FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: MELINDA SHELTON, 767; TIFFANY CHEUNG, 771
NOW activists will celebrate the organization's 30th anniversary at a national conference this weekend (June 28-30) in Las Vegas the way only activists would. They'll roll up their shirt sleeves to defend progress won in 30 years of the feminist movement -- and to break down barriers that still exist.
Activists will come to the conference fresh from protests against Mitsubishi Motors Corp. over its response to charges of sex and race discrimination, with NOW activists taking part in protests Thursday in Tokyo, Las Vegas and 50 other U.S. cities.
"Although we've made tremendous breakthroughs, it's still an uphill battle for women who are trying to get and keep well-paid jobs at auto plants, get elected to Congress or get into taxpayer-funded, all-male military academies," said NOW President Patricia Ireland, who is on tour promoting her new book, What Women Want (Dutton). "Feminist activists thrive on a good challenge. We're going global with our campaign against Mitsubishi. We're ratcheting up our election year organizing -- especially on affirmative action. And we're anxiously awaiting a Supreme Court decision on VMI that could be women's Plessy v. Ferguson or our Brown v. Board of Education."
(NOW itself and a NOW leader who is a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel are petitioners on amicus briefs supporting admission of women to VMI.)
NOW PRESIDENT LEADS INTERNATIONAL MITSUBISHI PROTESTS
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