President Ford Creates National Commission for International Women’s Year
President Gerald Ford on this day issued Executive Order 11832, which created a national commission to coordinate U.S. participation in the United Nations International Women’s Year events.
Both Ford and his predecessor Richard Nixon were supportive of women’s issues, as was the case with many moderate Republicans in the 1940s through the 1970s. That changed when the New Right captured control of the GOP in the late 1970s and helped elect Ronald Reagan president in 1980 with, among other conservative policies, strong opposition to employment-discrimination enforcement and abortion.
Beginning with the International Women’s Year celebration in 1975, the UN began celebrating an annual International Women’s Day every March 8.
Read the Executive Order: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=60460
Learn more about the UN’s annual International Women’s Day every March: https://www.un.org/womenwatch/feature/iwd/
Learn more about President Ford’s civil liberties record: Samuel Walker, Presidents and Civil Liberties From Wilson to Obama (2012)
Read: Gerald Ford, A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford (1979)