Schenken Suzanne O’Dea. From Suffrage to the Senate: An Encyclopedia of American Women in Politics (2 Volumes)

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Edwards, India Moffett (1895–1990)

India Edwards served as executive director of the Women’s Division of the

Democratic National Committee (DNC) from 1948 to 1952 and then

served as a vice chair of the party. One of the few politicians who believed

that President Harry Truman would win in 1948, Edwards became part of

his political inner circle.

A Chicago Tribune writer and editor for more than twenty years, Ed-

wards left the paper in 1942 and moved to Washington, D.C., with her

husband. After learning that her son, an Army Air Force flier, had been a

passenger on a bomber that exploded in late 1943, Edwards became in-

volved in the war effort, but it was a comment made by Clare Boothe Luce

at the 1944 Republican National Convention that moved Edwards into

political activism. Luce suggested that if the United States’ dead soldiers

could vote, they would vote against President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Out-

raged that Luce would presume to speak for her son, Edwards volunteered

at the DNC in 1944 and wrote speeches for the party and for candidates.

She joined the DNC staff as executive secretary of the Women’s Division

in 1945.

When President Harry Truman campaigned on his whistle-stop tour

in 1948, Edwards traveled with him, the first woman to travel with a pres-

idential campaign who was not a secretary or a relative of the candidate.

She encouraged other women to join the tour as it passed through their ar-

eas, an innovation that recognized women’s contributions to the campaign

and enhanced women’s support for Truman, as did her strategy of focus-

ing attention on inflation and blaming it on Republicans in Congress.

After Truman’s election in 1948, Edwards brought potential women

appointees to Truman’s attention. Through an informal network of

women across the nation, Edwards learned of qualified women, keeping

files on them and their abilities. Through a comparable network of women

in government, Washington hostesses, reporters, secretaries, and friends,

she learned of potential job openings. By the time a position opened, Ed-

wards often had identified a woman candidate for it, gained the approval

of one of the woman’s U.S. senators, and prepared to propose her candi-

dacy to Truman. Edwards’s influence contributed to the appointment of

the first woman ambassador (Eugenie Moore Anderson to Denmark), five

women federal judges, Georgia Neese Clark as treasurer of the United

States, Perle Mesta as minister to Luxembourg, and Frieda Hennock to the

Federal Communications Commission, more women than any other pres-

ident had appointed to top positions in the federal government. Edwards’s

self-appointed tasks included following the appointment process through

Senate confirmation. When the Senate delayed Hennock’s confirmation,

Edwards, India Moffett 225

Edwards canceled a planned vacation and began making deals with sena-

tors. The Senate confirmed Hennock’s appointment. Truman asked Ed-

wards to become DNC chair in 1951, but she declined, feeling that the party

was not ready for a woman chairman. She later regretted the decision.

In 1952, the party chose a new chairman who announced that the

Women’s Division would be integrated into the regular party, in what

some observers regarded as an attempt to deny Edwards her base of influ-

ence. Edwards persevered until October 1953, when the chairman an-

nounced her resignation and her replacement.

Edwards’s first political experience was marching with her mother in

a suffrage parade when she was still a young child in Chicago.

See also Anderson, Eugenie Moore; Clark Gray, Georgia Neese; Democratic

Party, Women in the; Luce, Clare Boothe

References Edwards, Pulling No Punches (1977); H. W. Wilson, Current

Biography: Who’s News and Why, 1949 (1949); Morgan, “India Edwards”

(1984).

Eisenhuth Alming, Laura J. Kelly (1858–1937)

The first American woman elected to a statewide office, Laura Eisenhuth

served as North Dakota’s superintendent of public instruction from 1893

to 1895. Although she was born in Canada, Eisenhuth’s family moved to

Iowa in 1860. Eisenhuth obtained her education in Iowa and taught in

that state’s schools for eleven years. She moved to North Dakota in 1887

and in 1889 was elected Foster county superintendent of schools.

Eisenhuth received the Democratic Party’s nomination for state su-

perintendent of schools in 1890, but lost in the general election. Nomi-

nated again in 1892 by both the Democratic Party and the Independent

Party, she won the general election. During her two-year term in office,

Eisenhuth sought to professionalize teacher education, recommended

that schools in towns with water systems install bath tubs, and advocated

improvements in school buildings and grounds, including fencing of

school grounds. Nominated by the Democratic and Populist parties in

1894, Eisenhuth lost in the general election to another woman, Emma

Bates.

Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972)

In Eisenstadt v. Baird, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a Massachusetts

law that prohibited the distribution of contraceptive drugs, medicines, or

devices to unmarried people. The Court said that by treating married and

unmarried people differently, the law violated the equal protection clause

of the Fourteenth Amendment.

226 Eisenhuth Alming, Laura J. Kelly

See also Carey v. Population Services International; Griswold v. Connecticut

References Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972).

Elders, Joycelyn (b. 1933)

Joycelyn Elders served as U.S. surgeon general from 1993 to 1994, the sec-

ond woman and the first African American to hold the office. From the

time of her nomination, controversy surrounded Elders’s appointment.

Conservatives objected to her emphasis on sex education, contraception,

and abortion and called her the condom queen, but the Senate confirmed

her appointment. During her tenure in office, Elders sought to move the

nation from sick care to health care by working toward a preventive health

care system. She worked to reduce tobacco use and to eliminate drug and

alcohol abuse, advocated legalizing the abortifacient RU-486, and re-

newed efforts to stop the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)

epidemic. Pointing to the 135,000 children who take guns to school, El-

ders worked for gun control. In addition, she advocated sex education and

attempted to reduce teen pregnancy.

Her tenure as surgeon general was marked by two controversial com-

ments that she made in response to questions posed to her. Her sugges-

tion that the legalization of drugs might reduce crime and deserved study

provoked intense criticism of her. On another occasion, she told a profes-

sional conference that the facts about masturbation could be taught in

classes on human sexuality. After the press reported her comments, Pres-

ident Bill Clinton asked for and received her resignation.

Born in Schaal, Arkansas, Elders was given the name Minnie Lee

Jones at birth and changed it as an adult. She grew up in a poor family that

lived on a farm without running water or electricity. Medical treatment

for illnesses and injuries involved herbal and folk remedies, and there was

no hospital in the area that treated African Americans, nor was there a

doctor who would care for them.

Elders graduated from high school when she was fifteen, received a

scholarship to attend Philander Smith College, and earned her bachelor of

science degree there in 1952. She enlisted in the Army in 1953, viewing the

military’s educational benefits as a way to pay for medical training, and

served until 1956 when she entered medical school. She earned her med-

ical degree from the University of Arkansas School of Medicine in 1960,

her master’s degree in biochemistry in 1967, and board certification as a

pediatric endocrinologist in 1978.

In 1987, then-Governor Bill Clinton appointed Elders chief health

director for Arkansas, making her the first woman and the first African

American to hold the office. She increased the immunization rate for chil-

dren, expanded pregnant women’s participation in the state’s prenatal

Elders, Joycelyn 227

care program, and thereby reduced the infant mortality rate. In addition,

she increased the availability of testing for human immunodeficiency

virus (HIV), expanded breast cancer screenings, and provided more home

care for frail or terminally ill patients.

As state health director, Elders gained an expanded awareness of the

problems of teen pregnancy. She explained that she “saw the massive suf-

fering of so many bright young black women because of having un-

planned and unwanted pregnancies. And I began to realize how much

they had been exploited, not only by the religious right but also by their

own kind with this talk of contraception and genocide.” She cast it in

terms of slavery: “If you’re poor and ignorant, with a child you’re a slave.

Meaning that you’re never going to get out of it. These women are in a

kind of bondage to a kind of slavery that the 13th Amendment just didn’t

deal with.” She viewed sex education as a way to help reduce sexually

transmitted diseases, domestic violence, and sexual abuse. Elders made

teenage contraception use a central theme in the health department and

advocated school-based health clinics and comprehensive health educa-

tion. Her proposals regularly created controversies.

She wrote her memoir, Joycelyn Elders, M.D.: From Sharecropper’s

Daughter to Surgeon General of the United States of America (1996), after

leaving the office of the surgeon general.

See also Abortion

References Elders, Joycelyn Elders, M.D.: From Sharecropper’s Daughter to

Surgeon General of the United States of America (1996); H. W. Wilson, Current

Biography Yearbook, 1994 (1994); New York Times, 30 January 1994, 6 June

1996, 24 October 1996.

Emerson, Jo Ann (b. 1950)

Republican Jo Ann Emerson of Missouri entered the U.S. House of Rep-

resentatives on 5 November 1996. Emerson won the special election to fill

the vacancy created by the death of her husband as well as a full term in

Congress. She campaigned as “Team Emerson,” pledging to continue her

husband’s fight to improve Missouri’s highways and to support constitu-

tional amendments to make flag burning illegal, permit voluntary prayer

in public schools, impose term limits, and require a two-thirds majority

of both chambers of Congress to raise taxes. She favors balancing the

budget, saving Medicare from bankruptcy, expanding health care reforms,

and expanding U.S. exports. She is prolife and supports gun owners’

rights, private property owners’ rights, tax relief, local control of schools,

and voluntary school prayer.

