109411141_Apuzzo-1983-A_Time_Bomb_Inside_of_You_1.pdf “A Time Bomb Inside of You”: Social Service Organizations Advocate an Improved Federal Response to AIDS Virginia Apuzzo, August, 1983 http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6893 In 1981, the U.S. medical community noticed a significant number of gay men living in urban areas with rare forms of pneumonia, cancer, and lymph disorders. The cluster of ailments was initially dubbed Gay- Related Immune Disease (GRID), but when similar illnesses increased in other groups, the name changed to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The mid-1980s saw a number of advances toward understanding and treating the disease, but no vaccine or cure was forthcoming. Gay advocacy and community-based organizations began providing services and pressuring government to increase funding for finding a cure and helping victims. In the following 1983 testimony before a congressional committee, three representatives of social service organizations sharply criticized the Reagan administration’s limited response to the AIDS crisis, advocated increased federal funding, and warned that AIDS was a societal “time bomb” likely to have grave consequences beyond the gay community. In 1995 AIDS became the leading cause of death for Americans aged 25 to 44. By mid-2002, while the annual rate of new HIV cases dropped in the U.S. to 40,000 (from a 1980s high of 150,000), more than 20 million people worldwide had died from the disease, and 40 million were living with HIV. STATEMENT OF VIRGINIA M. APUZZO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL GAY TASK FORCE Ms. APUZZO. My name is Virginia Apuzzo. I am grateful for the opportunity to testify today. But I am saddened and, yes, I am angered by the necessity, a necessity brought on by what we perceive to be the Federal Government’s policy of gestures and not actions. Quite simply, from our point of view, Mr. Chairman, the Federal Government’s response to the AIDS epidemic reveals that the health care system of the wealthiest country in the world is not equipped to meet the needs of its citizens in an emergency, however brief or extended that emergency might be. Further, if we take a look at the Federal Government’s response to the AIDS crisis it leads unavoidably to the conclusion that within this administration, there is a sharp contrast between the rhetoric of concern and the reality of response. That failure is underscored when one looks at the record of the lesbian and gay community in filling the gap. . . . The National Gay Task Force survey of community voluntary organizations found that $2.3 million was budgeted for AIDS projects in 1983 for the gay and lesbian community, with another $6.8 million being projected and budgeted for 1984 in the gay and lesbian community. These figures do not include local and State government grants to these groups, nor do they include the value of hundreds of thousands of voluntary hours in th.

1. 109411141_Apuzzo-1983-A_Time_Bomb_Inside_of_You_1.pdf
“A Time Bomb Inside of You”: Social Service Organizations
Advocate an
Improved Federal Response to AIDS
Virginia Apuzzo, August, 1983
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6893
In 1981, the U.S. medical community noticed a significant
number of gay men living in urban areas with
rare forms of pneumonia, cancer, and lymph disorders. The
cluster of ailments was initially dubbed Gay-
Related Immune Disease (GRID), but when similar illnesses
increased in other groups, the name changed to
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The mid-1980s
saw a number of advances toward
understanding and treating the disease, but no vaccine or cure
was forthcoming. Gay advocacy and
community-based organizations began providing services and
pressuring government to increase funding for
finding a cure and helping victims. In the following 1983
testimony before a congressional committee, three
representatives of social service organizations sharply criticized

2. the Reagan administration’s limited
response to the AIDS crisis, advocated increased federal
funding, and warned that AIDS was a societal “time
bomb” likely to have grave consequences beyond the gay
community. In 1995 AIDS became the leading
cause of death for Americans aged 25 to 44. By mid-2002, while
the annual rate of new HIV cases dropped
in the U.S. to 40,000 (from a 1980s high of 150,000), more than
20 million people worldwide had died from
the disease, and 40 million were living with HIV.
STATEMENT OF VIRGINIA M. APUZZO, EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR, NATIONAL GAY TASK FORCE
Ms. APUZZO. My name is Virginia Apuzzo.
I am grateful for the opportunity to testify today. But I am
saddened and, yes, I am angered by the
necessity, a necessity brought on by what we perceive to be the
Federal Government’s policy of gestures
and not actions.
Quite simply, from our point of view, Mr. Chairman, the
Federal Government’s response to the AIDS
epidemic reveals that the health care system of the wealthiest
country in the world is not equipped to meet

