salute you that to our knowledge, you have not been lobbied into doing this; that you have initiated this step and we are delighted to be here in a situation of support for your initiation. We would like to encourage you to go beyond this step toward working toward some dramatic solutions to the problems of women in midlife. The testimony that we are submitting has many statistics on the position of women in our society today, and it reviews the situation of women in midlife; especially it reviews what is the myth and outlines, in fact, what is the reality of women, and how the myth and the reality, in fact, drastically contrast. We feel that if you are going to address the problems of women in midlife you must recognize that these problems do not begin there, and that they are in total a part of sex discrimination. We were very pleased with the testimony of Dr. Joyce Brothers, who not only recognizes the problems of sexism, but ageism. And so, we do not have to repeat that right now. We go toward a solution that we think should be dramatic and large. The problem is not small. It would not be solved by just band-aid approaches or a limited program here or there. We feel that society has, at many times, faced massive problems and when they believe that they are important enough, they have massive solutions.

There are times in the life of a man that society has asked them to take off from their normal pursuit of activities and to give of their time and opportunity and, in fact, to give up their pursuit for their own personal goals. Those times we well recognize and I use the word "man" because, in fact, society has discriminated against women in serving their Nation in periods of national stress or defense and have had quota systems on females' performance. But they have, in fact, called upon men to give of their life in areas of war and national defense. Society then, because they realize that they have placed the burden on these men, have tried to compensate and to reward them with veterans' preference and veterans' benefits and, in fact, a whole concept of a veterans' "bill of rights."

Without commenting on that and some of its sex discriminatory aspects, I would like to have you start thinking in terms of the homemakers' bill of rights. Society has, in fact, asked women at many times in their life cycle to be there; to be available to rear the young, to be available to take care of the sick and the aging, and to, in fact, help out in various crises. What society, however, has done is called these crises personal. It has not called these crises of a national origin, but they have called these of a personal nature. And up until now, society has felt very little obligation toward these women who, in fact, have reordered and readjusted their lives to meet the crises at hand. We believe that these crises in toto are not just personal. In fact, they are national and they are society's crises. Our society has provided no basic child care, has provided very, very limited elderly care, nursing homes, and, in fact, has no real care for long-term illnesses or sicknesses. Who has paid for these needs have been females. And females have paid with their lives. What we say is that we should recognize what we have done as a society; how we have taken care of the young, and the old and the sick, and we should, in fact, provide for those who have taken care of them with something that is their basic right. We feel, in fact, that the notion that we should deal with the problem of women in midlife in a way of helping to relieve society's burden of taking care of them should be eliminated, and we should think of

dealing with this problem not as if they are a burden on our society, but, indeed, as if they have served our society, as they have served our society, and that they deserve for this service some basic inalienable rights. Among these rights we think the first should be educational rights. We list here several steps or several parts of an educational rights for homemakers and I will not repeat those rights we list, but let me say the underlining philosophy of these rights.

Basically for men, the family, both the parents and at a later time, the wife sacrifices to put the male through an educational program, and one thinks that this is necessary. Too often, for women nobody is willing to commit that sacrifice, neither the parents nor the husband. You know the whole story of putting hubby through; that wives constantly sacrifice their own earning power and their futures to increase the earning power of their spouses only to find in later life themselves deserted. It is not a story. It is reality. But if the reverse should occur, in which a man should sacrifice for a woman's education, we praise him, we think that he is absolutely noble. And yet, we expect it of females. Knowing this bias exists, we think there must be definite programs of loans to encourage education of females.

And let me state there is an absolute tragedy in the area of aid to families with dependent children in the area of welfare. We have a double bind in which we criticize people on welfare and yet, we know the bulk of these people are females taking care of children. And we do not provide or cover educational expenses, or a means, or an access to getting off of welfare. We must provide that as a basic right.

Second, we think that any "bill of rights" should have economic rights. And we think that homemakers should have economic rights, not only when they are in transition or have been displaced but basically while they are in the home itself. Essentially, the philosophy of rights for education in the home is based on one major consideration and that is that the home, indeed, is a partnership and also, it is an economic reality. It is a household income, not the income of one of the spouses; but it should be the income of the household. Therefore, we believe that there should be basic revisions of such things as the Federal income tax forms. Currently at the present time, joint income tax forms have a Catch 22 clause for females. When they are signed, a woman automatically becomes obligated to any fraudulent material on that income tax report. But the reverse is not true. She does not automatically have a right to half the income of that report. We believe that we should end the fiction that the household income of the person who is making the income in his name, that it is his alone. We think we should establish the reality that this income is jointly shared and that a woman should have a right to at least half of it.

