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Democrats than Republicans—had become so large in congressional and

presidential races that the margins contributed to the elections of mem-

bers of Congress and of President Bill Clinton.

See also Abortion; Anderson, Eugenie Moore; Blair, Emily Newell; Chisholm,

Shirley Anita St. Hill; Clark Gray, Georgia Neese; Dewson, Mary (Molly)

Williams; Education Amendments of 1972, Title IX; Education, Women and;

Edwards, India Moffett; Equal Rights Amendment; Ferraro, Geraldine Anne;

Hamer, Fannie Lou Townsend; Jordan, Barbara Charline; League of Women

Voters; Meissner, Doris Marie; National Organization for Women; National

Women’s Political Caucus; Nineteenth Amendment; President and Vice

President, Women Candidates for; Roosevelt, Eleanor; Westwood, Frances

Jean Miles

References Breckenridge, Women in the Twentieth Century (1933); Feit,

“Organizing for Political Power: The National Women’s Political Caucus”

(1979); Freeman, “Women at the 1988 Democratic Convention” (1988);

National Women’s Political Caucus, Democratic Women Are Wonderful (1980).

Dennett, Mary Coffin Ware (1872–1947)

Birth control advocate and suffragist Mary Coffin Ware Dennett worked

to legalize the distribution of contraceptive information by passing legis-

lation ending its designation as obscene material under the Comstock law

of 1873. Dennett entered politics through the suffrage movement in 1908,

serving as a field secretary for the Massachusetts Suffrage Association.

Corresponding secretary for the National American Woman Suffrage As-

sociation (NAWSA) beginning in 1910, she became executive secretary in

1912. As her influence in the organization increased, she became openly

critical of NAWSA’s president, Anna Howard Shaw, and her leadership, re-

sulting in Shaw’s resignation in 1914.

Dennett organized the first birth control association in the United

States in 1915, the National Birth Control League (NBCL), which sought

to change state Comstock laws. When she was unsuccessful in changing

state laws, she founded the Voluntary Parenthood League to change the

federal Comstock law. As she looked for a member of Congress to spon-

sor a bill to remove the phrase “prevention of pregnancy” from the Com-

stock law, Dennett found that some members of Congress were sympa-

thetic, but many were uncomfortable discussing the topic and others

feared that young people would engage in immoral behavior if they had

birth control information. In 1923, U.S. senator Albert B. Cummins of

Iowa agreed to introduce the provision, as did Congressman William N.

Vail of Colorado. Joint hearings were held in 1924, but the bill did not

progress, and Dennett resigned as the league’s lobbyist. She wrote Birth

Control Laws, a history of the Comstock laws and the congressional cam-

paign to change them.

Dennett, Mary Coffin Ware 195

Dennett had written an essay on human sexuality for adolescents ti-

tled “The Sex Side of Life: An Explanation for Young People,” that was

published in Medical Review of Reviews in 1918. By 1929, she had been fill-

ing orders for “The Sex Side of Life” by sending copies through the mail

for more than a decade, but that year she was charged with mailing ob-

scene material, convicted, and fined $300. The case became a cause

célèbre, with supporters protesting the charges, the conduct of the trial,

and her conviction. A defense committee formed to support an appeal,

which Dennett took to the U.S. Court of Appeals. The appeals court re-

versed the verdict in what became a landmark censorship case by making

context a factor in determining obscenity. The contraceptive clause in the

1873 Comstock law was not stricken until 1970.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Dennett graduated from the School

of Art and Design at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1894 and taught

at the Drexel Institute of Art from 1894 to 1897.

See also Griswold v. Connecticut; National American Woman Suffrage

Association; Sanger, Margaret Louise Higgins; Shaw, Anna Howard; Suffrage

References Chen, “The Sex Side of Life”: Mary Ware Dennett’s Pioneering Battle

for Birth Control and Sex Education (1996).

Dewson, Mary (Molly) Williams (1874–1962)

Democratic Party leader Molly Dewson worked with Eleanor Roosevelt to

expand women’s roles within the party and within President Franklin D.

Roosevelt’s administration. Regarded as the United States’ first female po-

litical boss, some of the campaign strategies she developed to attract

women to the Democratic Party were duplicated throughout the party’s

organization. As head of the Women’s Division of the Democratic Na-

tional Committee in the 1930s, Dewson had three goals: patronage for

women, equal representation for women on all party committees, and

providing women with a clear understanding of Roosevelt’s New Deal pro-

grams. When she retired in 1937, she had succeeded in having Roosevelt

appoint the first woman to a presidential cabinet post and in gaining equal

representation for women on all party committees in seventeen states.