3. the needs of its citizens in an emergency, however brief or
extended that emergency might be.
Further, if we take a look at the Federal Government’s response
to the AIDS crisis it leads unavoidably to
the conclusion that within this administration, there is a sharp
contrast between the rhetoric of concern and
the reality of response. That failure is underscored when one
looks at the record of the lesbian and gay
community in filling the gap. . . .
The National Gay Task Force survey of community voluntary
organizations found that $2.3 million was
budgeted for AIDS projects in 1983 for the gay and lesbian
community, with another $6.8 million being
projected and budgeted for 1984 in the gay and lesbian
community. These figures do not include local and
State government grants to these groups, nor do they include the
value of hundreds of thousands of
voluntary hours in these programs.
Indeed, the National Gay Task Force last October opened up a
crisis line, an 800 number, that would enable
members of the community and the public at large to seek
information about AIDS. We are getting in excess
of 3,000 calls a day that we cannot respond to. And we are open
8 hours a day, 5 days a week, until 9

4. o’clock at night, so that we can take care of the concerns and
the questions from the Western part of the
country. . . .
My written testimony submitted to your committee details the
failures of the Federal Government’s response
in, first, setting out requests for research projects to study
AIDS, second, in funding those projects which
pass its review programs, and third, in even identifying such
crucial study areas as the cause or etiology of
AIDS, now set for funding for the first time, Mr. Chairman, in
October of 1983. . . .
Because of its mysterious nature, and I submit, because of the
groups associated with it, AIDS has
generated something just short of a public panic. A good deal of
that panic has been fostered by
homophobes bent on turning a public health crisis into an
opportunity to attack the gay and lesbian
community. . . .
The hysteria created by those ill-intentioned people cannot be
handled by the limited public health education
efforts the Federal Government has put into effect; leaving us
again very vulnerable. The Federal AIDS

5. hotline, which started with only three lines and now fortunately
has added five more, is still capable of
handling only a fraction of the 10,000 calls that attempt to get
through to it daily, and none of the calls after
5 p.m. eastern daylight savings time, when the hotline is shut
down.
Federal public education efforts such as there are concentrate on
the general public. That is good. But
education about AIDS must also reach affected groups, persons
with AIDS, and those who work in very
close contact with persons who are from high-risk groups.
We have heard much about health care workers, about
morticians, police officers, and others who are fearful
of close contact. Most of those fears are unjustified. But it is
hard to blame people who have not received
clear-cut guidelines and concrete information to assure them.
The Public Health Service should be taking a
much stronger, a vitally needed lead role in this area.
Perhaps the one issue that is most inciting of hysteria has been
concern about our Nation’s blood supply. Let
me restate the gay community’s position on the issue of blood
donations. At every possible forum, we have
urged that those in our community who feel they might be at

6. risk to AIDS or feel unwell to refrain from
donating blood. We have felt that that is the responsible
position. Recent reports about dangerously low
blood supplies directly result from the Government’s failure to
investigate the transmissibility of AIDS
through blood, to develop a marker for AIDS in blood, to test
surrogate markers, or to study the safety of
the blood supply and giving blood.
The negative effect of this has been that blood donations seem
to have endangered more lives by virtue of
the lack of blood supply than AIDS itself. . . .
The National Gay Task Force and LAMDA Legal Defense and
Education Fund are proposing today that the
Congress adopt legislation to extend to all persons who are part
of a federally-funded research or
surveillance program the same confidentiality protection others
already have under Federal law. The Drug
Abuse Office and Treatment Act of 1972, for example, provides
that medical records may be disclosed “only
in accordance with the prior written consent of the patient,”
except in rare cases.
Similar language covers alcohol abuse programs. . . .
STATEMENT OF ALAN P. BROWNSTEIN, EXECUTIVE

7. DIRECTOR, NATIONAL HEMOPHILIA
FOUNDATION
Mr. BROWNSTEIN. Thank you very much. . . .
Now we are faced with the frightening specter of AIDS.
Although in absolute terms the number of
hemophiliacs, 16, who have become afflicted with AIDS may
seem small, the risk of contracting AIDS is far
greater among hemophiliacs than any other risk group. Today,
of the 20,000 hemophiliacs, one out of 1,250
has contracted AIDS.
Further, if you consider that there are approximately 7,500
hemophiliacs who are classified as severe, that
is those who are far more dependent upon blood products, the
risk is much greater, one out of every 500
hemophiliacs. It is indeed ironic that the very substance that has
served to liberate hemophiliacs from the
disabling aspects of their disease is now highly suspect as the
source of AIDS.
The fear of AIDS among hemophiliacs has been exacerbated by
extensive and in some instances distorted
reporting by the media. Some patients have abandoned
appropriate use of blood products because they fear