We have, incidentally, a real proposal, and actual proposal called the Bonnie Plan, which has been introduced in Congress since 1973, to enact this. We believe that, in fact, the whole myth that this is not her income should end and that there should be no taxation, for example, of widows because they are not inheriting something that is not theirs, but something they have been a part of. Needless to say, we think that there must be an entire reform of the welfare system and that for women in the home, there must be provision of child care facilities.

Economic rights for homemakers in transition have been dramatized by a word called the displaced homemaker. We feel that the reason

that displaced homemakers have so many problems is because of the notion that, in fact, she has (1) not worked and, (2) that the income is not hers. Therefore, we think that there should be absolutely a revision of pension plans and social security laws in this country so that, in fact, she has a right to unemployment compensation, disability benefits and a right to her own retirement and pension plans. Essentially, any major homemaker bill of rights must have with it other major national programs. We believe that there must be a total development of an enactment of a national retirement program so that all citizens are insured a decent income in their later lives. As one Congressperson has just said, now on private pension programs men outnumber women

2 to 1.

What is the reality of the situation? The reality is that elderly women all over this country live in a state of poverty and neglect. We must, in fact, have the ratification of the equal rights amendment and without that there cannot be a guarantee of justice on the job for women, both in the marketplace and in the home; and that we will have a continuation of Government programs that discriminate in education and training, insurance, and pensions and credit on the basis of sex; and you know what that means. It means that females do not get a fair share. We feel that there must be a realistic development of a comprehensive child care legislation which would enable there to be no crisis in midlife.

Finally, national health insurance must include comprehensive coverage and must deal with the areas of reproductive health and drug abuse, alcohol abuse and the nature of depression for females. In essence, we think-and we urge you to think boldly. You know, we're always asked what are the costs of these programs and we reply that the cost of no programs means that women continue to pay with their lives for society's needs. And we believe that, in fact, all of us pay. If our mothers are living in a state of poverty because social security and their pension plans are inadequate, that means that we must adjust our lives.

If our daughters have limited educational opportunity, that impacts upon us and our future. And basically if the mothers and women of this country in midlife are continued to be discriminated against it means that all members of the society and the family suffer. But I am not going to jusify this basically on one concept of one type of woman, a mother or a person in a family setting that is traditional. The reality is that women live all different kinds of life-styles and patterns, and that they have, as their counterpart, basic rights to survival. You know, Mother's Day is going to be Sunday, and we say that we honor our mothers and we have just heard, and we know, it is an institution that is as sacred as any institution in our country. Yet, for many mothers what it means in economic terms is a zero on the earning records of our Social Security form and a blank resume. I wish that I could make come to life every statistic that we have heard. I do not speak as an academician, nor do I speak as a statistician; I speak from the experience of my own life. I speak as I wish I could bring to the light the experiences of my own mother who is 78, or my sister-in-law who is 56 facing a midlife crisis of displacement, of my own life of 14 years as a homemaker and the realization that no matter how much I make in the future it will not compensate for the zero years I will be

placing on social security or future pension plans. But most importantly, I speak and try to represent literally the thousands of women's lives that my life has come in contact with as an active feminist.

Literally, people treat NOW as an agency of last resort; we are not a Federal agency, we are a change-oriented organization, that is, a membership organization trying to bring about a society where injustice does not, in fact, exist. People do not know where to turn so they turn to us. Women in the middle of the night having somehow fled from their homes after a vicious beating call us up for help. We are the people at the other end of the phone, so these statistics when we speak of wife abuse, when we speak of neglect and depression we are not speaking in terms of statistics. All of us can feel it deeply. Most speeches that I give to midlife women or people in this age category, if I but address the issue of depression I can see the heads nodding. I can feel the people identifying with it and I know that some of them will come up afterwards to tell me of their particular plight and to hope that somehow I will have an answer for them. I have no answer. Except that we need a massive program to address the needs of women. So I call upon you and I urge you to have hearings on a homemaker's Bill of Rights and to, indeed, work hard to eliminate sex discrimination in our society. Do not fear criticism because, in fact, if you dream big enough your dreams will become the reality of tomorrow.

