We’re About Education for Women, or Are We?
The raging discussion among AAUW members has to do with the proposed changes in the organization’s membership requirements. At the present time, in order to become a member of the American Association of University Women, you must have graduated from at least a two year degree program. So an A.A., R.N. or bachelor’s is all you need. You don’t even have to be a woman. Now they have decided that the key to declining membership is to eliminate the education requirement.
It’s a dumb idea.
The organization was founded about 125 years ago by educated women who sought other educated women with whom they could share time. The idea was to promote education among women and make it more acceptable in general society for women to attend college for something other than the M.R.S. degree. As time advanced, it became a good place for educated women to hobnob with other educated women outside of their home lives. As one of my older friends told me, it offered her the chance to have adult conversations - no kids and no P.T.A. talk, thus ending the kind of isolation many college grads felt as they lived through the 1950s when they were expected to be stay-at-home moms.
For some reason, the organization has become irrelevant to younger women. Perhaps it is because they have greater opportunities elsewhere. Perhaps it is because they are overscheduled with loading kids into SUVs and trucking them off to one activity after another. Or perhaps the problem is that some branches are set in their ways and aren’t as welcoming to new members or changes in their activities that meet the needs of a younger generation. Whatever it is, they decided upon opening up membership to anyone, regardless of age, and now we’ll be known only by the letters, not the words.
It’s a dumb idea.
My niece, who presides over an urban branch, notices the shifts and also, being the pragmatist, says we should defeat that motion at the convention and move on. It will not solve the problem of bringing in new members, and we need better solutions to expanding membership.
My spouse’s opinion is that if AAUW seeks to close the gap in economic parity for women and girls through education, then it cannot talk the talk without walking the walk. To eliminate the education requirement, he thinks, will gut the core purpose of the organization. I think he’s on to something.
The Roanoke Valley Branch is thrilled when we gain younger members. We’re happy to include activities that appeal to them. A case in point is that we have some movement to provide support for the women returning to college through the Hollins University Horizon program. A younger woman is spearheading that, and she has our 100% support. The branch extended a gift membership to the Virginia Teacher of the Year, who finally got a chance to attend an event - our annual meeting where we awarded our six $1500 scholarships. She was blown away by that, and realized what I had been badgering her about - AAUW can be of assistance with her program for girls, G.R.O.W. As her duties as the T.O.Y. wind down, I look for her to become more active. A gift membership was also extended to a young lawyer, who has already been networking.
The point is, we’re going out of our way to identify young women, and to give them the extra incentive to join, we’re getting the ball rolling during the reduced membership fee period. It gets them in the door, and once we get them hooked into activities that are meaningful for them, our branch will be awash with fresh ideas and renewed enthusiasm. We love our young women! We want them to stick with us to work for the kinds of things that made Lilly Ledbetter a household term.
Eliminating the membership requirement of a degree isn’t going to get the branches who are stuck in the mud out of trouble. Their organizations have to undergo some deep soul-searching and face the question of what if. They have to decide if it’s worth it to stay mired in the same old. They have to adjust to change, but no one said the change had to challenge our belief in education as the way to equity for women.
I’m in the demographic that is between the young women and the elders. I haven’t been involved for as many years as I have been eligible, but for the few years I have been in the organization, I’ve seen the need for new blood. It is a point of pride that my niece leads the Chicago branch. It doesn’t seem that long ago when I was shopping for appliqued Florence Eisenman dresses for her! I have encouraged our T.O.Y. to get her friends to come along with us. We have a lot of work to put on our annual book sale, and we also need to be preparing for a day when that sale is no longer feasible. Younger women bring a different set of ideas and perspectives to such problems, and it is that which we value, and are actively seeking. If other branches aren’t seeing the light in that regard, then changing the membership requirement isn’t going to help.
So, it’s a dumb idea.
And with any luck, AAUW women who follow this blog will chime in - not just to me, but to the leadership of their branches and to the delegates who will attend the convention in June. Demand better answers from national AAUW leadership. This one is a cop-out, and they know it. They know what we know.
It’s a dumb idea.
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The following comments are from Nancy Shoemaker, a very thoughtful AAUW member who hosts a Facebook site called AAUW: Breaking OUR Barrier. As with many of my readers, she finds the method of submitting comments to this blog unwieldy, so she took me up on my offer to copy and paste. So should you all who can’t seem to get a password, etc.
Anyway, I find your rhetorical device “it’s a dumb idea” and the persistent we/they to be unhelpful.
On a conference call last month, I heard Ruth Sweetser get quite emotional about the attacks she gets because people find our website, see that they agree with our mission, get ready to join — and then find they cannot. We are hurting people who could be our allies. It just doesn’t make sense to me.
Obviously, opening the membership is not the only answer. Your comments about how branches need to change their behavior to be more welcoming and project oriented are on target. I laud your branch’s fundraising prowess. But I’m in the group that wants to recruit members to join an organization that will not demand much of them — just give them the satisfaction of being part of a powerful network that works on equity for women and girls. And I can do that much more easily if I don’t need to dance around the degree requirement — or, perhaps more importantly, rationalize the degree requirement to those who are eligible but are fundamentally opposed to joining a group with such a restriction.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out… Perhaps it’s my view of how many hours have gone into the discussions surrounding the new bylaws that makes me want to give them a try. Perhaps I’m just being a Pollyanna in refusing to believe that “they” are working against “us” — and if they are, there’s a much bigger problem that it’s unlikely the organization will survive.
AAUW has been good to me. I hope I’ll be able to give something back, and that the children of my nieces and nephews will see real change. But I’m not a life member …
April 16th, 2009 at 10:09 amI am one of those younger members. I admit to being torn about the membership issue. I understand and relate to both sides.
As I read Nancy’s response there was one portion that, well…Here is the comment.
“But I’m in the group that wants to recruit members to join an organization that will not demand much of them — just give them the satisfaction of being part of a powerful network that works on equity for women and girls.”
Not demand much of them? Equity is not going to be handed to us. We cannot achieve anything sitting down.
If you want to be in an organization that gives you notoriety, influence, and fringe benefits then join a sorority.
My father is a Shriner. The purpose of the organization is to raise awareness and money to run hospitals for children. To alleviate the burden on families who cannot afford good medical care, Shriners give of their time and themselves for this cause.
Unfortunately there are some members who become Shriners so that they can say, “Hey, I am a Shriner.” They are under the assumption that the membership entitles them to the best jobs and the best of everything else.
If AAUW is an organization whose primary focus is gaining favors based on membership, then I need to reconsider my own membership. I thought I joined an organization of like minded women whose primary concern is helping other women and girls achieve equity and equality in this male dominated society. An organization whose methodology is based in hard work from all members for the whole of the gender, not favoritism.
That is what Junior Leagues, country clubs, and bridge clubs are for.
May 15th, 2009 at 1:44 pm