8. contracting AIDS. This is documented by reported reductions in
blood clotting factor sales. These are reports
from industry as well as from treatment centers that are
reporting reduced use of the much needed clotting
factor. . . .
The risk of not treating exceeds the risk of contracting AIDS,
because uncontrolled bleeding is the leading
cause of death among hemophiliacs, not to mention the potential
of serious orthopedic complications and
crippling if bleeding episodes are untreated.
The fear of AIDS has other tragic implications. No longer are
flu symptoms or fever passed off as trivial
problems. Some family members have questioned whether
physical closeness with hemophiliac children may
be dangerous. Similarly, sexual partners wonder whether
intercourse should be avoided. Many physicians
and treatment centers are deluged with calls from apprehensive
patients and families seeking information,
and of course reassurance. Many patients are fearful that their
treatment may be changed. And this is a
threat to the autonomy they have gained through home therapy.
And this represents a potential of being set
back two decades to the old sense of helplessness and

9. dependence upon others.
As you can see, the incidence of AIDS among hemophiliacs is
of serious concern. But of even greater
concern is the profound impact of the threat of AIDS. . . .
The AIDS crisis has created a need for comprehensive care for
hemophiliacs that is greater than ever before.
An informal sampling revealed a 25–35 percent increase in
patient encounters at many comprehensive
centers throughout the country due to AIDS. Physicians and
nurses are seeing patients more frequently as
patients are being examined and tested for AIDS type
symptoms. Patients require more education
concerning their risks and fears as well as the treatment of
actual AIDS cases. This increased demand for
care is most difficult because most of these treatment centers
are operating on a shoestring budget as it is.
. . .
STATEMENT OF MEL ROSEN, GAY MEN’S HEALTH
CRISIS, NEW YORK CITY
Mr. ROSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I will actually skip through my prepared statement and go down
to the second page and talk to you about
the specific services we have had to create within our

10. organization because the community and basically the
existing social service agencies do not meet the emergent needs
of people with AIDS.
When a person is told he or she has AIDS it is not like hearing
that they have cancer, for example. When
you have cancer you are told what the diagnosis, prognosis and
treatments are. When you are told that you
have AIDS you are hearing that you have a time bomb inside of
you, that any day you will get an
opportunistic infection and one of these infections would kill
you, usually within 3 years.
The person goes into a crisis. In many cases the person with
AIDS does not have a nuclear family for
support. We therefore created a crisis intervention unit of
trained lay counselors who get to the person with
AIDS within 12 hours of their initial phone call to us. This
counselor actively works with the person with
AIDS and helps them cope during this initial period. We started
with 15 counselors last October; today we
have 175.
Hopefully the person realizes after a while that they may not die
tomorrow, next month or next year. At this

11. point we introduce them to one of our support groups. People
learned to cope from each other’s
experiences. In October we started one group. Today we have
12 groups not only for people with AIDS but
groups for husbands, wives, lovers, friends, mothers, fathers,
and significant others. Although our name
starts with the word “gay,” our services are offered to and used
by all affected people and those around
them.
We found that there were many people sent home from hospitals
who were too sick to take care of
themselves. We therefore created a buddy system or home
attendant service made up of people who cook,
clean, and generally care for the person at home with AIDS who
is too sick to take care of themselves. In
one case a person with AIDS was being thrown out of their
house so the buddies found him a new
apartment and moved him in one weekend. We started with 7
buddies; we now have 75.
The disease does not discriminate for or against people who are
rich or poor. We found that people making
$40,000 a year like my client were losing everything they had.
Even people who were well-insured were
wiped out after numerous stays in the hospitals. Each

12. opportunistic infection could mean a month or more in
the hospitals.
We set up a financial aid committee that assisted people with
AIDS to apply for public assistance benefits
they were entitled to. We also assisted numerous legislators to
put pressure on the Social Security
Administration to create a definition for AIDS so people could
get disability insurance. Even when the
definition was added, it was inadequate. Only people with the
CDC definition of AIDS are eligible today; for
example, herpes osters is not included. . . .
Our hotline which I mentioned earlier started receiving about 20
calls a week last summer. It now handles
over 1,000 calls a week. Callers range from those in search of a
medical doctor familiar with AIDS to people
calling in a complete panic over what they perceive as a
symptom. Thirty volunteers and one full-time staff
member operate this line.
While misinformation or sensationalistic reporting has created
the perception that the general public can
contract AIDS through casual contact, the reality is that people
with AIDS can contract opportunistic
infections through casual contact with the general population.

