A Call to Action on Women's Equality Day

August 26, 2004

Sign a petition demanding that the presidential candidates and Congressional leaders stand up for women and girls. We need their leadership to end discrimination against women and restore women's rights by speaking out and supporting initiatives and policies that promote health, safety and opportunity for all of our nation’s girls, women and families, not just the privileged few.

Sign the petition now!

The economy is a women's issue: Women and girls deserve equal educational opportunities, and all of us need access to good jobs with equal pay and benefits. Health is a women's issue: Women must be trusted to make medical, contraceptive, reproductive and family formation decisions in their own interests. We must have access to full health care that is not dependent on a job or a spouse. Safety is a women's issue: Girls and women—everyone in fact—must be safe from "domestic" terrorism. Stopping child abuse, family violence, incest, pedophilia, battering, sexual assault, rape and murder takes more than lip service.

Sign the petition now!

We must speak up and speak out now. We are non-partisan in this demand that candidates for high office and Congressional leaders must genuinely take leadership in stemming the erosion of women’s rights, women's autonomy and women’s opportunities.

Join us in petitioning these leaders and their council of political advisors to bring women's voices, concerns and dreams to the table in their campaigns and in their legislative efforts. Hiring women who help take us to war or undermine precious worker benefits just will not do. Ignoring or catering to women because our political leaders "know what’s best for them" just will not do.

Sign the petition now!

If we don't take this action, and exercise our democratic right to petition our government and our leaders, we face certain extinction of many of the rights that we have enjoyed for so many years.

• Roe v. Wade is just one Supreme Court justice away from being overturned
• Right wing religious leaders, the U.S. version of the Taliban, are making medical and contraceptive decisions about women's lives
• Title IX, which brought us those wonderful Olympians and ensured our daughters a shot at law school, is in danger of being seriously eroded
• Pharmacies and hospitals are turning women away who need birth control and desperately seek emergency contraception
• The safety net is shredding, not just for poor families but for the hard-working middle class
• Read more

We will deliver your petition, along with tens of thousands of others, to the presidential campaigns and also to the Congressional leaders when they return in September.

If you want to do more:

• Sign up for NOW's voter mobilization project at 10forchange.org.
• Donate to NOW's work so we can provide field organizers to assist our chapters in getting out the vote.
• Volunteer to work with your favorite feminist/progressive candidate.

Women and girls everywhere are counting on you to support their rights on Women's Equality Day and every day. Thank you!