Born in Washington, D.C., Emerson grew up in a political family in

the capital area. Her father Ab Herman was executive director of the Re-

228 Emerson, Jo Ann

publican National Committee and held ad-

visory positions within the party. Emerson

received her bachelor’s degree from Ohio

Wesleyan University in 1972. Deputy direc-

tor of communications for the National Re-

publican Congressional Committee, she

later worked in public affairs for the Ameri-

can Insurance Association and was director

of state relations and grassroots programs

for the National Restaurant Association.

References Congressional Quarterly, Politics

in America 1998 (1997);

www.house.gov/emerson/bio.htm.

EMILY’s List

Founded in 1985 by Ellen Malcolm, EMILY’S List is a political action

committee (PAC) that works to elect prochoice Democratic women to

congressional and gubernatorial office. EMILY’s List has helped dozens of

women win races for governor, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the

U.S. Senate. EMILY’s List identifies and recommends viable, prochoice

Democratic women candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, U.S.

Senate, and for governor, and sends profiles of selected candidates to

members. Members of EMILY’s List pay $100 to belong, and they agree to

contribute at least $100 or more to at least two candidates. EMILY’s List re-

cruits candidates, provides campaign staff training and referral, offers can-

didates technical assistance, and mobilizes women voters on election day.

EMILY’s List had its first success when Democratic congresswoman

Barbara Mikulski of Maryland won her U.S. Senate race in 1986. Between

the 1986 and 1998 general elections, the group was instrumental in helping

three women win their races for governor, forty-nine women win their

races for the U.S. House of Representatives, and six women win their races

for the U.S. Senate. During the 1985–1986 election cycle, the first in which

EMILY’s List was involved, the group had about 1,200 members and raised

more than $350,000. During the 1995–1996 election cycle, 45,000 members

contributed $6.7 million to candidates, $2 million for campaign support,

and $3 million to WOMEN VOTE!, the group’s get-out-the-vote campaign.

Congresswoman Lynn Rivers of Michigan explained the assistance

she received: “EMILY’s List helped me make the choices, hire the staff and

raise the funds I needed to build—from scratch—an outstanding cam-

paign able to win an incredibly tough election in 1994, an incredibly

tough year for Democrats.” Congresswoman Eva Clayton of North Car-

olina agreed that the assistance she received was invaluable: “As a woman

EMILY’s List 229

Representative Jo Ann

Emerson (R-MO)

attended a hearing on

the “Man and the

Biosphere Project” in

Rolla, Missouri, 1999

(Associated Press AP)

running in a rural minority district, I knew few of the experts and donors

across the country whose support I needed to win. EMILY’s List put me in

touch with them, and I was off and running.”

See also Abortion; Clayton, Eva McPherson; Malcolm, Ellen Reighley; Rivers,

Lynn Nancy

References www.emilyslist.org.

Employment Discrimination

Sex discrimination in employment was legal in the United States until pas-

sage of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Employers could lawfully re-

fuse to consider hiring a woman for a position, and if she was hired, her em-

ployer could provide her different benefits than a man in the same position.

Employers could refuse to offer training, advancement, or partnership to the

women they employed. Employers could also legally refuse to consider men

for employment. Passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963 made it illegal to pay

different wages to women and men performing the same jobs, but employ-

ers could assign women to different job titles and pay them less than men.

The U.S. Supreme Court found sex discrimination in employment

constitutional when it decided Bradwell v. Illinois in 1873. The case re-

sulted from the Illinois Supreme Court’s refusal to admit Myra Bradwell

to the bar even though she had fulfilled every requirement to practice law.

The U.S. Supreme Court said that states could prohibit women from be-

ing admitted to the bar, a precedent that also permitted state regulation of

women’s participation in other occupations. In 1908, the U.S. Supreme

Court again found sex discrimination in employment and in state policies

constitutional in Muller v. Oregon, a case challenging the constitutionality

of an Oregon law that limited the number of hours women could work in

factories, mechanical establishments, and laundries to ten hours a day.

The decision made legal sex discrimination the law of the land. In a third

decision, the U.S. Supreme Court found that a state law prohibiting

women from being bartenders, unless the women were the wives or

daughters of a bar owner, was constitutional in Goesaert v. Cleary (1948).

