NEWS ADVISORY
CONTACT: DIANE MINOR, 202-331-0066 x773; BETH MYERS, EXT. 775

TO MARK WOMEN'S EQUALITY DAY: FEMINISTS LAUNCH NATIONAL "NO SURRENDER" CAMPAIGN TO COUNTER UPCOMING PROMISE KEEPERS' MARCH

FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 1997

As feminist activists brace for the Promise Keepers' Oct. 4 invasion of Washington, the National Organization for Women will launch an accelerated national campaign against them with a news briefing and protest Monday, August 25 -- on the eve of Women's Equality Day, when U.S. women won the right to vote.

"The Promise Keepers speak about ‘taking back America' for Christ, but they also mean to take back the rights of women," said NOW President Patricia Ireland. "Their call for ‘submission' of women is one that doesn't have a place in either the pulpit or the public sphere in the 1990s."

NOW will show Sterling Research video footage that provides a chilling vision of the Promise Keepers' agenda for women. NOW President Patricia Ireland will speak about the dangers of this powerful "third wave" of the religious right.

Following the briefing, activists will demonstrate what women would lose if Promise Keepers succeed in trashing women's rights. NOW will set up an "Inequality Can" and activists will load it with symbols of gains the feminist movement has won women, starting with our voter registration cards and including our birth control bills, our advanced degrees, our paychecks, credit cards and the like.

BRIEFING:

What: Video "The Chosen Women"
Date: Monday, August 25, 1997
Time: 12 noon
Place: The Methodist Building
100 Maryland Ave., NE
(Across from the Supreme Court)

SPEAK OUT:

What: Women's In-equality Day Demonstration
Date: Monday, August 25, 1997
Time: 12:30 pm
Place: U.S. Supreme Court
1st St. & Maryland Avenue

Link to this press release at http://www.now.org/press/08-97/08-22-97.html