Senator Cook. I hope you don't mind if I don't ask any questions? Mrs. HALES. Not at all.

Senator Cook. We would like to wind up today.

I want to say I am delighted to have you here from North Carolina. I am delighted to have the recognition of your own organization in North Carolina purely and simply because unlike my colleague, we do disagree, as you well know, on this. I think we are miles apart.

I think it is nice to know that representation from North Carolina is here; that at least substantiates my position.

Last week, in relation to Kentucky law that was supposed to be so protective, he almost made me feel like I had almost subverted myself to the nonpolitical field of being against motherhood, and it is nice and reassuring to have you here and express the views that you did.

I want to thank both of you. I really didn't mean that to be funny. But it was kind of tough going last week.

Mrs. FORBES. We are all well aware of his filibustering techniques, his techniques of being able to make you feel that if you don't agree with him you are against motherhood, apple pie, the Bible, and things

like that.

Senator Cook. Well, he is a remarkable man, I have to say that and I have a great deal of admiration for him.

Mrs. FORBES. We have had admiration for both of our Senators and this is something that affects us directly and this is why we felt we had to come and testify in favor of our rights.

Senator Cook. Well, I am delighted that you put it that way, really and truly, because I must say to you in all fairness as a lawyer, as a former jurist, he honestly believes this and there are many who somehow or other do not believe this. I believe he believes it as a principle of law and that is why I think lawyers disagree quite frequently. I do not take the position that he takes, but I do respect him for the position that he takes, even though I am going to try my darndest to beat him.

Thank you very much.

Our next witness is Mrs. Jean Faust.

It has been a long day. You have been in several chairs and I have been in the same one.

STATEMENT OF JEAN FAUST, ASSISTANT ON WOMEN RIGHTS TO CONGRESSMAN WILLIAM F. RYAN

Mrs. FAUST. My name is Jean Faust and I am Assistant on Women's Rights to Congressman William F. Ryan of New York.

Senator Cook. What part of New York?

Mrs. FAUST. The 20th District, the upper west side of Manhattan. I grew up in the great State of North Carolina but had to leave it because there was no opportunity there for me. When I was growing up in North Carolina I lived on a farm. I worked side by side with men. I never learned in those years that men could do more work than I. I worked from sunup to sunset and often a little bit later during the tobacco season, and no one ever told me because I was a girl Ï should go home early. In fact, I had to go home and cook dinner while the men were resting.

I also played baseball with boys in grammar school and I played better than every single one of them. There was only one boy who played as well and he and I ran the whole thing.

I have done many types of work in my life. I worked my way through college as a waitress and I have sisters who work. In fact, I have two sisters who support their husbands and families, and those two sisters need the real support that equal protection under the law would provide, rather than the fraudulent support that some of the laws now provide. I believe their husbands are entitled to support and I believe my own husband is entitled to support if that should become

necessary.

The year 1969 will be remembered in history as the year mankind reached the moon, an unprecedented leap in the technological achievements of man.

Unfortunately, the pace of progress in human relations has been much slower. Minority groups, students, and women have been calling for change, but are rapidly losing belief in the ability of the system to accommodate different viewpoints and affect change in keeping with the legitimate demands of the people.

In no other area has change been so slow to come as that of the status of women. No other group has been so loyal to the stability of society, so patient in waiting for change. That loyalty and patience have patience have become severely strained and are likely to explode in the face of reactionary forces which cling to tradition and outmoded custom long after the actual behavior of American women has demonstrated conclusively that these traditions and customs are no longer valid.

The first organized meeting of women to demand equality of rights in the United States was held at Seneca Falls, N.Y., in 1848—122 years ago. It was organized by Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other pioneers in the Women's Movement, both men and women.

But it was not until 72 years later, in 1920, that the principal demand of the movement, the right of women to vote, was won through passage of the Nineteenth Amendment (50 years after the Fifteenth Amendment had given the vote to former slaves-males only).

