Build Your Network
    YC Central is the new interactive webpage featuring BPW/USA and BPW Foundation resources for young careerists - young professionals and working women, recent graduates and college students. Featured items include election tools, webinars, blogs, surveys, social networking, and more!
    BPW/USA has created this resource for all young careerists as well as current members. We have membership options to fit busy lifestyles including our e-member category; access resources and information when and how your schedule permits.

Become an Advocate
    Interested in advocating and influencing policy for working women and families? Use our advocacy tools and materials to educate and lobby policy makers. Want to get out the vote this election cycle? Get engaged in the political process at all levels. Advocacy has always been the cornerstone of BPW/USA’s work and mission. Help us to increase our impact on public policy.        
    Share these resources with your network and other young careerists who can strengthen the workplace and help to realize our mission! Become an e-Member or Friend of BPW/USA today.

ERA in Draft of Democratic Party Platform!

     In town hall meetings, candidate forums, letters to the editor and one-on-one meetings, BPW/USA and its members have been pressing the presidential candidates and the major parties to return the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to its rightful place in the party platforms.  And it worked! 
    One week after BPW/USA CEO Deborah Frett met with Senator Obama and brought up the issue of the ERA’s place in the Democratic platform, the draft 2008 Democratic National Platform has been released and it contains strong statements in support of the ERA, pay equity, women’s health care, and CEDAW. Just like we asked!

The ERA text reads:
We are committed to ensuring full equality for women:  We reaffirm our support for the Equal Rights Amendment, recommit to enforcing Title IX, and will urge passage of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.  (page 46, lines 35-37)

The 2008 Democratic Party's 186-member Platform Committee met in Pittsburgh on Saturday, August 9th to discuss and adopt the final Democratic Party Platform that will be voted on at the Democratic Convention in Denver. This event was part of a process that began a month ago with more than 1,600 listening sessions and over 20,000 people participating in all 50 states to solicit input on the Party's platform.
    The DNC Platform Drafting Committee said, “The Democratic Party and Barack Obama will carry out the policies and ideas put forth in our Platform and bring real change we can believe in."
    The ERA last appeared in the Democratic Party Platform in 2000 and was absent from the platform in 2004. 
    The next step is for the draft platform to be approved by the delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Click here to find out who the delegates are from your state.  Please reach out to the delegates you know and encourage them to keep the ERA in the platform. 

Republican Party Platform
The Republican Party Platform Committee is still meeting and they have created a website to solicit input. You have to register to submit comments. Take a few moments to register and let the Republican Party know that you support the ERA.

Thank you for taking action!