February 2005

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

Compelling Insensitive Majorities to Listen

Shirley Chisholm was the co-founder of: the first chapter of the National Organization for Women, the National Women's Political Caucus, and the Congressional Black Caucus. She was the first African-American woman to win a seat in the US Congress and the first African-American woman to seek a major party's nomination for President of the US. Shirley Chisholm died on January 1, 2005 at the age of 80. She gave the following speech, excerpted here, on the floor of the House on May 21, 1969. The entire speech is available at the Gifts of Speech archive at http://gos.sbc.edu/c/chisholm.html.

Mr.Speaker, when a young woman graduates from college and starts looking for a job, she is likely to have a frustrating and even demeaning experience ahead of her. If she walks into an office for an interview, the first question she will be asked is, "Do you type?"

Shirley Chisholm and Congressperson Barbara Lee. Lee volunteered for Chisholm's Presidential run in 1972.

There is a calculated system of prejudice that lies unspoken behind that question. Why is it acceptable for women to be secretaries, librarians, and teachers, but totally unacceptable for them to be managers, administrators, doctors, lawyers, and Members of Congress? The unspoken assumption is that women are different. They do not have executive ability, orderly minds, stability, leadership skills, and they are too emotional.

It has been observed before that society, for a long time, discriminated against another minority, the blacks, on the same basis - that they were different and inferior. The happy little homemaker and the contented "old darkey" on the plantation were both produced by prejudice. As a black person, I am no stranger to race prejudice. But the truth is that in the political world I have been far more often discriminated against because I am a woman than because I am black.

Prejudice against blacks is becoming unacceptable. But it is doomed because, slowly, white America is beginning to admit that such prejudice exists. Prejudice against women is still acceptable.

It is true that part of the problem has been that women have not been aggressive in demanding their rights. This was also true of the black population for many years. They submitted to oppression and even cooperated with it. Women have done the same thing. But now there is an awareness of this situation, particularly among the younger segment of the population.

As in the field of equal rights for blacks, Spanish-Americans, the Indians, and others, laws will not change such deep-seated problems overnight. But they can be used to provide protection for those who are most abused, and to begin the process of evolutionary change by compelling the insensitive majority to reexamine its unconscious attitudes.

It is for this reason that I wish to introduce today a proposal that has been before every Congress for the last 40 years and that sooner or later must become part of the basic law of the land -- the Equal Rights Amendment.

Women do not have the opportunities that men do. And women who do not conform to the system, who try to break with the accepted patterns, are stigmatized as "odd" and "unfeminine."

As for the marriage laws, they are due for a sweeping reform, and an excellent beginning would be to wipe the existing ones off the books. Women need no protection that men do not need. What we need are laws to protect working people, to guarantee them fair pay, safe working conditions, protection against sickness and layoffs, and provision for dignified, comfortable retirement. Men and women need these things equally. That one sex needs protection more than the other is a male supremacist myth as ridiculous and unworthy of respect as the white supremacist myths that society is trying to cure itself of at this time.

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