Timeline: 1997

Eleanor Smeal delivers a National Press Club Speech, "From Gender Gap to Gender Gulf: Abortion, Affirmative Action, and the Radical Right." Smeal, who was the first to discover the gender gap in voting in l980, makes the case that the gender gap in voting which is widening is being fuel by the perception that the Republicans are blocking women's advances by their opposition to legal abortion, affirmative action and their alignment with a Radical Right which is opposed to women's rights. Smeal urges the passage of a federal Women's Equality Act and amending the Voting Rights Act to help win equal representation for women.

Working with domestic violence organizations, the Feminist Majority helps organize campaign to protect the Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban. Passed in September 1996, the law prohibits people convicted of domestic violence misdemeanor charges from owning or possessing guns. The NRA and police organizations attempt to gut the ban by exempting police and military personnel and eliminating retroactive enforcement. In its first year, the ban kept 2,000 abusers from purchasing guns. The Feminist Majority Foundation's National Center for Women and Policing provides cutting-edge research for the campaign, revealing that 40 percent of police families experience physical marital violence, compared to 16 percent of the general population. Exempting police officers and military personnel from the law would allow convicted domestic violence offenders to continue working in a position that required the use of a gun, and put them in a position to enforce domestic violence law. The National Center for Women and Policing features police domestic violence in its annual conference.

The Feminist Majority joins the National Network to End Domestic Violence in protesting a speech by NRA lobbyist Tanya Metaska who advocates gun ownership for victims of domestic violence.

VICTORY - Feminist Majority urges confirmation of Alexis Herman as U.S. Secretary of Labor. Herman became the first African American woman Secretary of Labor.

NEW INITIATIVE - Feminist Majority participates in demonstration in front of the U.S. State Department against the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban militia in Afghanistan which, upon taking over the capital city of Kabul in September 1996, prohibited women from working, attending school, or leaving their homes without a male relative. The Feminist Majority also organized informational events and demonstrations in front of the Afghan and Pakistan embassies.

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