Dewson began her career as a social reformer in the late 1890s. She

wrote Twentieth Century Expense Book (1899), an aid to women purchas-

ing household goods, was superintendent of the parole department for

the Massachusetts State Industrial School for Girls, and was executive sec-

retary of the National Consumers League (NCL). While at the NCL, Dew-

son conducted a statistical study of wage rates for women and girls and

reported her findings. The report became the basis for the passage in 1912

of the first minimum wage law in the United States. She also lobbied the

Massachusetts legislature for passage of an eight-hour workday for

196 Dewson, Mary (Molly) Williams

women and children and campaigned for woman suffrage. During World

War I, Dewson worked for the Red Cross in France, directing relocation

services for displaced refugees, and then returned to the NCL. Through

her social reform work, Dewson met Frances Perkins and Eleanor Roo-

sevelt and became close friends of both women.

At Roosevelt’s request, Dewson organized women to support Alfred

E. Smith’s 1928 presidential campaign. When Franklin D. Roosevelt won

his campaign for governor of New York that year, Dewson asked him to

support a minimum wage bill and to appoint Frances Perkins to the state’s

industrial commission, and he complied with both requests. In 1930,

Eleanor Roosevelt convinced Dewson to work at the New York state

women’s Democratic committee for Franklin Roosevelt’s reelection cam-

paign for governor. During that campaign, Dewson began distributing

rainbow fliers, one-page fact sheets on colored paper, an idea originated

by someone else but one that Dewson used extensively and effectively. In

Franklin Roosevelt’s 1932 presidential campaign, Dewson directed the

distribution of 6 million rainbow fliers.

By 1932, Dewson’s political acumen was generally recognized within

the party, but the party chairman did not support her or her work. At

Eleanor Roosevelt’s insistence, however, Dewson became head of the

Women’s Division of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Dew-

son developed a nationwide corps of women supporters for the party and

for Franklin Roosevelt’s presidential candidacy and established commit-

tees that addressed the concerns of interest groups, including African

Americans, educators, social workers, and writers. Using issues of concern

to these and other groups, she reached beyond the party structure and tra-

ditional party supporters to create new bases of loyalty.

After Franklin Roosevelt won, Dewson focused on obtaining federal

appointments for women to reward and motivate party workers.

Through her work, more women obtained jobs at the state and federal

levels than in any previous administration. Most notably, Dewson is cred-

ited with orchestrating Frances Perkins’s appointment as secretary of la-

bor, the first woman to hold a cabinet position. Some of the other women

whose appointments resulted from Dewson’s work include Mary McLeod

Bethune to the National Youth Administration and Nellie Tayloe Ross as

director of the U.S. Mint, in addition to the first woman on the U.S. Cir-

cuit Court of Appeals and the first woman to represent the United States

in a foreign country.

Within the party, Dewson worked for the passage of state laws and

party rulings that would require fifty-fifty representation of women in

party leadership positions and on all party committees. She initiated

training programs to increase women’s effectiveness as campaign workers,

Dewson, Mary (Molly) Williams 197

and she established a paid staff for the Women’s Division that worked be-

tween and throughout election years. Traditionally, the national parties

maintained only a skeleton staff between elections, but Dewson believed

that “elections are won between campaigns,” an expression she coined. She

developed strategies to keep voters informed and interested between elec-

tions, including her Reporter Plan, an educational approach to politics that

involved women at the county level. Women volunteered to be reporters,

chose a federal agency to research, and made presentations about it to civic

groups and local clubs, spreading the New Deal message at the grass roots.

By 1940, more than 30,000 women were involved in the program.

At the 1936 Democratic National Convention, Dewson obtained pas-

sage of two changes in party rules to expand women’s roles. One rule re-

quired states to appoint the same number of women as men to the plat-

form committee, which guaranteed women places on it. The other change

created the same number of female vice chairs as male vice chairs. During

the 1936 elections, Democratic women were among the best organized

and trained of any group within the party. More than 80 percent of the

printed material distributed by the DNC was prepared by women, and

more than 80,000 women went door-to-door, canvassing precincts across

the country and distributing 83 million rainbow fliers.

Dewson left the DNC in 1937, and President Roosevelt appointed her

to the Social Security Board. The board was mired in difficulties with Con-

gress and in its relationships with the states, which Dewson helped ease by

encouraging cooperation between federal and state officials and improv-

ing relations with Congress. She resigned from the board in 1938 because

of poor health. In the last months of the 1940 election campaign, Dewson

briefly returned to the Democratic National Committee. Twenty years

later, in 1960, she unsuccessfully ran for a seat in Maine’s state senate.

