District Historian

Having just celebrated "Women's History Month", this may be a good time to look back on the historic 1987 "amendment to the amendment" that dramatically and beneficially changed the history of Kiwanis.
Members know that Kiwanis began in January 1915 in the context of a fraternal and business-oriented society when few if any raised questions about the gender of club members. But how many of us knew that the provision restricting membership to males only was not codified until almost a decade later in the organization's newly adopted Constitution and Bylaws?
One can speculate that the Women's Suffrage Movement, a movement that had its greatest strength in New York State, influenced Kiwanis leaders to spell out, specifically, restrictions on membership in local clubs. In New York State in 1925, there were well over two dozen Kiwanis clubs with all male members - a rather potent voting block at upcoming national conventions able to protect the status quo.
Fifty years later, in response to the Women's Rights Movement of the sixties and seventies, almost every Kiwanis International convention had an amendment presented in its House of Delegates to admit women to full membership. In 1976, there was even a proposal to grant women "honorary membership" which many viewed as a hollow attempt to "get a foot in the door for change" or worse, a demonstrable lack of courage to "do the right thing" immediately. For opposite reasons, honorary membership status had the effect of uniting both adversaries and proponents of female membership.
Angered by what soon became a "cause celebre", delegates at ensuing Kiwanis International conventions engaged in heated debates over amendments, and amendments to amended amendments, that failed repeatedly to reach the necessary two-thirds vote for passage. This forced defiant clubs to take bold new steps to admit women.
One such New York club was the Kiwanis Club of Great Neck, but as long as Kiwanis International continued to threaten charter revocation, defiant clubs faced the Hobson's choice between submission, camouflaging the names of women listed on their membership rosters, or initiating legal action.
In 1985, legal action was taken by one woman, Marcia Baer, representing the Kiwanis Club of Ridgewood, New Jersey. Via a television broadcast, Baer announced she was bringing a lawsuit against Kiwanis International to strike down the bylaw provision restricting club membership to men only. Other lawsuits followed, including those filed against Rotary and Lions International.
With the mounting expense of litigation and negative publicity, not to mention prolonged and divisive battles at local club board meetings, the "amendment as amended" to allow women to become full-fledged members in "all Kiwanis clubs throughout the world" was finally passed. It gained the necessary two-thirds majority vote at the 1987 Kiwanis International convention in Washington, DC. Was it providential that an unusually large crowd of news reporters were on site to hear the convention's speaker, President Ronald Reagan, as well as to announce the consequential vote in the House of Delegates?
Within the following two years, more than 10,000 women were officially enrolled as Kiwanians, including many Kiwanis spouses who for years were already doing the "heavy lifting" in their local Kiwanis clubs. Far more important than any revenue-raising membership gain, the admission of women prompted Kiwanis leaders to develop a more focused and consistent "major emphasis" program, one which to this day, brands Kiwanis distinctively as the leading service organization "Serving the Children of the World."
In the next edition of this column, we will review how Circle K and Key Club overcame Kiwanis resistance to become co-ed organizations, recalling courageous and lesser known efforts made by several New Yorkers in the early 1970's.

Column Posted on Web Site July 14, 2021