Pacific Feminist Imaginaries: The 1977 US National Women’s Conference and the Politics of Territorial Representation
In November 1977, approximately 20,000 people gathered in Houston, Texas for the National Women’s Conference (NWC), the first and only federally-funded convening charged with developing a national agenda of women’s issues. Inspired by the 1975 United Nations Conference on the Status of Women that wa...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Association Française d'Etudes Américaines
2022-05-01
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| Series: | Transatlantica |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/18515 |
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| Summary: | In November 1977, approximately 20,000 people gathered in Houston, Texas for the National Women’s Conference (NWC), the first and only federally-funded convening charged with developing a national agenda of women’s issues. Inspired by the 1975 United Nations Conference on the Status of Women that was held in Mexico City as part of the International Women’s Year (IWY), the NWC represented an opportunity to reflect on the history, contemporary status, and future of women in the United States. Among the attendees were 2,000 delegates, elected from 56 pre-conferences held in each of the states and six territories. Just as the NWC made visible the persistent challenges for gender justice, the existence of US territories reveals the ossified status of colonies within a self-proclaimed democratic nation. What emerged from these Pacific territorial meetings of the NWC reveals the conflicted politics of women’s empowerment as islanders challenged militarized patriarchy, reclaimed matrilineality, and called for island sovereignty. The 1977 NWC offers a window into these complex politics as women from the Pacific envisioned new possibilities for their future. |
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| ISSN: | 1765-2766 |