NAWSA GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE International Woman's Suffrage Alliance — 1936 TELEPHONE : VICTORIA 0285 TELEGRAMS : VOCORAJTO. International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship. HEADQUARTERS : 190, VAUXHALL BRIDGE ROAD, LONDON, S.W.1. ENGLAND. PRESIDENT : MARGERY CORBETT ASHBY, 33. UPPER RICHMOND ROAD, LONDON, S.W.15, ENGLAND. 5th February 1936. Personal letter from the President of the Alliance to Presidents of Auxiliaries. My dear President, STATUS OF WOMEN In sending you the enclosed necessarily long communication, I want to make a personal appeal to you to give it very full consideration and to regard this as an urgent piece of work for your society. The woman's movement in most countries is facing difficulties, not only with the Government and the general public, but with women themselves, particularly in regard to securing the interest and co-operation of the younger women. We think that this question of the Status of Women now raised internationally may and should be used to obtain publicity and arouse interest among those to whom the word "feminism" speaks only of an out-of-date struggle. In many countries, having won certain rights for women, our movement is in danger of losing its vital force and we might say that its re-organisation must be "now or never". Let it be "now", using this opportunity to get a united front among women's societies however they may differ on some questions, and putting out the last ounce of our strength to make the question of women's status a matter of public interest - the only way in which to catch the attention of the vast body of women. We have an opportunity of doing an important and concrete piece of work, both nationally and internationally, let us make the most of it. Believe me, my dear President, Yours sincerely, Ms. Corbett Ashby. President TELEPHONE : VICTORIA 0285 TELEGRAMS : VOCORAJTO. International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship. HEADQUARTERS : 190, VAUXHALL BRIDGE ROAD, LONDON, S.W.1. ENGLAND. PRESIDENT : MARGERY CORBETT ASHBY, 33. UPPER RICHMOND ROAD, LONDON, S.W,15, ENGLAND. 5th February 1936 To Presidents of Alliance Auxiliaries. Dear Madam, LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND STATUS OF WOMEN In our letter of December 10th last we sent you a copy of the Statement on Nationality and Status of Women presented by the Alliance to the last Assembly of the League of Nations, informing you that we should shortly be writing to you on the second question. The Assembly adopted a Resolution on the Status of Women, copy of which we attach. You will see that there are two recommendations: 1. National: that the League should ask Governments for their observations and "for information as to the existing political and civil status of women under their respective laws". 2. International: that the women's international organisations should continue the study of the economic and civil status of women. Economic status. You will notice that economic status is omitted from these recommendations, yet on the economic status of women depends their real equality with men. The Assembly was nervous of overlapping the domain of the International Labour Office. But the reference in the last paragraph of the Resolution to the I.L.O. of the study merely of certain aspects of labour legislation, though necessary and valuable, does not cover the whole field of economic status. We are giving careful study as to how best to ensure that when this question comes before the League of Nations again, this vital aspect of equal status shall not, in effect, be put on one side. In the meantime we shall certainly include the economic status in our own study of the whole question. NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS. In this letter we particularly wish to deal with the question of observations and information to be supplied by Governments. This was discussed by the Liaison Committee of Women's International Organisations, of which the Alliance is a member, and all the societies represented agreed to recommend to their national societies that they should confer with other national organisations and jointly prepare a Memorandum on the status of women in their country for submission to their national Government, this Memorandum to include any proposals they may wish to make in order to secure the equal status of men and women in their laws and custom. We hope that you will include facts on the economic status of women in this National Memorandum and that in approaching your Government you will stress the importance women's organisations attach to this economic question. At the same time it is more than probable that the communication from the Secretary General having mentioned only political and civil status, the Governments may not at the present moment be willing to go beyond these two points. We should be particularly glad to learn what your experience with your Government may be as this would help us in whatever action our international women's organisations may take either with the League of Nations or the International Labour Office to secure that economic questions are as fully dealt with and are the subject of as complete official as well as unofficial information as those of political and civil status. -2- ACTION BY THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS. We believe that your Government will have received a communication from the Secretary General of the League of Nations at the end of October. This communication merely quoted the Resolution and requested Governments to supply the League with their observations and information as requested in the Resol-ution. We would like to suggest that you should inform your Government - if possible by a joint communication from all or as many as possible of the women's organisations interested - that you are proposing o prepare a Momorandum and expressing the hope that the Government will in a matter so vitally affecting women's interests, consult with the organisations as to the terms of its eventual reply to the League. Liaison with other societies. If for this purpose you have already been able to establish liaison between the women's societies, he way will be open for joint work on the National Memorandum suggested above and on recommendations for reform. There can be no doubt that pro-perly used te raising of this question by the League of Nations does provide a magnificent opportunity for women t express their views and call attention to their disabilities. If it is difficult for you in the ordinary way to secure te attention of you Government to you claims, here is an occasion when for the sake of their inter-national credit they can hardly fail to take some action. You will also have an opportunity of stating your case to an international tribunal and focussing attention throughout the world on the very cogont reasons women have for continued agitation in favour of an equal share in the political, social and economic life of their country. Law and Custom. Unless women's organisations concern themselves with the presentation of facts both of law and practice as they know them, there is a possibility that the information from your country supplied by your Government may fail to present the entire position. The mere citation of Acts of Parliament without commentary as to methods of application or interpretation given by officials, might easily fail to disclose the actual situation of women. It is the national societies and the national socieites alone which can insure that such partial information is made impossible. INTERNATIONAL MEMORANDUM This brings us to point 2. of the Assembly Resolution: study by the women's international organisations. Here again the value of such study rests upon the co-operation of the national societies. It seems to us that if you prepare, or have already prepared, a National Memor-andum for your Government as indicated above, you will have in your hands a document which if forwarded to the Alliance will give us the means of presenting a really full and reliable international Memorandum to the League of Nations, and possibly to the I.L.O. as regards con-citions of work. Co-operation with other international organisations. We are hoping to work on the collection of necessary information in co-operation with other women's international organisations, members of the Liaison Committee so as to have a really comprehensive survey on which to base our Statement. There may be among the Auxiliaries of the Alliance some countries which are not represented on other international bodies. We appeal to all our societies therefore to send us their National docu-ment so that we may be able to make a valuable contribution to the common stock from which we hope will emerge such a volume of opinion from the woman's movement that it will be impossible to disregard it. If as we hope we are to use your Memorandum to your Government for this purpose, so avoiding a further demand on you, it would be a great help in collating the Memoranda from different countries if you would collect your information under the headings suggested on the attached -3- sheet. This does not of course purpose to be a rigid questionnaire but the same arrangement of facts from all countries would greatly facilitate our task. The latest date by which we hope to receive this information will be given to you later, but we hope that you will start your national work at once. Yours sincerely, M.I. CORBETT ASHBY President Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.