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From Suffrage to the Senate America's Political Women: An Encyclopedia of Leaders, Causes & Issues

Federally Employed Women

Founded in 1968 to fight gender discrimination in employment by the U.S. government, Federally Employed Women (FEW) grew out of a conference for executive women employed by the federal government. The catalyst for FEW’s organization had occurred the year before, when Executive Order 11375 had added sex to the forms of discrimination prohibited within the federal government and by its contractors in Executive Order 11246. Executive Order 11375 also established the Federal Women’s Program (FWP) to enhance women’s employment opportunities in the federal government. FEW’s organizers believed that the measure had the potential for improving women’s opportunities and at the same time believed that implementation and enforcement of its provisions deserved monitoring.

FEW’s structure includes chapter, state, and national levels that each have four program areas: legislative, training, compliance, and diversity. The legislative area involves developing an agenda, educating members, lobbying members of Congress, offering testimony, and monitoring legislative action. Legislative priorities have included support for affirmative action, improvements in processing employment complaints, an end to sexual harassment, and protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation. Other priority areas are child care, elder care, and access to benefits for women in the military.

In the area of compliance, FEW officers work with departmental and agency management to encourage their enforcement of Executive Order 11375 and to monitor the effectiveness of the Federal Women’s Program. Although not a labor union, FEW’s representatives help agencies develop goals and objectives to achieve equality of opportunity in the federal workforce. At a 1997 congressional hearing on discrimination in the federal workforce, FEW’s president testified that most women continued to work in the lowest-paying jobs, that thousands of discrimination complaints were filed annually, and that resolutions of the complaints took too long.

In 2008, FEW called for more specific definitions of agency responsibilities for fulfilling the Federal Women’s Program. FEW also called for enforcement mechanisms for agencies that do not comply with the regulations.

In the 2010s, FEW’s major program areas include: legislative, training, compliance, and diversity.

See also: Affirmative Action; Child Day Care; Executive Order 11375; Federal Women’s Program; Lesbian Rights; Military, Women in the; Sex Discrimination; Sexual Harassment

References: Federally Employed Women, http://www.few.org/about-us/few-history/.,http://www.few.org/docs/newsroom/fwpmemo.pdf (both accessed July 19, 2012); and Federally Employed Women, www.few.org (accessed January 10, 2019).

Citation Types

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MLA 9th
"Federally Employed Women." From Suffrage to the Senate America's Political Women: An Encyclopedia of Leaders, Causes & Issues, edited by Suzanne O’Dea, Salem Press, 2019. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Suffrage3e_0331.
APA 7th
Federally Employed Women. From Suffrage to the Senate America's Political Women: An Encyclopedia of Leaders, Causes & Issues, In S. O’Dea (Ed.), Salem Press, 2019. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Suffrage3e_0331.
CMOS 17th
"Federally Employed Women." From Suffrage to the Senate America's Political Women: An Encyclopedia of Leaders, Causes & Issues, Edited by Suzanne O’Dea. Salem Press, 2019. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Suffrage3e_0331.