With the passage of Title VII and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, equal

employment opportunity became the policy of the nation. Congress cre-

ated the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to en-

force the policy by responding to complaints filed by aggrieved employ-

ees. The EEOC initially resisted responding to sex discrimination

complaints, choosing to focus its efforts on race discrimination, but it de-

veloped into a significant resource for women. It interpreted the meaning

of Title VII, providing a framework for negotiating settlements between

employers and employees and for court challenges to the law.

230 Employment Discrimination

Title VII included an exemption for sex discrimination, the bona fide

occupational qualification (BFOQ). It was intended to permit rational

forms of sex discrimination such as might apply to models or actors, and

the EEOC concluded that it should be narrowly interpreted. Courts re-

jected limits on the amount of weight employees could lift, an airline’s ar-

gument that only women could be flight cabin attendants, and other

broad interpretations of the BFOQ. The U.S. Supreme Court considered

the BFOQ for the first time in Dothard v. Rawlinson (1977) and concluded

that being male was a BFOQ to be a guard in the male section of a maxi-

mum security prison because of safety. It also considered disparate impact

in Dothard, finding that minimum height and weight requirements vio-

lated Title VII.

The U.S. Supreme Court considered its first gender discrimination

case under Title VII in Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corporation (1971),

finding that Martin Marietta’s willingness to hire fathers of preschool-age

children and its refusal to hire mothers of preschool-age children consti-

tuted sex discrimination. Another aspect of parenthood, pregnancy, has

resulted in several decisions and congressional action. In Geduldig v. Aiello

(1974), General Electric v. Gilbert (1975), and Nashville Gas Co. v. Satty

(1977), the Court decided that employee disability plans did not have to

include pregnancy. Congress responded by passing the Pregnancy Dis-

crimination Act of 1978, expanding the definition of sex discrimination to

protect pregnant workers. When a California employer challenged a state

law requiring unpaid leave for pregnant workers, the Court upheld the law

in Guerra v. California Federal Savings and Loan Association, decided in

1987. Congress established unpaid leave for pregnancy, adoption, and

family illness for both men and women in the Family and Medical Leave

Act of 1993. The U.S. Supreme Court decided in UAW v. Johnson Controls

(1991) that employers cannot bar all fertile women from workplaces

where they might be exposed to toxic substances, saying that employers

must make workplaces safe for all workers.

One of the most persistent and vexing employment challenges has

been overcoming obstacles to women earning living wages. Women tend

to cluster in certain occupations—clerical, teaching, service, and nursing

among them—that generally pay less than occupations dominated by

men. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 addressed the issue of equal pay for equal

work, but it did not alter the relative undercompensation for jobs domi-

nated by women when compared to jobs dominated by men. Comparable

worth emerged as a strategy for evaluating jobs and establishing a pay rate

based on objective criteria instead of tradition, social prejudices, and gen-

der influences. The U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled on comparable

worth, but in County of Washington, Oregon v. Gunther (1981), it found

Employment Discrimination 231

that an employer who had performed a comparable worth evaluation of

jobs, found that jobs dominated by women were underpaid, and did not

make adjustments, had violated Title VII.

An employer’s consideration of gender when evaluating an employee

for promotion led to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Price Water-

house v. Hopkins (1989). The Court decided that if an employer would

have reached the same conclusion without considering sex, then consid-

ering sex did not violate Title VII. Congress overturned the decision in the

Civil Rights Act of 1991 by prohibiting the consideration of race, color, re-

ligion, sex, or national origin in employment decisions, even if the deci-

sion would have been the same without the consideration of those factors.

The Civil Rights Act of 1991 also established the Glass Ceiling Commis-

sion to investigate “artificial barriers based on attitudinal or organiza-

tional biases that prevent qualified women and minorities from advanc-

ing upward into management-level positions.”

Sexually offensive behavior by supervisors and coworkers received

the U.S. Supreme Court’s attention in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson

(1986), the first sexual harassment case the Court considered. A female

employee said that she had performed sexual acts for her supervisor be-

cause she believed it was the only way to keep her job. The Court found

this form of sexual harassment, quid pro quo, to be in violation of Title

VII. In Harris v. Forklift Systems (1993), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that

employees do not need to show that the offensive sexual behavior left

them psychologically damaged or unable to perform their jobs, creating

the second form of sexual harassment, hostile environment.