13. People with AIDS sometimes become shut-ins.
We have tried to combat this by creating recreational groups
that get people out of their homes and into
social and recreational situations.
People with AIDS have an average age of 35. In addition they
often are in nontraditional conjugal
relationship. These two factors create a multitude of legal
problems in terms of wills and power of attorney.
Hospitals in many cases do not recognize what should be
considered a common law relationship between
two people. We have attempted to deal with these legal
problems by coordinating a network of legal
services which advise the person with AIDS of their legal rights
and responsibilities. . . .
The Federal Government has not done its share. You must
appropriate massive sums of money for research
into this disease. You must appropriate money to the States so
they can distribute moneys to local self-help
organizations or set up their own programs. If you are not
motivated to help disenfranchised groups, let me
tell you something as a professional social worker.
Although it is not much talked about, sexuality is not static.

14. People have different sexual preferences
throughout their lives. This is part of the human condition. Talk
by people who would turn a medical problem
into a political one is disgraceful and belongs in the dark ages.
For those who would consider legislating
morality, this has been tried before without success. The human
condition is continuously in flux.
Since most researchers and health officials have determined that
this disease is sexually transmitted, it is
probably the long incubation period that has kept the disease for
the most part confined to certain groups.
This will change shortly. There is a steaming locomotive
roaring down the tracks at the general population.
The people of this country depends on your God-given wisdom
to ascertain the eventuality of certain events
and to protect them.
I call upon you to not only appropriate the necessary funds but
to create an office inside the Department of
Health and Human Services that does two things: one, to
establish a national effort that coordinates
services to affected individuals and a national educational effort
to the public at large and, two, gives
resources and technical assistance to States and self-help
organizations in locations where the disease is

15. spreading or likely to spread.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rosen follows:] . . .
I sit before you a very changed man from a year ago when I
called the CDC. I have discovered that
medicine, research and the so-called safeguards we have in
place to warn us about pending disasters are
political and do not work when disenfranchised minorities are
involved. When toxic shock and Legionnaire’s
disease first came on the scene there was an immediate response
by government and press. Why did
hundreds of people have to die before anyone moved in this
case? Single people pay a very high percentage
of their salaries to the federal tax structure. Since most of the
affected individuals affected by AIDS are
single they expect something back from the government they
trust. It is the American way for us to respect
and care for the individual person who is in trouble in our
country. I have become disillusioned about this in
the past year in relation to our government. However, I take
heart in the response of the community itself. .
. .
Source: Congress, House, Committee on Government
Operations, Federal Response to AIDS: Hearings

16. before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Government
Operations, House of Representatives, 98th
Cong., 1st Sess., August 1 and 2, 1983 (Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1983).
109411141_Stockdale_1972_excerpt_A_Vietnam_Experience-
_Ten_Years_of_Reflection_1.pdf
James B. Stockdale 1972, excerpt from A Vietnam
Experience: Ten Years of Reflection
http://media.pearsoncmg.com/ph/hss/SSA_SHARED_MEDIA_1/
history/MHL/WW/documents/
Stockdale_Ten_Years_Reflection.html
Congressional Medal of Honor winner and retired Vice Admiral
James Bond Stockdale was a
prisoner of war in Vietnam for eight years. In 1992, he was
Ross Perot's running mate for the
U.S. vice presidency. In the following essay, he recounts some
of his experiences in Vietnam and
offers his views on the lessons to be learned from the war.
Source: James B. Stockdale, A Vietnam Experience: Ten Years
of Reflection (Stanford, CA:

17. Hoover Institution, 1984), pp. 109, 122-28. This material
originally appeared in "The Most
Important Lesson of Vietnam: Power of the Human Spirit," San
Jose Mercury News, January 3,
1982, copyright 1982 by The San Diego Union; and "Dignity
and Honor in Vietnam," The Wall
Street Journal, April 16, 1982. Reprinted by the kind permission
of James Bond Stockdale, The
San Diego Union, and The Wall Street Journal.
My viewpoint of the Vietnam War was that Eisenhower's
domino theory was probably valid: that
if North Vietnam took over the south, a chain reaction could be
expected to proceed to the
southwest. I also knew that South Vietnam was not really like
the western democracy our
government tried to pretend it was. I knew there was a
formidable framework of a Communist
infrastructure in the south that would have to be burned out. I
also knew how militantly
doctrinaire and disciplined the North Vietnamese were. Putting
all this together, I thought, during
the war, after it, and still today, that Barry Goldwater had the
only sensible outlook: either move

