Document 67: "The Decade in Numbers" in Susanna Downie, Decade of Achievement: 1977-1987: A Report on a Survey Based on the National Plan of Action for Women (Washington, D.C.: National Women's Conference Committee, 1988), pp. 1-2.
Introduction
The progress made toward achieving goals articulated by feminists in the 1970s and debated at the National Women's Conference of 1977 is summed up by the statistics in this 1987 document. Here we see that the feminist agenda did not die under the pressure of the new right and conservative groups in the 1980s but flourished in the decade after the NWC at the local level.
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THE DECADES IN NUMBERS
and every one of them a world of stories
• In 1970, no one even knew what a "battered women's shelter" was. Now, there are at least 1200 such centers or shelters in the U.S.
• In 1969, there was one Women's Studies program, in San Diego. Today, there are at least 503 Women's Studies programs in the U.S., serving approximately 250,000 students each year. 26 of these programs offer a PhD, in this subject that didn't exist 20 years ago.
• Displaced Homemakers were first recognized in the early 70's. Now there are over 1000 Displaced Homemaker groups, programs or services in the U.S.
• Throughout the 70's and still today, media reports on the Women's Movement suggested or stated that it was/is primarily composed of "white, middle class" women. A Newsweek survey in 1986 found that 65% of black women (but 56% of white women) described themselves as "feminist". In 1979, a survey found 300 women of color groups nationwide. A parallel survey in 1985 found 1000 women of color groups, many of them organized around issues in the national Plan of Action for Women.
• In 1971, a few women in Boston published a booklet called Women and Their Bodies. The second printing, in 1972, was renamed Our Bodies, Our Selves, and sold 250,000 copies without any advertising or promotion by the Boston Women's Health Book Collective. As of 1987, Our Bodies, Our Selves has sold 2.5 million copies worldwide, and has been translated into 11 languages.
• In 1970, no one had ever heard of a "woman's center." A recent compilation by the National Association of Women's Centers has discovered that there are at least 4000 Women's Centers now in the U.S.
• In 1970, similarly, the idea of a Rape Crisis Center was germinating in perhaps three minds in the United States. There are now 600 Rape Crisis Centers, nationwide.
• Because mass media, even in their local forms, were
basically ignoring the growth of this positive and creative movement in their
midst, we had to create our own media. The first women's newspaper sprang up in
1968-9. There are now
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• Women's bookstores (not just women-owned, but carrying primarily or exclusively books by women) now number about 150, and some of them do nearly $500,000 annual volume.
• President Reagan called Comparable Worth a "cockamammie idea." But 46 states are now doing either pay equity research or are taking remedial action. 14 of these states have already appropriated wage increases for state government workers in underpaid jobs, most of whom are women.
• The percentage of women in municipal elective office has tripled since 1975 (4% women to 14% women). Women hold the position of Mayor in 11 of America's 100 largest cities. In State Legislatures, in 1987, women held 15.6% of elected positions, up from 4% in 1969.
• Women's History Week began as a local (County) project in Sonoma Co. California in 1971. In 1986, Congress declared March to be Women's History Month. The Women's History Project, which began with a one-page flyer to a few women's groups in California, now publishes a 36-page catalogue of curriculum guides, posters, and other materials, that goes to a mailing list of 38,000 nationwide, most of them educators.
• Incarcerated women have been tragically underserved by the penal system in the U.S. In response to these conditions, women have initiated over 100 programs, nationwide, that serve women in prison, most of whom are young mothers who have committed minor economic crimes. These programs began to appear in the early 70's.
• Women have been going into business three times faster than men. There are now 3.3 million women business owners, up 33% since 1976. Estimates are that, if present rates continue, women will own half of all businesses by the year 2000.
• In 1976, Ladyslipper Catalogue was founded, in Durham NC, by an all volunteer group who wanted to promote woman-produced (not just woman-performed) music. Their first catalogue had 16 pages, and less than 200 entries. Today Ladyslipper is a wholesale supplier with six major outlets nationwide, an annual volume of 50,000 tapes or records, and their catalogue runs to 80 pages with over 1200 entries, including music by feminist men and non-sexist children's music.
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