by Nancy Major, Member AAUW California Public Policy Committee
Why do AAUW’s Public Policy Priorities matter? They shape the actions that we take as an organization, socially and legally.
AAUW’s mission is to advance equity for women and girls. Our Public Policy Priorities guide how we encourage active citizenship toward the goal of advancing our mission. There are four branches to our Public Policy Priorities: Economic Security, Equal Access to Quality Public Education, Social and Racial Justice, and Increased representation of Women in Leadership roles. Each of these priorities is further broken down into several action-oriented subcategories, such as enforcement of Title IX and passage of the ERA.
As active participants in society we can help shape the laws and society that govern us, such as healthcare, environmental policies, sex education, curriculum and book banning, housing, childcare, voting rights, immigrants’ rights, sexual harassment, domestic violence, racial and LGBTQ discrimination, and Title IX enforcement. We “advocate” or promote our mission through research, education and lobbying for legislation on the international, national, state, and local levels.
History has shown that our advocacy has made a big impact on national, state and local laws. In California alone, you can see the laws that AAUW sponsored, authored, and/or promoted, including those that were passed in the most recent session by going to AAUW California Bill Tracking Report 2024 – Google Sheets. AAUW is also doing impactful work internationally, working to curtail human trafficking and promote civil and human rights for all immigrants, including through participation in the UN Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Over the next four years, there will be a lot of opportunities to use this legislative advocacy to push back against attempts to overturn long standing human rights and civil rights protections.
Our Public Policy Priorities also shape our efforts to push forward programs that break through educational and economic barriers for women such as speaker programs, scholarships, oversight of local school boards, leadership and salary training, STEM opportunities for students, and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs.
Why do our Public Policy Priorities matter? They make us the most effective advocates for our collective mission to protect and expand gender equity. At the branch and individual levels, we can take advantage of as many opportunities as possible to operationalize our Public Policy Priorities, and through this work to actively promote AAUW’s mission. AAUW as an organization relies on the branches to stay informed and to keep track of where our Public Policy Priorities may fall short, to form coalitions with local allies who have similar missions, and to assign branch members to focus where we can have the most impact.