Born in Quincy, Massachusetts, Mary Dewson, generally known as

Molly, earned her bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College in 1897.

See also Anderson, Mary; Bethune, Mary Jane McLeod; Cabinets, Women in

Presidential; Democratic Party, Women in the; Perkins, Frances (Fanny) Corlie;

Roosevelt, Eleanor; Ross, Nellie Tayloe; Women’s Bureau

References Roosevelt and Hickok, Ladies of Courage (1954); Ware, Partner and I:

Molly Dewson, Feminism, and New Deal Politics (1987).

Diaz v. Pan American World Airways, Inc. (1971)

In Diaz v. Pan American World Airways, Inc., Celio Diaz, a man, challenged

Pan American’s policy of hiring only women as flight cabin attendants, ar-

guing that the policy constituted sex discrimination in violation of the

Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII. Pan American defended the policy by

explaining that being female was a bona fide occupational qualification

198 Diaz v. Pan American World Airways, Inc.

(BFOQ) for the job because passengers preferred to be served by female

flight attendants, and women could better meet passengers’ psychological

needs. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals explained that “allowing the

preferences and prejudices of the customers to determine whether the sex

discrimination was valid” undermined the purpose of Title VII. The

Court found that being female was not a BFOQ for the job of flight cabin

attendant and that Pan American’s policy violated Title VII.

See also Bona Fide Occupational Qualification; Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title

VII; Employment Discrimination

References Diaz v. Pan American World Airways, Inc., 442 F.2d 385 (1971).

Displaced Homemakers

A displaced homemaker is a woman whose principal job has been home-

making and who has lost her main source of income because of divorce,

separation, widowhood, disability, long-term unemployment of a spouse,

or loss of eligibility for public assistance. In the 1970s, as the divorce rate

escalated, increasing numbers of women found themselves unable to ob-

tain employment, some because they had never been employed in the paid

workforce and others because their skills had become outdated. Since

then, more than 1,300 programs have been established to offer training

and education, assistance in writing resumes, and classes that teach job in-

terview skills.

The idea for displaced homemaker programs originated with two

women who identified and named the problem. Tish Sommers, who had

been divorced after twenty-three years of marriage, and Laurie Shields, a

widow, were both in their fifties and part of a growing number of women

needing employment and support to help them make the transition into

the workforce. In 1974, using the slogan “Don’t agonize, organize,” they

worked with an attorney to draft the first displaced homemaker legislation.

Introduced in the California legislature in 1975, the bill passed, and the

first displaced homemaker center opened in Oakland, California, in 1976.

Sommers and Shields established the Alliance for Displaced Home-

makers to organize women at the grassroots level, to build coalitions, and

to attract media attention for their cause. In 1978, the first national dis-

placed homemakers conference established the Displaced Homemaker

Network to lobby for programs and funding. Congresswoman Yvonne

Brathwaite Burke (D-CA) passed a measure in 1978 making displaced

homemakers eligible for training and services under the Comprehensive

Education and Training Act. After Burke’s 1978 measure, a variety of ser-

vices and programs for displaced homemakers were established within

several federal agencies and departments. Congress passed the Displaced

Displaced Homemakers 199

Homemakers Self-Sufficiency Assistance Act of 1990 to coordinate the

many programs and to make them more accessible to displaced home-

makers. The measure also provided additional funding to displaced

homemaker programs at the state level through federal grants.

In 1993, the organization changed its name to Women Work! The

National Network for Women’s Employment in recognition of the range

of economic transitions women confront throughout their lives.

See also Burke, Perle Yvonne Watson Brathwaite; Divorce Law Reform; Women

Work! The National Network for Women’s Employment

References www.womenwork.org.

Divorce Law Reform

Divorce law reform began in 1970 when California passed the nation’s

first no-fault divorce law. Until then, married people wanting to end their

marriage had to engage in an adversarial process that required one of the

partners to accuse the other of committing an act that the state recognized

as an acceptable reason for divorce. Adultery was a reason recognized in

every state, and some states permitted divorces for mental or physical cru-

elty, desertion, refusal to have sexual relations, or imprisonment. In con-

trast, a no-fault divorce, also known as dissolution of marriage, could be

obtained when irreconcilable differences resulted in the breakdown of a

marriage, eliminating the need to assign fault to one of the partners. By

1985, every state had some form of no-fault divorce provision. Even

though divorce reform spread across the country as the modern feminist

movement developed, women did not seek the changes and had little in-

fluence in developing the new policies. The greater ease in obtaining di-

vorces resulted in an increase in them. In 1966, there were 2.5 divorces per

1,000 people, and in 1981, there were 5.3 divorces per 1,000 people. The

rate declined to about 4.7 in the mid-1980s, where it has remained.