Ms. OAKAR [presiding]. On behalf of the committee I certainly want to thank you for a very eloquent, emotional, intellectual testimony that makes tremendous commonsense in our quest for human rights for all people and in particular, in this instance, women in this midlife situation. Just on a personal level, I want to thank you, Elly, and NOW for all the marvelous work you've done on behalf of the equal rights amendment and the extention here. We would not have done it without you and I certainly want to thank you for your help with the Susan B. Anthony coin bill which I introduced, and despite a little delay in production hopefully we will see that coin out in July. We hope everyone will use it.

MS. SMEAL. Thank you, Congresswoman Oaker. You have helped us in this area, and the coin, as I mentioned to you, we intend to use the Susan B. Anthony coins for the pursuit of equality for women and an ERA fund.

MS. OAKAR. That's good because we want it used and I can think of no better fund to use it for. I was struck by your testimony in particular, concerning homemakers and volunteers, and the fact that there's never a price tag set on those kinds of things. I remember we had a hearing in the Select Committee on Aging concerning volunteerism, and we had people testify that it was incalculable. They couldn't calculate the number of hours, and the time and the money that the individuals would have had to pay women in particular, because most volunteers happen to be women. With respect to homemakers, maybe that's the reason that the poor, because they have no pensions, et cetera, maybe that's the reason that the poorest person in the United States is the elderly female. I wanted to ask you about organizations such as NOW. They are, or should be, I would think you are, in the forefront of your efforts to mobilize the private sector, foundations, corporations, and activist groups to help midlife women. Can you tell me if NOW has taken any steps to encourage private corporations to hire midlife women?

Ms. SMEAL. Well, we are constantly reaching out to, frankly, all levels of our society, and the corporate level is not a level that we have neglected. But I fear, really, the specialized programs that I've heard about because I think that they must address the reality and I think that your testimony, Congresswoman, of the last witness showed some of the problems. The problems are on realistic pay expectations on the part of the corporate world, these of the midlife women. In fact, they are a tremendously exploited part of the labor force. They are in a bind. They have to have a livelihood. They have been told that their life experiences that are not in the area of gainful employment should not count and, therefore, they are in a position of being able to be easily victimized. They need the money desperately. Their expenses are not that of a young person; they're usually far more complicated because they have dependents that are dependent upon them, and yet, they frequently must begin at the minimum wage, which is out

rageous.

Ms. OAKAR. I want to ask you about the equal rights amendment because Dr. Joyce Brothers put that as her No. 1 point in terms of legislative pursuits that Congress and the Nation should have. Well, some critics have said that that's a younger woman's issue, and so forth. How would the equal rights amendment specifically help midlife and older women?

Ms. SMEAL. You see, we believe that the equal rights amendmentthe people that it will help most are people that have been most discriminated against. Essentially, a woman in midlife in facing a double burden of ageism and sexism. The various pension plans are almost totally sex discriminatory, but essentially employment is very, very discriminatory. So what we're saying is, what the ERA will do is hit solidly discrimination in both education and employment. Basically, for the midlife woman to ever have a fighting chance, she has to have a better opportunity in the areas of employment and education. Ms. OAKAR. You touched on an issue concerning drugs that I think we ought to have a full hearing on, because the elderly especially are victimized by certain doctors who just want to get them to sleep. But on page 3, you indicated that 32 million women have used tranquilizers prescribed by doctors. At the same time, 19 million men have been prescribed tranquilizers. Why are women treated differently? Ms. SMEAL. If I had to say, one of the reasons I'm an active feminist was my whole history with the medical profession because I had a serious illness. I can remember one time when I was in my late twenties and I was in an evening of entertainment with a neighborhood-type thing. There were about eight couples there. In fact, I will never forget it. I was 28 years of age. I found out that I was the only woman there that was not on tranquilizers that were prescribed. I was shocked. These were young women but they all had children and had been married maybe 8 to 10 years, and I said, "Well, why would you do it? I mean, why are you so nervous? What is the problem?" Essentially, the answer is always the same, that the doctor is saying, essentially, that they are not adjusting enough to life. One young person who had three kids and lived way out away from the city and not even nearby a shopping center; she was very nervous and the kids were very young and I said to her, "You know, I think something that would be cheaper than that doctor or those pills would be a second car. You are isolated." And essentially, that is one of the major problems of

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