It’s the most important women’s rights law that hardly anyone has ever heard of.
But locally, after a 24-year effort, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors last week voted unanimously to become only the fourth county in the state to adopt a full CEDAW ordinance, following San Francisco , Los Angeles and San Diego . The cities of Berkeley, Los Angeles and San Jose also have CEDAW ordinances.
CEDAW principles acknowledge that extensive discrimination against women continues to exist. The goal is to end any form of discrimination against women by completing a comprehensive gender-based analysis of county departments, agencies and services. The county can’t hope to end gender discrimination unless it has the information needed to make data-driven, gender-based decisions.