18. quickly against Hanoi with repeated high impact non-nuke
hammer blows from the air or forget
it. Vietnam was no place for the Army.
So how do I classify the tragedy of Vietnam, if not a crusade, a
mistake, a crime or a conspiracy?
I classify it as a misguided experiment of the Harvard Business
School crowd - the "whiz kids" -
in achieving foreign policy objectives by so-called rational
game theory, while ignoring the
reality and obstinacy of human nature.
These were some of the policy lessons of Vietnam: You can't
finesse human nature, human will,
or human obstinacy, with economic game theory. And you
should never let those who think you
can, call the shots in a war!...
The central strategy of the North Vietnamese prison system was
extortion pressure - pressure to
get us to contribute to what turned out to be their winning
propaganda campaign beamed at the
American man on the street, pressure to get us to inform on one
another. These ideas were tied
together as integral parts of the whole and were to be extracted
by the imposition of loneliness,

19. fear and guilt - fear of pain, guilt at having betrayed a fellow
prisoner...
Chivalry was dead in my prison. Its name was Hoa Lo, meaning
"fiery furnace," located in
downtown Hanoi, a prison the French built in 1895.
I arrived there, a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, in the late
morning of a rainy Sunday in
September 1965, a stretcher case. I had a broken leg (which my
welcoming party, a street mob of
civilians, had inflicted), a broken back (which I charge off to
my carelessness in not having had
the presence of mind to brace myself correctly before ejecting
into low altitude, high-speed air
from a tumbling airplane), and a gunshot wound in my good leg
(which an irate farmer had
pumped into my stretcher during my first night on the ground,
an act I credit as
morally neutral just to keep the score balanced). The North
Vietnamese officer who presided
over my arrival after three days in the back of a truck was about
my age (42 at the time), also a
career military man.

20. I asked him for medical attention for my broken bones and open
wounds. "You have a medical
problem and you have a political problem," he said. "In this
country we handle political
problems first, and if they are satisfactorily resolved, that is, if
you demonstrate a proper
understanding of the American war of imperialist aggression in
Vietnam and take concrete
actions to stop it, we will attend to your medical problems."
That was the last time the subject of
medical attention for me ever came up in my next eight years as
a prisoner of war...
These prisons are all the same; the name of the game is to
unstring their victims with fear and
polarize them with guilt. There are always more rules than can
practically be obeyed, always a
tripwire system to snare you in a violation that the jailers can
brand as moral turpitude - and there
is always an escape valve, a way to make amends if you repent.
The tripwire in Hanoi was based on the "no communication"
rule. As with all tripwires, the
prisoner had a choice to make and he stood to lose either way.
If he obeyed and did not

21. communicate with his comrades, he accrued the conscience
problems of betraying his fellows
and at the same time sentenced himself to a desperate loneliness
which would likely get to him
after a year or two. If he communicated, and this was the only
way to go for loyalty, for a feeling
of self-worth, for dignity, he would periodically be caught and
tortured under the charge of
ingratitude for the "humane and lenient treatment" he was being
given.
(Incidentally, communication grew to be a very refined, high-
volume, high-speed, highly
accurate though dangerous art. We used the same code
Koestler's fictional Commissar N.S.
Rubashov used during his Moscow trial and execution period in
the late 1930's.)
By torture, I don't mean leg irons or handcuffs or isolation. We
were always careful to remind
ourselves that those were just inconveniences, not to panic. By
torture we meant the intentional
imposition of pain and claustrophobia over as short a time as
necessary to get the victim to
"submit."
In my experience this is best done by heavily slapping the

