Presidential Commission on the Status of Women

External video

Prospects of Mankind with Eleanor Roosevelt; What Status For Women?, 59:07, 1962. Eleanor Roosevelt, chair of the Commission, interviews President John F. Kennedy, Secretary of Labor Arthur Goldberg and others, Open Vault from WGBH

The Presidential Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) was established to advise the President of the United States on issues concerning the status of women. It was created by John F. Kennedy's Executive Order signed December 14, 1961.

John F. Kennedy's administration proposed the President's Commission on the Status of Women to address people who were concerned about women's status while avoiding alienating the Kennedy administration's labor base through support of the Equal Rights Amendment. At the time, labor, which had been important to Kennedy's victory, opposed ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment believing instead that women required protective legislation—and fearing that the amendment would prevent this.

While running for the presidency in 1960, John F. Kennedy had earlier approached Eleanor Roosevelt for political support. Roosevelt refused to support him, remaining loyal to Adlai Stevenson II. She had disliked Kennedy's ties to Joe McCarthy and weak civil rights record. After Kennedy's election, he asked Roosevelt to chair a new commission proposed by Esther Peterson, then Director of the United States Women's Bureau. Roosevelt accepted appointment to chair the President's Commission on the Status of Women. This was her last public position.

Legislation related to women in the workplace up to this time had usually taken the form of protective legislation. Protective legislation advocated gender-based workplace restrictions specifically for women on the belief that their biological differences needed to be accommodated in the workplace. Supported by many 19th and early 20th century progressives including some we would now call feminists (difference feminists), protective legislation was supposed to help working women avoid workplace injury and exploitation. However, more often, protective legislation just provided employers with the justification to avoid hiring women altogether or to not pay them the same wages as men received. If women needed so many accommodations in the workplace, it was subsequently easier and cheaper for employers to only hire men.

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