At the final preparatory session before the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, the Feminist Majority Foundation joined with feminists from around the world in New York. Feminists worked successfully to strengthen the conference platform for action, to counter the Vatican's attempts to undermine conference participation and the platform, and to finalize plans for the Beijing non-governmental organization meeting.

The Feminist Majority Foundation co-convened a Reproductive Rights Caucus at the preparatory meeting. The caucus campaigned to include in the platform language calling for the decriminalization of abortion, recognition of sexual and reproductive rights, and acknowledgment of male responsibility in reproductive matters. Together with Anne-Marie Rey, President of the Union Suisse Pour Decriminaliser I'Avortement, Christine Onyango, the Foundation's International Programs Coordinator, led efforts to adopt the strongest possible language to build on commitments to reproductive health made at the International Conference for Population and Development (ICPD).

The Reproductive Rights Caucus, chaired by the Commonwealth Medical Association of Great Britain, included women's health advocates from Europe, North America, Latin America, the Carribean, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. The Reproductive Rights Caucus worked in concert with a Reproductive Health caucus.

The U.S. Network for Women, which is comprised of some 200 American groups, worked with other organizations from around the world to rebuff the Vatican's efforts and ultimately helped win full accreditation for Catholics for a Free Choice. U.S. Network for Women co-chairs, Eleanor Smeal and Sarah Moten, released a letter to the U.S. delegation denouncing the Vatican's efforts to politicized the accreditation process and supporting the participation of Catholics for a Free Choice in the Conference.

The Feminist Majority Foundation, on behalf of the U.S. Network for Women, also organized a fax campaign in support of Catholics for a Free Choice, generating over 100 letters to the committee charged with resolving the accreditation issue.

The Vatican reportedly intends to spend twice as much money on organizing for the Fourth World Conference on Women as they did on their activities related to the ICPD.

On another accreditation issue, the U.S. Network for Women supported several U.S., Canadian, and European-based groups that are being denied permission to participate in the Fourth World Conference on Women, ostensibly because of their work on behalf of Tibetan women.

Early in the preparatory meeting, the U.S. Network for Women also sponsored a briefing for U.S. delegates to the conference. The briefing, led by Moten and Smeal, stressed the importance of U.S. ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, reproductive health care access, human rights, economic equity, and the concerns of young women. Former Congresswoman Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, the newly appointed working head of the e egation, and a majority of U.S. delegates attended the briefing.

The New York preparatory meeting also provided an opportunity for feminists from around the world to share strategies. The Feminist Majority Foundation presented a workshop on "Gender Balance Strategies in Politics, the Workplace and Education." Foundation Director of Policy and Research Dr. Jennifer Jackman was joined on the panel by Anne-Marie Rey of the Union Suisse Pour Decriminaliser I'Avortement, Selina Mumbengegwi of the Zimbabwe Women's Action Group, and Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi of the London-based Akina Mama wa Afrika.

Panelists discussed successful strategies in their countries to achieve gender balance in policing, to recruit women candidates, to increase the representation of women in senior management positions, to provide education and leadership training to increase the pool of women leaders, and to counter the anti-feminist backlash. The Foundation plans to co-sponsor a series of gender balance workshops in Beijing.

At the preparatory meeting, Feminist Majority Foundation staff also worked closely with the Youth Caucus to ensure that the views of girls and women of all ages were reflected in the platform for action. Alia Khan of the Feminist Ma . Majority helped devise the lobbying strategy for the Youth Caucus and led a session for Caucus members on how to work with government delegations to strengthen the platform's commitment to young women.

In addition to providing leadership for the Youth and Reproductive Rights Caucuses, the Feminist Majority Foundation presented delegates with extensive recommendations in the areas of pay equity, gender impact analysis, violence against women, structural adjustment, and education.

The Foundation also released detailed, easy-to-use analyses of United Nations Platforms for Action (19751995), platforms adopted by governments at the five regional preparatory meetings, and platforms from non-governmental organizations in the five regions. For copies of the platform analyses, contact Christine Onyango at (703)522-2214.

A group started by European feminists has asked the International Olympic Committee, (IOC) to bar countries that do not allow women on their teams from participating in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.

The group, Atlanta Plus, notes that some countries do not allow women to represent them at the Olympics, either by explicitly or quietly banning women, or by creating adverse social pressure to women athletes. Atlanta Plus says that countries barring women from the Olympics include Iran, Kuwait, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. During the 1992 Summer Olympics, 34 countries had no women athletes representing them.

