What Next for U.S. Women

The battle was over--and to the curators went the spoils. The blue-and-white lectern emblem proclaiming NATIONAL WOMEN'S CONFERENCE 1977, which had hung for three hectic, fractious, exhilarating days in Houston, last week was headed for Washington's Smithsonian Institution. It will repose with such other memorabilia as the star-spangled banner that flew over Fort McHenry and Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis. And well it might. Over a weekend and a day, American women had reached some kind of watershed in their own history, and in that of the nation.

Declared Eleanor Smeal of Pittsburgh, housewife and president of the 65,000-member National Organization for Women: "Houston was a rite of passage." Ruth Clusen of Green Bay. Wis., president of the League of Women Voters, struck the same theme: "Even for women who are outside organizational life, who don't see themselves as part of the women's movement, something has happened intheir lives as a result of this meeting, whether they realize it or not."

What happened, particularly for the 14,000 who attended the Houston meeting, was an end to the psychological isolation that had constrained their activities and ambitions. They learned that many other middle-of-the-road , American-as-Mom's-apple-pie women shared with them a sense of second-class citizenship and a craving for greater social and economic equality. Said Ida Castro, an alternate delegate from New Jersey: "It was a total high to get together and discover so many people who agree on so many issues, and finding that I am not alone." Perhaps more important, many women also found out, as Sharon Talbot, a 19-year-old Smith College student and delegate from Maine, put it, "I didn't have to be a radical to be a feminist. Before I went, I hadn't really decided where I stood. Now I know that all those other women feel the same way I do, so if they call themselves feminists, or whatever, then that's what I am too."

"All those other women" had descended on Houston to argue, lobby, demonstrate and compromise. They were responding to an unprecedented request by Congress to "identify barriers that prevent women from participating fully and equally in all aspects of national life" and recommend ways to eliminate them.

Over and over, the convention was described as "a rainbow of women." No previous women's gathering could begin to match its diversity of age, income, race, occupation or opinion. There were 1,442 delegates who had been elected at 56 state and territorial meetings that were open to the public; 400 more had been appointed at large by an overseeing national commission. They were white, black, yellow, Hispanic and Indian--and four were Eskimo. They were rich, poor, radical, conservative, Democratic, Republican and politically noninvolved. Three Presidents' wives were guests: Rosalynn Carter, Betty Ford and Lady Bird Johnson. (Jackie Onassis turned down an invitation; Pat Nixon was ill.) One step removed from Houston, but hardly less actively involved, were the roughly 130,000 women who had participated in the long delegate-selection process leading up to the conference--part of America's real majority: the 110 million women who make up 51.3% of the nation's population.

By the end of the Houston conference, the women's movement had armed itself with a 25-point, revised National Plan of Action, mainly based on proposals drafted by the commission. By convincing majorities the delegates called for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment; free choice on abortion, along with federal and state funds for those who cannot afford it; a national health insurance plan with special provisions for women; extension of Social Security benefits to housewives; elimination of job, housing and credit discrimination against lesbians, and their right to have custody of their children; an expansion of bilingual education for minority women; a federal campaign to educate women on their right to credit; federally and state-funded programs for victims of child abuse and for education in rape prevention; state-supported shelters for wives who are physically abused by their husbands; and a federal rural program designed to overcome "isolation, poverty and underemployment."

The cost of the programs in the National Plan of Action might well run into billions of dollars. On other grounds as well, women can expect great difficulty in getting some of them past legislators.