22. prisoner, seating him on the brick
floor, reeving his upper arms with ropes, and while standing
barefoot on his back cinching up the
elaborate bindings by jerks, pulling his shoulders together while
stuffing his head down between
his feet with the heel of your foot. Numb arms under contorted
tension produce an excruciating
pain and a gnawing but sure knowledge that a clock is ticking
while your blood is stopped and
that the longer you wait before submitting the longer useless
arms will dangle at your sides (45
minutes of blood stoppage usually cost about six months of
dangle). The claustrophobia also
concentrates the mind wonderfully.
How long to submission for a good man? About 30 minutes.
Why not hold your silence and die?
You can't just will yourself dead and have it happen - especially
in that position. Why not just
give them what they want and be done with it? Reasons that
come to mind include dignity, self-
esteem, contempt for B-grade pageants. They can make you tell
them most anything they know
you know. The trick is, year in and year out, never to level with
your captors, never let them

23. really know what you know...
The political prison experience is an emotional experience in
that you learn that your naked,
most inner self is in the spotlight, and that any detected shame
or deep fear, any chink in your
moral armor is a perfect opening for the manipulative crowbar.
And once the manipulator gets it
into you, he can put you out front working for him because he
has something on you of which
you are genuinely ashamed; he has the means to destroy your
reputation if you fail him. Fates
like that are what prison nightmares are made of, not the fear of
pain...
Americans in Hanoi learned fast. They made no deals. They
learned that "meeting them half
way" was the road to degradation. My hypothetical young
prison mate soon learned that
impulses, working against the grain, are very important in
political prisons, that one learns to
enjoy fighting city hall, to enjoy giving the enemy upside-down
logic problems, that one soon
finds himself taking his lumps with pride and not merely liking

24. but loving that tapping guy next
door, the man he never sees, the man he bares his soul to after
each torture session, until he
realizes he is thereby expiating all residual guilt. Then he
realizes he can't be hurt and he can't be
had as long as he tells the truth and clings to that forgiving
band of brothers who are becoming
his country, his family.
This is the power of comradeship and high mindedness that
ultimately springs up among people
of good will under pressure in mutual danger. It is a source of
power as old as man, one we
forget in times of freedom, of affluence, of fearful pessimism -
like now.
Eight years in a Hanoi prison, survival and dignity. What does it
all come down to? It does not
come down to coping or supplication or hatred or strength
beyond the grasp of any normal
person. It comes down to unselfish comradeship, and it comes
down to pride, dignity, an
enduring sense of self-worth and to that enigmatic mixture of
conscience and egoism called
personal honor.

25. 109411141_Steinem_1970-
_All_Our_Problems_Stem_from_the_Same_Sex_Based_Myths_
1.pdf
“All Our Problems Stem from the Same Sex Based Myths”:
Gloria Steinem Delineates American
Gender Myths during ERA Hearings
Steinem, G. (1970). “All our problems stem from the same sex
based myths”: Gloria Steinem delineates
American gender myths during ERA hearings. Retrieved from
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/7025
Source: Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, The
“Equal Rights” Amendment: Hearings before
the Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments of the
Committee on the Judiciary, 91st Cong., 2d
sess., May 5, 6, and 7, 1970.
In the years following the 1920 ratification of the 19th
Amendment extending voting rights to women,
the National Woman’s Party, the radical wing of the suffrage
movement, advocated passage of a
constitutional amendment to make discrimination based on
gender illegal. The first Congressional

26. hearing on the equal rights amendment (ERA) was held in 1923.
Many female reformers opposed the
amendment in fear that it would end protective labor and health
legislation designed to aid female
workers and poverty-stricken mothers. A major divide, often
class-based, emerged among women’s
groups. While the National Woman’s Party and groups
representing business and professional women
continued to push for an ERA, passage was unlikely until the
1960s, when the revived women’s
movement, especially the National Organization for Women
(NOW), made the ERA priority. The 1960s
and 1970s saw important legislation enacted to address sex
discrimination in employment and
education—most prominently, the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title
VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and
Title IX of the 1972 Higher Education Act—and on March 22,
1972, Congress passed the ERA. The
proposed amendment expired in 1982, however, with support
from only 35 states—three short of the
required 38 necessary for ratification. Strong grassroots
opposition emerged in the southern and
western sections of the country, led by anti-feminist activist
Phyllis Schafly. Schlafly charged that the

27. amendment would create a “unisex society” while weakening
the family, maligning the homemaker,
legitimizing homosexuality, and exposing girls to the military
draft. In the following 1970 Senate hearing,
author and editor Gloria Steinem argued that opposition to the
ERA was supported by deep-seated
societal myths about gender that exaggerated difference,
ignored factual evidence of inequitable
treatment, denied the importance of the women’s movement,
and promoted male domination.
STATEMENT OF GLORIA STEINEM, WRITER AND CRITIC
My name is Gloria Steinem. I am a writer and editor, and I am
currently a member of the policy council
of the Democratic committee. And I work regularly with the
lowest-paid workers in the country, the
migrant workers, men, women, and children both in California
and in my own State of New York. . . .
During 12 years of working for a living, I have experienced
much of the legal and social discrimination
reserved for women in this country. I have been refused service
in public restaurants, ordered out of
public gathering places, and turned away from apartment
rentals; all for the clearly-stated, sole reason

