|
||||
Breaking News from America's Progressive Community... Latest Releases
Making news?
|
||||
| SEPTEMBER
11, 1998 5:16 PM FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: National Organization for Women LORETTA KANE 202-331-0066 ext 762 |
||||
| NOW Challenges Clinton And Congress; Statement of NOW President Patricia Ireland | ||||
| WASHINGTON
- September 11 - In the wake of the president's sexual relations with an intern in the
White House, women's progress is surely at risk -- less from the president's appalling,
albeit unfortunately common, behavior than from the impact of this scandal on electoral
politics in 1998 and beyond. The obsessive focus of pols and pundits on Ken Starr's report
threatens to eclipse the campaigns of feminist candidates running in major state primaries
this Tuesday and in the general election in November. The only hope for real change is to elect real feminists. If women stay home on election day, we will face a Congress even more hostile to women's rights and we will never have better choices for president. We must not allow right-wing forces to sail to victory as a result of women voters' disillusionment. From the very beginning of the Clinton scandals, the president's enemies have attempted not only to bring down Clinton and the Democrats, but also to weaken sexual harassment laws and the feminist movement. NOW will not play into the hands of our adversaries. And we will not ignore the transgressions of the president who once held out great hope for an end to business-as-usual in the nation's capital. We will not settle for heartfelt apologies or lip service to women's issues. Nor will we accept moral diatribes from politicians clearly living in glass houses. To the president who betrayed the trust of the women who supported him, and to Congress members who cynically seize on the issue of sexual harassment to promote their own partisan agendas, we demand that they stop talking and start taking action on behalf of women in the workplace. The Congress and the president have one thing in common: Both have courted women for our votes, both have cheated on us. President Clinton may not have violated the letter of the law, but he most certainly betrayed its spirit. And in doing so, he threatened the dignity and respect of millions of women who must face bosses and coworkers with the false impression that such behavior is acceptable. At the same time, the very members of Congress who assailed Anita Hill now espouse a newfound interest in stopping sexual harassment. The same people who put an arbitrary cap on damages in sex discrimination cases suddenly are speaking out about women's rights in the workplace.Congress members who refuse to fully fund the EEOC want us to believe they are champions for our cause. We call on Congress, the president and business leaders to launch a national campaign to stop sexual harassment and sex discrimination. From the Oval Office in Washington, DC to the Ford manufacturing plant in Chicago, all employees -- women and men alike -- deserve to be respected for their abilities, to have support in balancing their family and work obligations, and to be free of harassment, discrimination and assault in the workplace. Protection of these most basic employment rights must be strengthened and enforced. We expect elected and corporate officials to take real leadership on these issues, but to give them a jump-start we have put forward NOW's Initiative to Stop Sexual Harassment, attached. And NOW activists will focus our energy on electing candidates at all levels who will support women's equality. Through our Victory 2000 Campaign, we will move from trying to influence people in power toward becoming the people in power. ### |
||||
