HISTORY
OF
CIM
Creation
of CIM, Havana, Cuba, 1928
Women
from all the American nations came to Havana in 1928 demanding that they
be allowed to participate in the Sixth International Conference of
American States and that the members of the conference ratify an Equal
Rights Treaty. Drafted by Alice Paul of the National Women's Party in the
United States, the treaty would have moved the consideration of women's
rights into political debates throughout the hemisphere. In spite of the
expectations raised in 1923, not one woman was included in the delegation
of any country. Representatives of twenty-one member nations argued that
only they were allowed to speak on the floor and that the meeting's agenda
had no room for discussion of a treaty on equal rights.
After
a month of protests and active campaigning, the women were finally allowed
a voice at the conference. For the first time women officially spoke at a
plenary and public session of a Pan American conference. To hear the first
speeches, "more that a thousand women filled the galleries,
staircases, and the conference floor of the University of Havana's great
hall." Although the Treaty for Equal Rights was not ratified, the
decision was taken to create the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM)
and to charge it with conducting a study of the legal status of women in
the Americas, which would be presented to the next International
Conference of American States.
The creation of CIM was the product
of emerging women's movements throughout the hemisphere and reflected a
growing cooperation between the women of North and South America. Doris
Stevens, the first president of CIM, and many other feminist leaders often
evoked the notion of Pan Americanism. Addressing the 1928 conference,
Stevens stressed "the necessity of action through the Pan American
Conference, not by separate countries, in obtaining equal rights for women
in all the American republics."
|
|
|
|
Alice
Paul, leader of the National Women's Party
(United States)
|
Doris Stevens, in her
historic address to the
Sixth International Conference of American States in Havana, calling for the recognition
of women's
rights in the Americas (1928) |