28. that I am a woman. And all without the legal remedies available
to blacks and other minorities. I have
been excluded from professional groups, writing assignments on
so-called “unfeminine” subjects such as
politics, full participation in the Democratic Party, jury duty,
and even from such small male privileges as
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/7025
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/7025
discounts on airline fares. Most important to me, I have been
denied a society in which women are
encouraged, or even allowed to think of themselves as first-
class citizens and responsible human beings.
However, after 2 years of researching the status of American
women, I have discovered that in reality, I
am very, very lucky. Most women, both wage-earners and
housewives, routinely suffer more
humiliation and injustice than I do.
As a freelance writer, I don’t work in the male-dominated
hierarchy of an office. (Women, like blacks
and other visibly different minorities, do better in individual
professions such as the arts, sports, or
domestic work; anything in which they don’t have authority
over white males.) I am not one of the

29. millions of women who must support a family. Therefore, I
haven’t had to go on welfare because there
are no day-care centers for my children while I work, and I
haven’t had to submit to the humiliating
welfare inquiries about my private and sexual life, inquiries
from which men are exempt. I haven’t had
to brave the sex bias of labor unions and employers, only to see
my family subsist on a median salary 40
percent less than the male median salary.
I hope this committee will hear the personal, daily injustices
suffered by many women—professionals
and day laborers, women housebound by welfare as well as by
suburbia. We have all been silent for too
long. But we won’t be silent anymore.
The truth is that all our problems stem from the same sex based
myths. We may appear before you as
white radicals or the middle-aged middle class or black soul
sisters, but we are all sisters in fighting
against these outdated myths. Like racial myths, they have been
reflected in our laws. Let me list a few.
That woman are biologically inferior to men. In fact, an equally
good case can be made for the reverse.
Women live longer than men, even when the men are not subject

30. to business pressures. Women
survived Nazi concentration camps better, keep cooler heads in
emergencies currently studied by
disaster-researchers, are protected against heart attacks by their
female sex hormones, and are so much
more durable at every stage of life that nature must conceive 20
to 50 percent more males in order to
keep the balance going.
Man’s hunting activities are forever being pointed to as tribal
proof of superiority. But while he was
hunting, women built houses, tilled the fields, developed animal
husbandry, and perfected language.
Men, being all alone in the bush, often developed into a creature
as strong as women, fleeter of foot,
but not very bright.
However, I don’t want to prove the superiority of one sex to
another. That would only be repeating a
male mistake. English scientists once definitively proved, after
all, that the English were descended from
the angels, while the Irish were descended from the apes; it was
the rationale for England’s domination
of Ireland for more than a century. The point is that science is
used to support current myth and

31. economics almost as much as the church was.
What we do know is that the difference between two races or
two sexes is much smaller than the
differences to be found within each group. Therefore, in spite of
the slide show on female inferiorities
that I understand was shown to you yesterday, the law makes
much more sense when it treats
individuals, not groups bundled together by some condition of
birth. . . .
Another myth, that women are already treated equally in this
society. I am sure there has been ample
testimony to prove that equal pay for equal work, equal chance
for advancement, and equal training or
encouragement is obscenely scarce in every field, even those—
like food and fashion industries—that
are supposedly “feminine.”
A deeper result of social and legal injustice, however, is what
sociologists refer to as “Internalized
Aggression.” Victims of aggression absorb the myth of their
own inferiority, and come to believe that
their group is in fact second class. Even when they themselves
realize they are not second class, they

32. may still think their group is, thus the tendency to be the only
Jew in the club, the only black woman on
the block, the only woman in the office.
Women suffer this second class treatment from the moment they
are born. They are expected to be,
rather than achieve, to function biologically rather than learn. A
brother, whatever his intellect, is more
likely to get the family’s encouragement and education money,
while girls are often pressured to
conceal ambition and intelligence, to “Uncle Tom.”
I interviewed a New York public school teacher who told me
about a black teenager’s desire to be a
doctor. With all the barriers in mind, she suggested kindly that
he be a veterinarian instead.
The same day, a high school teacher mentioned a girl who
wanted to be a doctor. The teacher said,
“How about a nurse?”
Teachers, parents, and the Supreme Court may exude a
protective, well-meaning rationale, but limiting
the individual’s ambition is doing no one a favor. Certainly not
this country; it needs all the talent it can
get.
Another myth, that American women hold great economic

