YWCA votes to allow male leaders

WASHINGTON – The YWCA voted overwhelmingly Saturday to allow men to help direct its operations for the first time in its 148-year history, creating exceptions to a policy that allowed only women to serve as leaders of its nearly 300 local affiliates.

Passed by 70 percent of its voting members, the decision marks a big change for the organization but comes as a compromise just five years after an unofficial vote to keep men out of leadership roles.

Under the new measure, passed at the organization’s annual meeting, local chapters will petition the national board to allow men to serve, and the board will decide each case. The board will develop a new policy later this year.

Men had previously been allowed as volunteers or staff or associate members but could not serve as voting members or directors.

Lifting the ban on male leadership for local affiliates also could lead to the nomination of men for national posts, said YWCA chief executive Peggy Sanchez-Mills.

The YWCA’s women-focused programs – including shelters for domestic violence, child care centers and job training – would not change, Sanchez-Mills said. Its core mission remains eliminating racism and empowering women.

“It still is a female-driven organization and will remain that way,” Sanchez-Mills said. “What it does do is welcome men onto those governance structures to support the women’s agenda.”

Allowing male members is one of the organization’s biggest changes in the past 50 years, Sanchez-Mills said, “but we have a long history of change, and we’re old.”

Founded in 1858 as the Young Women’s Christian Association, the YWCA established its women-only membership policy to prove they were capable administrators.

The organization, which has assets of nearly $1 billion, is funded by government grants, public donations, membership and program service fees, according to its Web site.

Throughout the world, the YWCA works in 122 countries, serving 25 million women and their families, according to the group’s Web site.

The YMCA, which has no formal ties to the women’s organization, has included women in its leadership since the 1930s.