Nation

What Next for U.S. Women

Houston produces new alliances and a drive for grass-roots power

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, 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 in their 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."

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.) By the end of the Houston conference, the women's movement had armed itself with a 25-point, revised National Plan of Action. 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; federally and state-funded programs for victims of child abuse and for education in rape prevention; state-supported shelters for wives who are abused by their husbands.

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."

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.

THE INAUGURATION

Waltzing In

Jimmy Carter triumphant

For some, the high point was Jimmy Carter's unexpected thank you to Gerald Ford "for all he has done to heal our land." For others, it was Carter's unprecedented stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House after he was sworn in. But for many, the most memorable--and symbolic--moment came when a black choir sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic in honor of a Southern President.

A century of Southern estrangement from the nation was over. A remarkable political journey--one that led in only two years from the red clay fields of south Georgia to America's highest office--was at an end. Jimmy Carter, at 52, was the 39th President of the United States.

Few seemed less awed by the transformation than Carter himself. With Rosalynn and nine-year-old Amy in tow, he strolled like a tourist up the driveway to his new home. "Where do I live?" he asked White House Chief Usher Rex Scouten. Scouten promptly led the family upstairs to the quarters that had only that morning been vacated by the Fords.

Someone had asked Carter the night before his swearing-in if he were nervous about becoming President. "No," he answered after a moment's reflection. "I'm sorry, but I'm not." He plunged immediately and vigorously into his work. Within a day he had issued his first Executive order, pardoning all Viet Nam-era draft evaders who were not involved in violent antiwar acts. He also issued a statement urging Americans to save energy by turning down their thermostats to 65DEG F.

RACES

Spectacular

Roots portrays a heritage

In Chicago, they were talking about "Haley's comet." To Atlanta TV Executive Neil Kuvin, it was "Super Bowl every night." In New York, Executive Director Vernon Jordan of the National Urban League called it "the single most spectacular educational experience in race relations in America."

What they were talking about was ABC's epic dramatization of Alex Haley's book Roots. For eight consecutive nights, tens of millions of Americans were riveted by Haley's story of his family's passage from an ancestral home in Africa to slavery in America and, finally, to freedom. Along the way, Americans of both races discovered that they share a common heritage, however brutal; that the ties that link them to their ancestors also bind them to each other. Thus, with the final episode, Roots was no longer just a best-selling book and a boffo TV production but a social phenomenon. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.