About 20% of the convention delegates, mostly from the South and the West, were "profamily" conservatives who opposed some of the more controversial proposals. There were three "hot button" resolutions--those covering the ERA, abortion and lesbian rights--on which the delegates were sharply divided. With other resolutions, even the conservatives were more inclined to agree. On few issues was that unity more convincingly displayed than the minority rights resolution that was drafted by conference organizers but later rewritten and toughened by the one-third of delegates who were black, Hispanic, Indian or Oriental. The revised version was carried with virtual unanimity by delegates who had split bitterly on other issues. Exulted Liz Carpenter, leader of ERAmerica, the group spearheading the amendment ratification drive: "We can no longer be accused of being a middle-class white women's cause." New Yorker Letty Cottin Pogrebin recalled seeing a black delegate wearing an orange armband in support of lesbian rights, a button favoring abortion and a pro-ERA button. Originally, the delegate had worn only one insignia, that backing the ERA. Said Pogrebin: "She was the best example of the progress of those three days in Houston."

Now the women's movement faces the much more complex, challenging and drawn-out task of turning at least some of its propositions into reality. Said Bella Abzug, presiding officer of the conference: "We are in the second stage, of action and political power." As delegates streamed home from the conference, they seemed to reinforce Abzug's message. Confirmed in their confidence, women vowed to place their interests on the political stage as never before. So, of course, did their more conservative opponents, who also returned home determined to speak out further.

For the feminists, California Delegate Liz Snyder declared: "We've arrived at the place where we have the right to expect and demand much more expertise, more honesty and more follow-through on women's issues from our legislators." Said Janet Gray Hayes, mayor of San Jose, Calif: "The days of licking stamps and stuffing envelopes are over."

One reason for the confidence is that many new leaders, previously well known only locally, emerged at Houston. Among those who rose to the occasion were California Assemblywoman Maxine Waters, 39, a black delegate from Los Angeles who led the minority women on their common resolution, and New York City Council President-elect Carol Bellamy, 35, and Seattle Lawyer Judith Lonnquist, 39, both of whom acted as floor leaders during the conference. Another was Ann Saunier, 31, human resources director of the papermaking Mead Corp. in Dayton, who won applause from all sides for her cool, impartial chairing of the conference's fourth session. In her private life, Saunier, who began using Robert's Rules of Order when she was in sixth grade, also offers a new image of the modern woman: when she agreed to move from Columbus to Dayton for the Mead job, her husband Fred decided to transfer as well.

Some were borne to center stage for the first time, including the woman on TIME'S cover, Peggy Kokernot, 25, a Houston physical education teacher and marathon runner. Along with other women athletes, she had been called on to make up for lost time when the symbolic, 2,612-mile torch relay that preceded the conference began to lag so far behind schedule there was fear the convention would outpace its torch. She was then placed in the group that ran the bronze torch into the opening session, and her own ambition says much about why there was a women's convention at all. She wants a woman's marathon at the Olympics, "to let everybody know that women are extremely capable of running 26 miles." But the International Olympic Committee recently turned down a proposal for even a 3,000-meter (roughly two miles) women's race. The distance, presumably, is deemed too exhausting for the "weaker sex."

The women's movement also emerged from Houston with a greater network of sympathizers across the country. Said Nebraska State Legislator Shirley Marsh, a feminist delegate at large from a state where most others were more conservative: "I came home with hundreds of cards, names and addresses from Guam all the way to Maine." Of course, togetherness works both ways. Women who opposed the abortion, ERA and lesbian planks also brought their address books. The conference, said Winkie LeFils, first vice president of the National Council of Catholic Women, "strengthened my communication with other pro-family delegates. I'll be corresponding with all of them this month."

The conference was run with more efficiency and dispatch, more zest and panache than most conventions dominated by men. There was an infectious mood of ebullience that made women open, communicative and tolerant of slights. Never far out of camera range, stalking the podium like some watchful mother bear anxious for her brood, Bella Abzug mellowed considerably for the occasion. She even joked about the Congressman who scoffed that the girls had gone to Houston for boozing and carousing. Abzug's zinging putdown: "I have attended many meetings, but I have never heard any women ask for call boys."

