A former EEOC commissioner, Richard Graham, was on NOW's first board as a vice president.