See also Child Support Enforcement; Displaced Homemakers; Feminization of

Poverty; Pay Equity

References Riley, Divorce: An American Tradition (1991); www.cdc.gov.

Dix, Dorothea Lynde (1802–1887)

The first woman lobbyist to gain political influence at the state and na-

tional levels, Dorothea Dix sought improved care for homeless people and

mentally ill people in the 1840s and 1850s, when little sympathy existed

for them and when women had little political influence. Her reform career

began in 1841, when she inspected almshouses and other Massachusetts

institutions and wrote a report on the conditions in them. Published as a

memorial to the state legislature, the report described the human suffer-

200 Divorce Law Reform

ing and the horrors she had witnessed and

included factual information to support

her observations. She argued that mentally

ill persons should not be imprisoned and

that they needed to be placed in asylums

that would provide responsible care for

them, noting that the state’s asylum facili-

ties were inadequate for the number of

people needing space in them. After pre-

senting her report, Dix successfully lob-

bied legislators, who passed the measures

she sought.

She also conducted research, pub-

lished reports, and lobbied in New York,

Vermont, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Penn-

sylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Maryland, Vir-

ginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama.

She achieved varying degrees of success in

different states and developed a range of

strategies. In Rhode Island, for example, she convinced a wealthy man to

make a large donation toward building an asylum.

By 1848, Dix had concluded that a federal policy was needed and be-

gan lobbying Congress. In 1850, she found a sympathetic ally in President

Millard Fillmore and through her lobbying efforts, became close to him.

In 1852 she won approval for an appropriation of $100,000 for an asylum

in Washington, D.C., and in 1854 Congress approved a federal program to

fund mental health care, but President Franklin Pierce vetoed it. In the late

1850s, Dix took her campaign for mentally ill persons to England and

Scotland.

During the Civil War, she served as superintendent of nurses in the

Union Army, recruiting and training 6,000 nurses to serve with the troops.

Born in Hampden, Maine, Dix was largely self-educated. She taught

school, started her own schools when she needed money to support her-

self, and developed her skills as a writer, publishing a novel and devotional

books.

References Gollaher, Voice for the Mad: The Life of Dorothea Dix (1995).

Doe v. Bolton (1973)

Decided with Roe v. Wade, Doe v. Bolton addressed Georgia’s abortion law.

The U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the state’s requirements that abor-

tions must be performed in accredited hospitals, that three physicians

Doe v. Bolton 201

Dorothea Dix lobbied

state and national

legislatures on behalf

of homeless and

mentally ill people

and won major

reforms in the

conditions of their

treatment (Library

of Congress)

must approve a woman’s request for an abortion, and that a woman seek-

ing an abortion in Georgia must be a resident of the state.

See also Abortion; Roe v. Wade

References Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 (1973).

Dole, (Mary) Elizabeth Hanford (b. 1936)

Secretary of transportation in the Reagan administration from 1983 to

1987, Elizabeth Dole was also secretary of labor in the Bush administra-

tion from 1989 to 1991. Dole’s public service careers began in 1966, in the

Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. She also worked as asso-

ciate director of legislative affairs for President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Com-

mittee on Consumer Interests and the White House Office of Consumer

Affairs. In 1973, President Richard Nixon appointed her to a seven-year

term on the Federal Trade Commission.

Elizabeth Dole married U.S. senator Robert Dole of Kansas in 1975

and changed her party affiliation from Democrat to Republican. When

Robert Dole began campaigning for the vice presidential slot on the Re-

publican ticket in 1976, Elizabeth Dole took a leave of absence to cam-

paign for her husband. During that campaign, she first discovered that she

had great appeal to voters. After the Ford-Dole ticket lost to Jimmy Carter,

Elizabeth returned to her post on the Federal Trade Commission. After

serving five and one-half years of the seven-year term, she resigned in

1979 to work on her husband’s 1980 campaign for the presidency.