A new-found confidence visibly emerged during the conference; women were suddenly put together with others sharing their views, hopes and anxieties. Alliances were forged for the battles that lie ahead. The women knew that their political skills were on trial, and they passed the test with flying colors. No one could accuse the participants of being any less adroit, canny or Machiavellian than men. Reports TIME Senior Correspondent Ruth Mehrtens Galvin: "What had not been clear was whether women who were eager to improve their lot, but had never been involved in the political process before, could be kept in order long enough even to discuss, let alone vote, on all these issues. Order was achieved by the kind of discipline any male politician would give his eyeteeth to attain."

The organizers were determined that the convention should not collapse in the kind of controversy that broke out in the first International Women's Year conference at Mexico City two years ago and in some of the state conventions that chose delegates for Houston. Strategy to ensure the passage of the entire National Plan of Action was mapped out ahead of time. The night before the voting began, some 500 delegates were instructed on debating and voting procedures. They were told not to leave the floor without permission. Kentucky Delegate Allie Hixson, a cattle breeder, exhorted her state's representatives: "We want to be disciplined, cooperative, supportive. Arrive early, allow for the overload in elevators and let nothing delay you, pro-plan people." Said Bonnie Lesley, a Texas delegate: "We're calling on you to be more disciplined, perhaps, than you have ever been."

By running the convention so tightly, however, the organizers left themselves open to charges of rigging. Some of the 400 antiabortion, anti-ERA delegates complained, with a degree of justice, that they had not been given enough chance to challenge or debate the many resolutions that came speeding by. Debate could be shut off by a simple majority vote, and since the pro-plan forces had a clear majority, they could stop debate any time they wanted--and many times they did.

Even when debate was permitted, opponents of the resolutions often had a hard time getting heard. They had to line up behind one of eight mikes on the floor, and no matter how fast they moved, pro-plan delegates often managed to get there ahead of them. Eleanor Lampe, an Iowa cattle rancher, never could get to the mike to talk about the abortion plank. "I grew up in a rural area," she said, "and I've never seen anything like this. I guess you just have to zoom out like a bulldog and leave no room for kindness."

Even some feminist sympathizers were uneasy about how firmly the majority ruled. "I learned all about parliamentary procedure," said Sharon Talbot, "but I never got to hear the pro-family side. It's only fair that they should get to speak too." Linda Downs, editor of Woman Time, a bimonthly dealing with working women, said that businesswomen she knew thought the convention was a "ripoff because it was so onesided. The T-shirt brigade predominated, and that was unfortunate. The emotional issues predominated, and that too was unfortunate."

After the vote favoring abortion, angry pro-family delegates staged a demonstration and held aloft giant color photographs of aborted fetuses. Shaking and weeping, one anti-abortion woman cried: "I never thought they would come to this. It's murder!" Said another: "It will be old people next."

If the most emotional issue was abortion, the thorniest was the question of homosexual rights. Many delegates feared that inclusion of a plank calling for the end to discrimination on the basis of sexual preference would discredit the whole national plan in the eyes of the public --and Congress. During the debate, Betty Friedan, who had long argued that endorsing lesbian rights would hurt the women's movement, rose to announce a change of heart: "As someone who has grown up in Middle America and has loved men--perhaps too well--I've had trouble with this issue. But we must help women who are lesbians in their own civil rights."

Dorris Holmes, Georgia delegate and state strategist for ERA, warned that it would be harder to pass the amendment in conservative states if it is associated with the lesbian cause. "Lesbianism has been an albatross on the whole movement since the last century. It is an extra burden we do not need." Nonetheless, the plank was approved by nearly as large a majority as the other resolutions. Lesbians in the galleries roared their approval: "Thank you, sisters!" Pink and yellow balloons were released with the message WE ARE EVERYWHERE. The Mississippi delegation, which included six men, who had been elected along with the women, rose together, turned their backs on the podium and bowed their heads as if in prayer.

While the Houston convention was passing its National Plan of Action, a counterrally across town attracted 11,000 women, men and children into the Astrohall, and 2,000 others had to wait outside. They had arrived from far and near aboard chartered planes and dusty buses. Cheer for cheer, epithet for epithet, the "profamily" gathering easily matched the ardor of its counterpart in the Sam Houston Coliseum, and its rhetoric was substantially greater.

