WHEREAS, over 65,000 children in grades K through 12 in Florida schools are paddled annually, and approximately 30,000 are females, and

WHEREAS, 92.5 percent of corporal punishment is designated and administered by primarily male administrators and teachers, and

WHEREAS, corporal punishment legitimizes violence and aggression as a method of problem solving by precisely those adults the child or adolescent is expected to emulate, encouraging his/her own use of violence and aggression, and

WHEREAS, in the overwhelming majority of cases, battering husbands and battered wives were routinely exposed to corporal punishment when they were children either receiving it, witnessing it or both, and

WHEREAS, corporal punishment is based on the psychology of fear and is demeaning to the individual, and

WHEREAS, corporal punishment is the most flagrant and destructive of the many ways through which children are victimized through coercive power, and

WHEREAS, the physical abuse of persons incapable of protecting themselves is antiethical to feminist and democratic values.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Florida National Organization for Women (NOW) oppose the use of corporal punishment in Florida schools and all other institutions, public and private, where children are cared for and educated, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Florida NOW establish a Task Force to work to pass a statute law abolishing corporal punishment.