Myths and Facts about Women’s Clubs
Myth: Women’s clubs were popular in the early years of the last century,
but now they are dying out.
Fact: Although the General
Federation of Women’s Clubs has seen a decline in membership since the 1950s and
1960s, it currently boasts 100,000 members in more than 4,000 clubs active in
communities large and small across the United States and affiliates in a dozen
countries around the world.
Myth: Women’s clubs
don’t deal with “serious” issues; they merely provide a setting for women to
have lunch and play bridge.
Fact: GFWC clubs are involved with issues crucial to women today. Women's
health, care of the elderly, and domestic violence are some of the issues high on the list of their projects for the 21st
century.
Myth: Women’s clubs are
mostly garden or social clubs.
Fact: While there is nothing bad about garden and social clubs, GFWC
clubs do not fall into those categories. Volunteering is the main purpose of
GFWC clubs and in recent years they have increased the kinds of volunteering
they do, the number of hours they contribute and the amount of money they
donate.
Myth: Only older women
belong to women’s clubs and many of them still wear white gloves.
Fact: The profile, as well as the apparel of clubwomen has changed. GFWC
women’s clubs include women of all ages, even junior and high school-aged girls.
Myth: Women’s Clubs
have not adapted to the needs of working women.
Fact: For many years now GFWC clubs have been holding evening, day and
lunchtime meetings and amore and more of them are moving to weekend conventions
to suit career and child-care schedules.
Myth: Women who join
women’s clubs tend to have nothing else to do with their time.
Fact: Many members of GFWC have careers in private industry, own their
own businesses, teach school or hold elected offices in state and local
government.
Myth: Women’s clubs
tend to work for a single issue and if that issue doesn’t interest all of the
members, some people are just left out.
Fact: GFWC clubs can choose programs in six departments:
- Arts
- Conservation
- Education/Literacy
- Home Life (which includes projects in independent living for people with disabilities, status of women, health issues and aging.)
- International Affairs
- Public Affairs
Myth: Women who
volunteer generally have no real skills and cannot possibly be successful in a
paid position.
Fact: While many women with minimal skills join clubs, they often acquire
a strong level of expertise and leadership skills that enable them to go on to
excellent paid positions. Equally true is the fact that many women bring the
skills of the workplace into the clubs.
Myth: Women’s clubs
were begun by housewives who just needed an outlet for their frustrations.
Fact: A New York newspaper woman, Jane Cunningham Croly, known as “Jennie
June”, founded the woman’s club Sorosis, in 1868 after she and other female
journalists were denied admission to a press club meeting to hear the famous
British author, Charles Dickens. The purpose of Sorosis was to enable women to
work and learn together and reach out to “larger aims.” Twenty-one years after
it was founded, “Jennie June” invited representatives of other women’s clubs to
form a federation.
Myth: Women’s clubs are
irrelevant today – they don’t make much of a difference in their communities.
Fact: Some 17 million hours and more than 50 million dollars were donated
by club members to 173,295 volunteer projects between 1998 and 2000.
Myth: Although some
GFWC clubs may make and impact on the local level, women’s clubs have not moved
into the national and international arenas the way groups such as NOW, AARP,
Lions and others have.
Fact: Since it was founded in 1890, GFWC can point with pride to the role
its clubs have played establishing 75 percent of the country’s public libraries,
working for the enactment of the first child labor law, fighting for property
rights of married women, urging passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act, working
for the establishment of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC,
providing funds for re-establishment of educational systems in devastated
countries during World War II and sending a member to serve as consultant to a
United Nationals Conference.
Courtesy of the General
Federation of Women’s Clubs
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