The counterrally voiced the concerns of large numbers of women (and men) who have instinctive and philosophical objections to abortion and homosexuality. Some may agree that homosexuals should not be discriminated against in jobs or housing and still draw the line at the notion that homosexuality is a mere sexual "preference," morally neutral and not damaging to children. Critics see the conference program as leading to the erosion of the family and further blurring of male and female roles in a society whose standards, they believe, have substantially declined. Many of the pro-family supporters are religious fundamentalists whose views derive from a literal reading of the Bible. Others are not so dogmatic, yet they are honestly concerned that what is considered progress for women in certain respects may turn out to be destructive in others. If more women continue to join the work force, if more day care centers are set up for their children, then what happens to a family structure already weakened by the pressures of American life? Surely, they feel, there is some price to be paid for the shift of a woman into a man's world with a full set of her own entitlements.

There is also a question of tone. Women on both sides are repelled by what they consider to be the abstract, unfeeling rhetoric of the extremist opposition. The pro-family people are put off by some feminists who dismiss abortions as mere bodily functions. They are equally unsettled by the pervasive bias of the women's movement toward Big Government. Pro-family forces would rather rely on the private sector and their own initiative--that would furnish more positive proof that women have finally arrived in America.

Their chief philosopher was Phyllis Schlafly, who may run against Illinois Senator Charles Percy in the Republican primary next year. "The Equal Rights proponents," she charged, "want to reconstruct us into a gender-free society, so there's no difference between men and women. I don't think babies need two sex-neutral parents. I think they need a father and a mother."

The same theme was sounded, several decibels higher, by Clay Smothers, a black Texas state representative: "I have enough civil rights to choke a hungry goat. I ask for public rights, Mr. Carter. I ask for victory over perverts of this country. I want a right to segregate my family from these misfits and perverts." A film was shown of Anita Bryant endorsing the pro-family movement, and Roger Redford of Arkansas explained that he had been a homosexual for 26 years until he was finally saved. "The Lord Jesus Christ is the only one who can deliver you from homosexuality."

Oblivious to the reprimands from the other side of Houston, the Women's Conference kept up its brisk pace. Only on the last day did the women begin to show understandable signs of fatigue and short temper. The final resolution proposed creating a Cabinet-level department to deal with women's issues. Some delegates objected that the position would "ghettoize" feminist concerns in one department and take the pressure off other areas of Government. The resolution was the first and the last to be disapproved. With that, the meeting adjourned in boisterous disarray.

Home from Houston, the women now plunge into the demanding area of legislative politics. White House Aide Midge Costanza and nearly 50 women from the Federal Government who were in Houston will meet with President Carter within the next two weeks to discuss the convention. Conference commissioners will spend the next several months working out the language for proposed legislation, then report to both houses of Congress and to Carter by March 21 on the resolutions adopted and the action they want taken. After that the President is to make his recommendations to Congress by July 19.

Although the President is committed to the women's movement and its goals, he is also a fiscal moderate--and the Houston conference called for help from Washington on a staggering scale. Congress will be cool to such costly items as the request for the Government to bankroll more "comprehensive, nonsexist, quality child-care and developmental programs," shelters for battered wives and new plans for training poor working women and women on welfare.* Moreover, considering the shaky state of the Social Security system's finances, housewives probably will not receive benefits unless a way is devised to have them pay Social Security taxes.

Yet many other items on the women's agenda face brighter prospects, largely because Congress has already been considering them. Two versions of a bill that would protect rape victims from inquiries into their sexual histories are currently in committee, as are House and Senate bills that would set up counseling and employment services for widowed or divorced women who have lost their source of income. Further, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974 has been renewed with a new appropriation of $25 million for the fiscal year and with the definition of "child abuse" broadened to include "sexual exploitation."

