wfn.org | UMW brings 10,000 letters to Seneca Falls event

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

July 21, 1998	Contact: Linda Bloom*(212) 870-3803*New York
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By United Methodist News Service

United Methodist Women (UMW) commemorated the 150th anniversary of the
declaration of women's rights made in Seneca Falls, N.Y., by continuing
the call against the discrimination of women.

Sara Shingler of Spartanburg, S.C., the national UMW president,
presented about 10,000 handwritten letters to Congress during a July 18
event outside the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel at the national park there.

The chapel is where about 300 people, led by pioneer feminist Elizabeth
Cady Stanton and others, ratified a "Declaration of Sentiments" in 1848,
demanding equal rights for women, including the right to vote and own
property.

The letters, written during the UMW Assembly in Orlando, Fla., in May,
call upon the U.S. Senate to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The United States is
the only western democracy that has not endorsed the document, adopted
by the United Nations in 1979.

Shingler told United Methodist News Service that the UMW involvement in
the Seneca Falls event was important because "no real emphasis was given
to the convention in any other way."

Ruth Wheat, a UMW district president from Clifton Springs, N.Y.,
introduced Lynn Woolsey, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from California. Although the House will not vote on CEDAW, Woolsey has
asked its members to sign on to a simple statement in support of the
convention.

Four of the letters - which had been stacked in three piles to represent
the senators' positions of for, against or undecided on CEDAW - were
symbolically presented to Woolsey by Shingler. The entire batch later
was transported to Washington D.C. to be delivered to individual
senators.

Anna Rhee, an executive with the Women's Division, United Methodist
Board of Global Ministries, participated in a July 19 panel discussion
on women's rights in a tent outside Stanton's home. 

"The most surprising thing was how many of the women who were present
did not know about the convention," said Shingler about that event. "We
need to do more to let the general public know that this exists."

Like the earlier Declaration of Sentiments, CEDAW addresses the rights
of women socially, politically, economically, culturally and in family
life. It also requires countries to guarantee equal rights and treatment
in regard to voting rights, access to the political system, citizenship
and legal rights.

The United Methodist Church officially has supported CEDAW since 1988,
when its General Conference urged members "to work through local and
national organizations to encourage their governments not only to ratify
but also to implement the Convention."

United Methodist News Service
(615)742-5470
Releases and photos also available at
http://www.umc.org/umns/