The country which has the proudest history of protecting human rights also bears the shame of having sustained a system of slavery for many years. It was while fighting for the abolition of this wrong that American women began thinking of their own oppressed status and started a movement to fight for their own rights.

It took 72 years to get the vote for women; then a broader protection-prevention of discrimination under law on the basis of sexwas sought by the introduction of the Equal Rights Amendment by Senator Charles Curtis, of Kansas, in 1923. An identical resolution was introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative Daniel Anthony (nephew of Susan B. Anthony), also of Kansas. Thus began the long struggle of women to determine that: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex." This simple text has inspired in opponents an amazing torrent of fear, suspicion and hostility. They have predicted the most frightful consequences of enacting equality of treatment under the law for the 51 percent of our population which happens to be female.

They declare that the amendment is unnecessary, thus completely disregarding the facts of the history of the movement. In the many cases which women have brought in their struggle for equal treatment, the Supreme Court has never once ruled that the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendments apply to women; in fact, on the contrary, that august body has actually ruled a number of times that these amendments do not apply to women because a woman is not a person in the context of the constitution. These gentlemen knew very well that the men who wrote the constitution deliberately and intentionally excluded women (along with slaves, Indians, criminals, mental defectives, indentured servants and other unrepresented groups). Thus, it is cynical and misleading to the uninformed, for opponents of the Equal Rights Amendment to claim the amendment is not needed.

The civil rights movement has won recognition for the rights of some oppressed groups in the United States; but the rights of women are only now being discussed; discrimination because of sex is only in the process of being defined. The women's movement is still being ridiculed. Newspapers, magazines, and TV programs are rife with cartoons, articles, commentary and comedy skits that deride women in general and the feminist movement in particular. A number of comedians have long made careers based on jokes denigrating women. American novelists have for years made savage attacks on women as mothers. Movies depict women as sex objects, having no more relevance to plot than the furniture.

Opponents of the bill claim that such prejudice cannot be changed by law; yet we have certainly seen that laws, and especially enforcement of civil rights laws, have at least begun to stimulate progress towards racial justice.

Only the politically cynical, who believe that the public is politically naive, would claim that a national law would have no effect on attitudes and customs. Our laws against murder and other crimes have not stopped crime, but they have created a public attitude unfavorable to such behavior. Applying equal protection of the constitution to women would be an undeniable statement of national purpose, would notify the prejudiced and the unaware alike that the United States has gone on record against discrimination because of sex.

One critic recently referred to the Equal Rights amendment as the "so-called equal sexual rights amendment," thereby exhibiting lack of knowledge of the language and purpose of the amendment, which would protect both men and women and would cover rights under the law, not "sexual rights" (whatever they may be).

As a matter of fact, some of the decisions under the Civil Rights Act have already benefitted men-such as the recent decisions of U.S. District Court Judge Wortendyke that Public Service Electric and Gas Co. of Newark, N.J., must stop violating the civil rights of men by paying women who retire early more pension than men who retire at the same age.

Other opponents employ the shameful argument that many of the issues involved are States' rights. But any legislator who attempted to use that argument against civil rights legislation would be booed off the floor. How can serious matters like age of marriage, property rights, jury service, et cetera, be described as matters for State legis

lation? These are not States' rights; these are human rights. Should a woman be less equal in one State than in another? Should the majority of United States citizens be subjected to the whimsies of local custom and prejudice in such important matters as those affecting marriage and the family, divorce, property rights and political rights? It sounds strangely primitive and tribal in 1970 to make such an argument. Indeed, since our Constitution guarantees equality of treatment under law to all citizens, the existence of this argument and the laws it represents are simply a proof of the inequality of females or the lack of protection of women. Even if one accepted this argument as valid, one would have to conclude that all the States will have their opportunity to express their opinions on the amendment; it is not the business of the Congress to decide in advance to kill legislation because it won't be accepted by the States.