Because the women's major goal is passage of the ERA, their immediate target for political action is not Congress but the state legislatures. Three more of them must approve the amendment before the time limit for ratification expires in 16 months. Meanwhile, three states have attempted to rescind their ratifications, though it remains unclear legally whether they will be counted in the yea or nay column. Prospects for approval appear best in Illinois. Florida, North Carolina and Virginia. Since the economic boycott by pro-ERA forces is costing Chicago $15 million in lost convention business, leaders of the Cook County Democratic machine are pressuring state legislators from the city to back ERA. Earlier this year, the Illinois legislature rejected the measure by six votes. In Florida and North Carolina it was defeated by only two. In Virginia, the tally was even closer, with ERA stalled one vote short of passage.

While the boycott squeeze is being applied to Atlanta, Miami, New Orleans, Las Vegas and other convention cities, ERA advocates will also try some gentle persuasion to win support in conservative rural areas. Liz Carpenter of ERAmerica even plans to dispatch a pro-ERA farm wife from Minnesota, whom she met at Houston, to spread the gospel to rural women in Georgia. Says Carpenter: "If anybody's a full partner in this life, it's a farmer's wife. And yet she doesn't have a clear right of inheritance to that farm. This chicken picker can explain how the ERA can help."

The ERA forces will also receive more aid from black women with whom new alliances were forged at Houston to explain the amendment to black politicians. If legislators don't see the light on ERA, they may get the gate at the polls--or so the feminists hope. The National Women's Political Caucus, the political arm of the women's rights movement, is raising money and working to defeat anti-ERA legislators. Name of the operation: Throw the Rascals Out.

Women will be pressing on many other fronts. In Kentucky, 30 women's groups are working on an agenda that includes opening state-supported shelters for battered wives and providing counseling for rape victims and widowed or divorced homemakers. Massachusetts women are battling legislative attempts to cut off state funding for Medicaid abortions, while in California the state women's lawyers association is pushing a bill to limit the extra points that veterans automatically receive on civil service tests, which women's groups claim are a barrier to equal employment opportunities.

These women will get high-level help from the wives and daughters of powerful politicians. The feminist crusade has lately recruited many of them, and they were at Houston in large numbers. Cynthia Baker, Daughter of Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker, was a delegate at large; Cecilia Apodaca, wife of the Governor, was a delegate from New Mexico; the West Vir ginia delegation included Sharon Rockefeller, the Governor's wife. At Houston, Helen Milliken, wife of Michigan's Governor, declared herself "a newly proclaimed feminist--I used to think it was a bad notion."

Most significant, the Houston conference was a crash course in practical politics that will make many of the participants more effective in local causes. Says New York Delegate Patricia Bailey: "We learned the ropes of the political process, how it works, how it happens. I saw that the people who were getting things done weren't the loudest. The women who were more effective were very quietly coming round to people to get their support." Now, adds Bailey, an ardent, pro-plan feminist, "we are coming back to the grass-roots level, and we are going to say to our elected officials that unless you listen to our demands, we are going to get you out of office."

Whatever their divisions and disputes on the big political issues, there are certain things that women of left, right and center ardently support. Even those who do not consider themselves feminists are unwilling to accept unequal treatment under the law and more and more will fight all discrimination against them. The banker who refuses mortgages to women or the businessman who consistently rejects women who apply for management jobs stands to incur not only women's wrath but also a lawsuit.

Reports TIME Atlanta Bureau Chief Rudolph Rauch: "Even the ultra-conservatives have got much out of Houston. They too are on the march as never before. The issues that divide the two groups are important, but the thing that binds them is their commitment to militant action. Houston taught all women that the world can be compelled to watch."

Certainly, Washington and the whole nation are watching the leaders of this increasingly vocal majority. As was echoed many times in Houston, it is a particularly exciting time to be a woman.

* Washington is now spending roughly $1.5 billion a year on child care, but according to the October issue of Public Interest, the cost could jump to almost $25 billion annually if all the wishes of child-care activists are granted.

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