When President Ronald Reagan entered the White House in 1981,

Elizabeth Dole became assistant to the president for public liaison, build-

ing support for the president’s programs. Two years later, Reagan ap-

pointed her secretary of transportation. Dole made safety her priority and

worked with car manufacturers to make improvements, such as requiring

a third brake light in autos. Other safety initiatives included increasing

seat belt use, raising the legal drinking age to twenty-one, and imple-

menting the first drug-testing procedure in railroad history. She resigned

the position in 1987 to work on her husband’s 1988 presidential cam-

paign. When Robert Dole decided against pursuing the Republican nom-

ination, Elizabeth Dole campaigned for George Bush.

Secretary of labor for President George Bush, Dole negotiated an in-

crease in the minimum wage, improved enforcement of job safety laws

and child labor laws, placed more women and minorities in management

positions at the Department of Labor, and encouraged private companies

to do the same. Dole developed guidelines for school programs to prepare

high school graduates for employment and sponsored the first national

conference on youth entering the job market out of high school. She re-

202 Dole, (Mary) Elizabeth Hanford

ceived accolades for her role in finding resolutions to a coal miners’ strike

in the Appalachians. She resigned to accept the presidency of the Ameri-

can Red Cross in 1991.

During her tenure at the American Red Cross, she was credited with

developing successful fund-raising strategies, cutting costs, instituting

more stringent blood-screening tests, and responding to natural disasters.

She visited the Persian Gulf after the Gulf War, the famine-stricken coun-

tries of Somalia and Mozambique, and Croatia. She led a 1994 humani-

tarian relief delegation to Rwandan refugee camps in Goma, Zaire. In

1996, Elizabeth Dole took a leave of absence to work on her husband’s un-

successful presidential campaign, returning to the American Red Cross in

1997. Early in 1999, she resigned from the American Red Cross to prepare

for her own bid for the presidency of the United States.

Born in Salisbury, North Carolina, Elizabeth Dole earned her bache-

lor’s degree in political science from Duke University in 1958, studied at

Oxford University, and earned her master’s degree in 1960 and her law de-

gree in 1965 from Harvard University.

See also Cabinets, Women in Presidential

Dole, (Mary) Elizabeth Hanford 203

Elizabeth Hanford

Dole talked to sup-

porters at a fund-

raising luncheon,

1999 (Associated

Press AP)

References Congressional Quarterly, Cabinets and Counselors: The President and

the Executive Branch (1997); Dole and Dole, Unlimited Partners: Our American

Story (1996); H. W. Wilson, Current Biography Yearbook, 1983 (1983).

Domestic Violence

Domestic violence is the serious or repeated injury caused by a person

who has family ties or a sexual relationship with the victim. The offenders

threaten or use physical or sexual assault to dominate, hurt, and degrade

the victim in an effort to control the victim. Women constitute 95 percent

of the victims of domestic violence, and often in those situations where

men are victims, it is the result of women attempting to defend them-

selves. It is estimated that 3–4 million American women are battered each

year by their husbands or partners, with more than 1 million women seek-

ing medical attention from the resulting injuries. One study noted: “A

woman is more likely to be assaulted, injured, raped, or killed by a male

partner than any other assailant.”

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the number of women

and men injured or killed as a result of domestic violence is not known;

however, studies suggest in broad terms the extent of the problem. Be-

tween 1 million and 3 million suffer nonfatal violence by an intimate every

year. Nearly one in three adult women experiences at least one physical as-

sault by a partner during adulthood. Twenty-eight percent of all annual

violence against women is perpetrated by intimates while 5 percent of all

annual violence against men is perpetrated by intimates. Seventy percent

of intimate homicide victims are female and 88 percent of victims of do-

mestic violence fatalities had a documented history of physical abuse.

Domestic violence also involves children. An estimated 3.3 million

children are exposed to violence by family members against their mothers

or female caretakers, and in families where there is partner abuse, children

are 1,500 times more likely to be abused than in families without violence

between the partners. Between 40 and 60 percent of the men who abuse

women also abuse children.

Laws related to domestic violence have their roots in English com-

mon law, which tolerated abusive husbands. English jurist Sir William

Blackstone wrote in the 1760s that a husband could beat his wife with a

rod no thicker than his thumb. Although the Massachusetts Bay and Ply-

mouth colonies both passed laws against wife beating, in 1824 a Missis-

sippi court permitted “moderate chastisement for domestic discipline,”

and in 1852 and 1874, North Carolina courts permitted husbands to in-

flict certain punishments on their wives, including blackened eyes,

bruises, and cuts, but no permanent injuries.

As the modern feminist movement developed in the 1960s and 1970s

204 Domestic Violence