See also Bona Fide Occupational Qualification; Bradwell v. Illinois; California

Federal Savings and Loan v. Guerra; Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII; County

of Washington, Oregon v. Gunther; Diaz v. Pan American World Airways, Inc.;

Dothard v. Rawlinson; Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; Family

and Medical Leave Act of 1993; Geduldig v. Aiello; General Electric v. Gilbert;

Glass Ceiling Commission; Goesaert v. Cleary; Harris v. Forklift Systems; Hishon

v. King and Spalding; Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson; Muller v. Oregon;

Nashville Gas Co. v. Satty; Pay Equity; Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corporation;

Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978; Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins; Sexual

Harassment; UAW v. Johnson Controls

References Carleton, “Women in the Workplace and Sex Discrimination Law:

A Feminist Analysis of Federal Jurisprudence” (1993); Congressional Quarterly

Almanac, 102nd Congress, 1st Session...1991 (1992); Hoff-Wilson, “The

Unfinished Revolution: Changing Legal Status of U.S. Women” (1987).

English, Karan (b. 1949)

Democrat Karan English of Arizona served in the U.S. House of Repre-

sentatives from 3 January 1993 to 3 January 1995. English decided to run

232 English, Karan

for Congress after watching the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s hear-

ings on Anita Hill’s allegations that Supreme Court nominee Clarence

Thomas had sexually harassed her. The events surrounding the hearings

led her to believe that Congress needed more women members. Women’s

organizations and environmental groups supported her candidacy, and

former Republican senator Barry Goldwater endorsed her. Congress-

woman English supported the presidential line item veto and improved

management of natural resources. English lost her bid for a second term

in 1994.

Concern about local environmental issues led English into politics,

beginning with her election to the Coconino County Board of Supervi-

sors, where she served from 1981 to 1987. That year, she entered the Ari-

zona House of Representatives and served until 1991. Elected to the state

Senate in 1990, English chaired the chamber’s Environment Committee

her freshman year and passed measures establishing regulations for han-

dling hazardous waste and requiring environmental education in elemen-

tary and high schools.

Born in Berkeley, California, Karan English earned her bachelor’s de-

gree from the University of Arizona in 1973.

See also Congress, Women in; Hill, Anita Faye; State Legislatures, Women in

References Congressional Quarterly, Politics in America 1994 (1993).

Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974

The Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 bans credit discrimination on

the bases of sex and marital status. Until passage of the act, women en-

countered significant barriers to obtaining credit, even when they were

the primary wage earners in their families. In the case of divorce or death

of the husband, the wife generally lacked a credit history of her own be-

cause a married woman’s accounts were almost always in her husband’s

name. For example, Congresswoman Lindy Boggs (D-LA), a wealthy

woman in her own right, encountered sex discrimination when she at-

tempted to obtain a credit card in her own name following the death of

her husband.

After the Equal Credit Opportunity Act was introduced, women’s

rights groups, including the National Organization for Women, the

Women’s Equity Action League, the National Women’s Political Caucus,

and the Center for Women Policy Studies publicized the issue and mobi-

lized other women’s groups that had worked together to pass the Equal

Rights Amendment. The organizations encouraged women to write to their

members of Congress and describe their attempts to obtain credit in their

own names as single women or after being married, widowed, or divorced.

Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 233

In 1976, the act was amended to cover credit discrimination due to

age, race, color, religion, national origin, and receipt of public assistance;

in 1988 it was expanded to include commercial credit.

See also Boggs, Marie Corinne Morrison Claiborne (Lindy); Equal Rights

Amendment; National Organization for Women; National Women’s Political

Caucus; Women’s Equity Action League

References Costain, “Lobbying for Equal Credit” (1979).

Equal Division Rule

See Democratic Party, Women in the

Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972

The Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 (EEOA) strengthened

the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) enforcement

powers and expanded coverage of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

to include more categories of employers. Under the provisions of the Civil

Rights Act of 1964, the EEOC could investigate employment discrimina-

tion and could negotiate with employers to remedy the problem but had

little enforcement authority. The EEOA established an independent gen-

eral counsel for the EEOC and gave it the power to file charges of job bias

against an employer. The act also extended coverage of Title VII to em-

ployers that had been previously exempted, including smaller businesses,

smaller unions, state and local governments, and colleges and schools.

See also Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII; Equal Employment Opportunity

Commission

References Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 92nd Congress, 2nd Session . . .

1972 (1973).

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Created by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Employ-

ment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is charged with enforcing federal

laws prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of race, color,

religion, sex, or national origin. In the years since the EEOC was created,

Congress has added enforcement of other measures to its responsibilities,

including the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, the Equal

Pay Act of 1963, Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and

the Civil Rights Act of 1991.

The commission initially focused its attention on race discrimina-

tion as it affected men and disregarded its mandate to address employ-

ment discrimination on the basis of sex. The commission’s first director

234 Equal Division Rule