33. power. Fifty-one percent of all shareholders
in this country are women. That is a favorite male-chauvinist
statistic. However, the number of shares
they hold is so small that the total is only 18 percent of all the
shares. Even those holdings are often
controlled by men.
Similarly, only 5 percent of all the people in the country who
receive $10,000 a year or more, earned or
otherwise, are women. And that includes the famous rich
widows.
The constantly repeated myth of our economic power seems less
testimony to our real power than to
the resentment of what little power we do have.
Another myth, that children must have full-time mothers.
American mothers spend more time with their
homes and children than those of any other society we know
about. In the past, joint families, servants,
a prevalent system in which grandparents raised the children, or
family field work in the agrarian
systems—all these factors contributed more to child care than
the labor-saving devices of which we are
so proud.
The truth is that most American children seem to be suffering

34. from too much mother, and too little
father. Part of the program of Women’s Liberation is a return of
fathers to their children. If laws permit
women equal work and pay opportunities, men will then be
relieved of their role as sole breadwinner.
Fewer ulcers, fewer hours of meaningless work, equal
responsibility for his own children: these are a
few of the reasons that Women’s Liberation is Men’s Liberation
too.
As for psychic health of the children, studies show that the
quality of time spent by parents is more
important than the quantity. The most damaged children were
not those whose mothers worked, but
those whose mothers preferred to work but stayed home out of
the role-playing desire to be a “good
mother.”
Another myth, that the women’s movement is not political,
won’t last, or is somehow not “serious.”
When black people leave their 19th century roles, they are
feared. When women dare to leave theirs,
they are ridiculed. We understand this; we accept the burden of
ridicule. It won’t keep us quiet

35. anymore.
Similarly, it shouldn’t deceive male observers into thinking that
this is somehow a joke. We are 51
percent of the population; we are essentially united on these
issues across boundaries of class or race or
age; and we may well end by changing this society more than
the civil rights movement. That is an apt
parallel. We, too, have our right wing and left wing, our
separatists, gradualists, and Uncle Toms. But we
are changing our own consciousness, and that of the country.
Engels noted the relationship of the
authoritarian, nuclear family to capitalism: the father as
capitalist, the mother as means of production,
and the children as labor. He said the family would change as
the economic system did, and that seems
to have happened, whether we want to admit it or not. Women’s
bodies will no longer be owned by the
state for the production of workers and soldiers; birth control
and abortion are facts of everyday life.
The new family is an egalitarian family.
Gunnar Myrdal noted 30 years ago the parallel between women
and Negroes in this country. Both
suffered from such restricting social myths as: smaller brains,
passive natures, inability to govern

36. themselves (and certainly not white men), sex objects only,
childlike natures, special skills, and the like.
When evaluating a general statement about women, it might be
valuable to substitute “black people”
for “women”—just to test the prejudice at work.
And it might be valuable to do this constitutionally as well.
Neither group is going to be content as a
cheap labor pool anymore. And neither is going to be content
without full constitutional rights.
Finally, I would like to say one thing about this time in which I
am testifying.
I had deep misgivings about discussing this topic when National
Guardsmen are occupying our
campuses, the country is being turned against itself in a terrible
polarization, and America is enlarging an
already inhuman and unjustifiable war. But it seems to me that
much of the trouble in this country has
to do with the “masculine mystique”; with the myth that
masculinity somehow depends on the
subjugation of other people. It is a bipartisan problem; both our
past and current Presidents seem to be
victims of this myth, and to behave accordingly.
Women are not more moral than men. We are only uncorrupted

37. by power. But we do not want to
imitate men, to join this country as it is, and I think our very
participation will change it. Perhaps women
elected leaders—and there will be many of them—will not be so
likely to dominate black people or
yellow people or men; anybody who looks different from us.
After all, we won’t have our masculinity to prove.
Source: Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, The
“Equal Rights” Amendment: Hearings before
the Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments of the
Committee on the Judiciary, 91st Cong., 2d
sess., May 5, 6, and 7, 1970.
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