Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!jarthur!ucivax!gateway
From: gazit@cs.duke.EDU (Hillel Gazit)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: equal rights?
Message-ID: <653598228@lear.cs.duke.edu>
Date: 17 Sep 90 19:53:42 GMT
References: u> <653401482@lear.cs.duke.edu> <815@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Organization: The Piranha Club
Lines: 40
Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu
Nntp-Posting-Host: crimee.ics.uci.edu

#When Carter started the registration for draft NOW did not
#complain because only men were registered...

In article <815@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> (Ed Falk) writes:

>Wrong.

>I remember when Carter reinstated the draft.  I was sitting next to my
>friend, the president of the local N.O.W. chapter, when we heard the
>news on TV.  She *immediately* got up and started making phone calls,
>we were on the picket lines the next morning protesting, and she had
>anti-draft activists on her feminist radio show the day after that.

>I believe that the "official" feminist position is that there should
>be no draft for women *or* men.

In that time Carter was a weak president that wanted to be re-elected.
He had pushed the feminist agenda for a long time, and was in good
terms with NOW.  His problem was to get conservatives' votes.

Carter had changed his mind under pressure, and some pressure could
change his mind in this case as well.  A pressure from NOW by saying
something like "we will not support you in the election if you will
not stop the registration" could work.  I think that the national
leadership of NOW did not take this step because:

1) Carter was their "good guy".  They had no intention to hurt
   his chances just because he put men in a bad position.

2) They could succeed and then *women* would have to be registered for draft.

3) They were very busy in the Equal Right Amendment battle, and believed
   that men-only registration has no importance, compared to the ERA.

>		-ed falk, sun microsystems

Hillel                                              gazit@cs.duke.edu

"Were we the ones who called the shots, there would
be no institutional discrimination against us."  --  Clay Bond