The Younger Women's Task Force (YWTF) is a project of the National Council of Women's Organizations. Founded in January of 2005, it is an American progressive non-profit advocacy organization centering on issues of importance to women ages 20-39. It consists of 12 chapters with a total claimed membership of 3500.
Its stated goals are to:
- Provide a stronger voice in the policy making process for women in their 20’s and 30’s;
- Increase the impact of younger women activists through the articulation of, and collaboration on, a common agenda;
- Create a culture of inclusion where decision-making and power are practiced collectively, and members from diverse backgrounds participate in all levels of YWTF;
- Define and develop the next generation of women leaders;
- Create a local and national network for peer mentoring, networking and sharing resources.
YWTF chapters have worked on a number of issues including increasing younger women's access to information about real estate, ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment and encouraging younger women to run for political office. YWTF recently announced a Media Democracy Project, a program intended to increase American young women’s ability to create their own media through alternative means.
Famous quotes containing the words younger, women, task and/or force:
“If we are the younger, we may envy the older. If we are the older, we may feel that the younger is always being indulged. In other words, no matter what position we hold in family order of birth, we can prove beyond a doubt that we’re being gypped.”
—Judith Viorst (20th century)
“... women can never do efficient and general service in hospitals until their dress is prescribed by laws inexorable as those of the Medes and Persians. Then, that dress should be entirely destitute of steel, starch, whale-bone, flounces, and ornaments of all descriptions; should rest on the shoulders, have a skirt from the waist to the ankle, and a waist which leaves room for breathing.”
—Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)
“The long day’s task is done,
And we must sleep.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Americans have internalized the value that mothers of young children should be mothers first and foremost, and not paid workers. The result is that a substantial amount of confusion, ambivalence, guilt, and anxiety is experienced by working mothers. Our cultural expectations of mother and realities of female participation in the labor force are directly contradictory.”
—Ruth E. Zambrana, U.S. researcher, M. Hurst, and R.L. Hite. “The Working Mother in Contemporary Perspectives: A Review of Literature,” Pediatrics (December 1979)