In Algeria, many women's sports teams have been disbanded, and Algerian runner Hassiba Boulmerka, who won a gold medal in the 1992 Summer Olympics, has been denounced and threatened by Islamic fundamentalists in her country for revealing her legs in front of men spectators.

Atlanta Plus is asking the International Olympic Committee to treat gender discrimination like race discrimination. Just as South Africa was banned from the Olympics because they did not allow blacks to represent them, so should countries that discriminate against women be banned from Olympic participation.

The Olympic charter states that "any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, sex or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olym. pic Movement." The initial reaction from the IOC was that Atlanta Plus was attacking Islam, and that the exclusion of women was not an Olympic issue.

The reaction from United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights, Ayala Lasso, was more positive. Lasso said that sex discrimination was a "civic sin" and agreed that Atlanta Plus was correct in asking the IOC to follow their own charter.

In the United States, organizing for Atlanta Plus is just getting started, with plans to ask the corporate sponsors of the Atlanta Olympics to pressure the IOC to enforce their charter. In a recent meeting with Atlanta Plus coordinator Linda Weil-Curiel, Feminist Majority Foundation President Eleanor Smeal and Director of Policy and Research Jennifer Jackman pledged to mobilize U.S. women to urge actions against countries that limit women's athletic and Olympic participation.

"On the scoreboard of sports equity, men have an unfair advantage," points out Eleanor Smeal, President of the Feminist Majority Foundation. "In the competition for college athletic scholarship dollars, men receive 70%, women 30%. Only 17% of athletic recruiting budgets are spent on women intercollegiate athletes. When it comes to coaches' salaries, women are often paid about half of what men are paid. It's time to even the score."

Empowering Women in Sports shows that women have benefited tremendously from Title IX, the federal law passed in 1972 that prohibits gender discrimination in federally-funded education, including athletics. For example, women were only 15.6% of intercollegiate athletes in 1972; by 1993 that percentage had grown to 34.8%.

Yet Title IX has never been strongly enforced by the federal government. "Because of inadequate enforcement, women have had to file civil rights complaints and lawsuits against colleges and universities to force compliance with the law," says Molly Yard, chair of the Feminist Majority Foundation's Task Force on Women and Girls in Sports. "This strategy has been successful, but it is also too costly and time-consuming for individual women athletes. The federal government must enforce the law."

Football coaches have always argued that their sport should be exempted from Title IX because football generates revenues to Support other sports. This is just one of the myths debunked by Empowering Women in Sports. In fact, only 19% of college football teams made a profit, and most run at a significant deficit.

Empowering Women in Sports also points out that the current model of athletics heavily favors only the 11 superboy" athlete, leaving out women and all men who are not superstars. The report makes a case for "lifetime" sports such as swimming, biking, and tennis, in which everyone can participate. A recent study shows that regular exercise - as little as one to four hours/week - can reduce the risk of contracting premenopausal breast cancer.

Copies of Empowering Women in Sports, will be available through our Feminist Majority Store.

Title IX Under Attack - Again

"Protect men's sports" is the not-so new cry in the world of athletics. This spring, hearings will be held in Congress on Title IX, the twenty-two year-old federal law that prohibits gender discrimination in federally-funded education, including athletics, to determine whether the implementation of the law is hurting men's sports.

The American Football Coaches Association is again asking that football be exempted from Title IX. This request has been rejected in the past, but apparently the football coaches hope the new Republican-controlled Congress will be more sympathetic. The football coaches' argument has even drawn ridicule from Sports Illustrated, which wondered whether football players considered themselves a "third sex."

In addition, coaches of some men's minor sports like wrestling, swimming, and gymnastics are asking the Department of Education to rethink the way it enforces Title IX. These coaches, as well as twenty-two U.S. Senators led by Sen. John Breaux (R-LA), have written to the Department of Education to complain that men's sports are hurt when colleges and universities are forced to offer athletic opportunities for women and men in proportion to the female and male student enrollment.

"We are not in favor of cutting men's sports, and Title IX does not require it," explained Molly Yard, chair of the Feminist Majority Foundation's Task Force on Women and Girls in Sports. "It is a myth that as women gain opportunities, men lose them. As women's athletic participation has grown, so has men's."

The Feminist Majority, along with other women's groups, is conducting a letter-writing campaign to Congress and the Department of Education to ask them not to do away with the proportionality rule, nor to exempt football players from title IX.