Preface.(international agenda for women's rights and equality)(Brief Article)

The 1995 United Nations Fourth Wand Conference on Women in Beijing adapted a Platform for Action, endorsed by 189 governments, that remains a powerful agenda for women's equality and human rights worldwide. In the words of Bella Abzug: "It was in Beijing that we really gave birth to a stronger and newer global movement for democracy. The Beijing Platform for Action is the strongest statement, though not perfect, of consensus on women's equality, empowerment, and justice ever produced by governments."

The Platform for Action addresses 12 key arenas for change: women and poverty, education and training of women, women and health, violence against women, women and armed conflict, women and the economy, women in power and decision making, institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women, human rights of women, women in the media, women and the environment, and the girl-child (see Appendix). As Bella declared in Beijing: "We have a contract here -- that's what we call the Platform for Action from the Beijing conference -- a contract with the world's women. It may not be legally binding, but I believe it is politically binding." Together, the Center and WEDO took steps to make this vision a reality in the United States.

At the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) Fourth National Forum for Women State Legislators in San Diego in November 1995, Bella Abzug gave a keynote address about Beijing and Center President Leslie Wolfe and Vice President Jennifer Tucker convened an informal meeting with several women state legislators to discuss strategies to respond to anti-woman policies generated by the right wing in their states and to promote a multiethnic feminist policy agenda. This conversation provided the initial impetus for creation of the Contract with Women of the USA and pointed the way to a new approach to Beijing implementation.

Together, the Center and WEDO "translated" the Beijing Platform for Action into U.S. relevant terms -- and the Contract with Women of the USA was born. In fact, the Contract includes enduring principles that have long guided the Center's work -- empowerment of women as decision makers, ending the burden of poverty, ensuring access to quality health care, guaranteeing women's sexual and reproductive rights, ensuring women's workplace rights, promoting educational equity, and ending violence against women. The Contract "is a blueprint for state legislators to develop policies and programs that enable women and girls to achieve their full potential and attain genuine equality," noted the Center's President, Leslie R. Wolfe (see Appendix).

Indeed, the Center's "niche" in post-Beijing implementation activities in the United States has been to build a network of women state legislators in all 50 states who endorse the Contract's principles and work to implement them in their states. In this era of devolution of many federal responsibilities to the states, the leadership of women state legislators is especially crucial to protect and expand women's rights. And a powerful group of legislators worked with the Center to launch the Contract.

On March 8,1996 -- International Women's Day -- the Center and WEDO officially announced the creation of the Contract with Women of the USA. At the same time, women's legislative caucuses in six states - Arizona, California, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, and New York - hosted media events to publicly pledge their support for the Contract's principles and to announce their own Contracts with the women of their states. These six states were followed on April 15 by Florida and Oregon, where women legislators announced their state Contracts at a series of press events.

In Arizona, Representatives Marion Pickens and Sue Lyons, Senator Ruth Solomon, Councilmember Carol Smith, and members of the Arizona delegation to Beijing launched the Contract with the Women of Arizona; California Assemblymember Sheila Kuehl and 13 state legislators announced the Contract with California's Women. In Illinois, Representative Sara Feigenholtz introduced a resolution supporting the Contract with Women of the USA, with Representatives Barbara Flynn Currie, Carol Ronen, and Jan Schakowsky.