Collating responses covering education, employment, inheritance, penal reform, and other issues, from government actors, NGO representatives and UN staff, CSW delegates drafted the Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (DEDAW), which was passed by the General Assembly on 7 November 1967.
Though there were delays, by 1972, when the United States Congress passed Title IX, eliminating discrimination in education for any institution receiving federal funding, hope that passage could be secured surged.
In turn, CSW approved the proposal and submitted it to the General Assembly, which proclaimed 1975 as International Women's Year on 18 December 1972.
[9] Finally, Mexico City agreed to host the conference, and CSW set about the tasks to prepare the "machinery" necessary to secure passage of DEDAW.
[8] Helvi Sipilä, was selected as the Assistant Secretary-General for Social Development and Humanitarian Affairs and placed in charge of organizing events for the year.
[2][11] The 1975 conference led to the adoption of the World Plan of Action, as well as the Declaration of Mexico on the Equality of Women and Their Contribution to Development and Peace.
[13][14] The 1985 third conference in Nairobi, Kenya, not only closed the decade of women but set a series of member state schedules for removal of legislated gender discrimination in national laws by the year 2000.
[27][28] A statement equating Zionism with racism was also included in an annex to a report to be considered at the final conference of the United Nations Decade for Women in 1985 in Nairobi, Kenya.
[29] However, as stated in It Takes a Dream: The Story of Hadassah (1997), by Marlin Levin, "Bernice [Tannenbaum] asked [President Ronald] Reagan to publicly repudiate the U.N. resolution.
One such effort was a petition to the National Film Board of Canada which led to the creation of Studio D. The University of Guelph hosted a conference in September dedicated to Nellie McClung and the reform issues which had been important to her.
A stylized dove intersected by a female symbol and an equal sign, the emblem was donated by then 27-year-old New York City advertising company graphic designer Valerie Pettis.