The various forms of discrimination commonly practiced against women in employment and education have been too well documented to need detailing here. It is sufficient to note that women receive less pay for the same work and lower annual salaries than men; that women have very little opportunity for promotion; that few women work in the professions or in executive positions. In education, women receive fewer scholarships, fellowships and other benefits and have less access to professional education (the finest schools, which pride themselves on training the "leaders" of the country, are either closed to women or limit women to a quota system). On the subject of education for women, we are treated to remarkably paradoxical views: on the one hand, we are told that marriage and caring for children are the noblest occupations to which women might apply themselves and appropriate education for these duties and tasks are the goals to which women should aspire; on the other hand, we are told that women don't need education; they're only going to get married and have babies and nature has already prepared them for that.

But there's little need to dwell on these puzzles here; the rights of women to education and employment are finally being recognized; even opponents of the amendment speak up for these basic rights.

But what of the issues that are still being disputed? Some opponents claim that they wish to "protect women," they are eager to save women from the draft; they wish to preserve certain laws which "protect women" either from deserting husbands or from the strain of hard labor. These honorable gentlemen blissfully ignore the fact that, although there may be laws regarding child support, they are not very well enforced; the answer to this problem is to cease forcing women to be completely dependent. Millions of women either support their families, including a husband, or contribute a major share of support. These women need the real protection of equal treatment under the law, not phony "protection" such as hour and weight limitations. Only a small segment of female workers are actually covered by these laws. And the largest number of women workers-housewives-are unpaid and unprotected. They may work around the clock without pay; they may work while sick; they may lift heavy weights (such as children, groceries, furniture, wet laundry; they may lift mattresses while cleaning the house, a far heavier type of labor than many men perform. Ironically, while American men have been insisting that they wish to

"protect" women from heavy work, they have been designing machinery to make their own work lighter so that many men now push levers and buttons instead of lifting weights.

But the housewife, whose appliances have been widely discussed as freeing her from burdensome work, is still lifting wet squirming children at bathtime (a tricky weight to handle, easily damaged if dropped) still carrying heavy bags of groceries, still lifting and moving furniture when cleaning. If men are so concerned about protecting women from heavy work, why haven't they started a crash program to provide male muscle for these jobs? The answer is simple: that glorified occupation which is supposed to fulfill women, that uncounted contribution to the GNP-housekeeping-remains unpaid and unprotected and apparently of no interest. But, when there's a paycheck involved, women must be protected. So much for the gallant male's protective instinct.

As for the horrors of the draft, those solicitous protectors conveniently forget the many women who have voluntarily entered their country's service and made a fine record which ought to be honored instead of ignored. These gentlemen further neglect to mention that, in saving women from the draft, they are also saving them from access to free education and training, free food, housing and health services, insurance and other benefits. One must conclude that discussion of the draft is a thinly veiled threat intended to scare women into silence and submission.

Among the vociferous defenders of women, one finds members of the labor movement who appear to be united against the equal rights amendment. But a few questions might be directed to the unions: How many women are in their leadership? How many women helped to make the decision to oppose the equal rights amendment? How many female workers of the more than 31 million in the labor force are actually protected? How recently have any of these laws been. passed or reviewed for their relevance to today's conditions? Data and opinion from years ago, from lawyers and other male experts, are dragged in repeatedly in the effort to "prove" female weakness and physical inability to perform well on the job.

The competent performance of women is never allowed to dispel old myths. No matter what the individual woman accomplishes, her achievement never paves the way for other women; achieving women are considered exceptions or freaks; old assumptions about women as class persist.

But if these attitudes continue to persist; if males in power insist on ignoring the valid demands of women for equal opportunity; if the Congress continues to delay, then the patience and tolerance of women will be exhausted. No home in the United States will escape the effects of the resulting turmoil.

Women are so angry, so full of resentment at the blocking of their just demands that they can no longer sit back and passively hope that enlightenment will strike. They are likely to seek more active means of venting their rage and frustration, if only for temporary relief from the necessity of repressing the powerful emotions that oppression fosters. No emotion is more dangerous to the stability of society than the feeling of powerlessness in a large aroused segment of the population.