Although social movements include a range of organizations, they are generally powered by a handful of strong organizations, with NOW considered the engine behind the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s. At the same time as NOW was fighting for gender justice in the media, educational institutions, and employment, it was also focused on building an organizational structure for the long haul. Many of the victories of the early and mid-1970s would not have been possible without this attention to structure, which spurred membership growth and laid the groundwork for future victories. It is surely a major reason NOW is one of the few organizations to emerge from second-wave feminism still standing.
The women who built NOW in the early years had considerable experience in building and running organizations. Many of the women on the national level were likely to have worked in national progressive organizations, including labor unions and professional associations. Local leaders were likely to have been involved in neighborhood civic organizations and local affiliates of professional organizations. Thus, NOW’s early leaders were comfortable with hierarchical structure, elaborate bylaws and officers elected by well-defined procedures, in sharp contrast to those who identified with the Women’s Liberation Movement, which was amorphous, non-hierarchical, and generally without an elected leadership. Many histories of second-wave feminism have viewed NOW’s emphasis on structure as evidence of its conservative bent in contrast to the revolutionary potential of the supposedly more radical Women’s Liberation Movement. Many NOW members, on the other hand, saw themselves as the real radicals, using mainstream tactics to achieve radical goals.
Nationally, NOW’s focus on structure reflected the leadership of brilliant strategic thinkers such as Eleanor Smeal, who realized the importance of developing organizations which could accommodate NOW’s dramatic growth. NOW’s development of hierarchical structures may have made the organization less attractive to younger feminists in the late 1960s and 1970s, but it enabled the organization to operate effectively in the political arena and navigate the increasingly bitter divisions and disagreements within the feminist movement. The ease with which NOW members could set up local affiliates provided a vehicle for managing internal conflicts without rupturing the organization—especially important for a volunteer-dependent organization, particularly vulnerable to disintegration due to internal tensions.
Creating a national organization with state and local affiliates was an enormous challenge, and the basic structure evolved over roughly a ten-year period. Betty Friedan, NOW’s charismatic founder, was not all that interested or skilled in grassroots organizing. However, many NOW activists were very much concerned with building local affiliates. The time and careful thought they devoted to creating this network of grassroots organizations provide at least part of the explanation as to why NOW survived while so many other organizations had their brief moment in the sun and then disappeared.
NOW was creating a structure to accommodate growth and adopted a “Statement of Purpose” Carabillo considered “almost elastic enough to encompass the enlarged agenda of women’s issues that emerged in the next ten years.” The mission statement provided room for NOW to expand its agenda and recognized that “women’s problems are linked to many broader questions of social justice.”3
Considerable thought was given to managing NOW’s growth and integrating the various levels of NOW (local, state, regional, and national) to create an organization with effective channels of communication between the national organization and its affiliates.
The rationale for creating a federated organization was developed in 1973 by Pennsylvania NOW member Beverly Jones who distinguished between issues that must be addressed at national level and those more suited to state level, arguing that changes in society’s basic institutions can be made only at the national level: “If we are ever to get decent full-day nursery schools in this country for all parents who need or want them, the federal government must of necessity supply the funds and the legislation.”5 Jones argued that state-level organization is essential, as much of what is agreed to at the national level must be implemented by the states; she cited the ERA (which must be ratified by the states) as an example of the critical importance of state-level organization. Jones also understood that emotional sustenance and personal bonds usually could be created only on the local level.
According to Jones, feminist organizations acting independently of each other cannot advance the feminist cause: “Non-coordinated activity can and will squander women’s time, money, and energy for little purpose.” She believed that women needed one democratic, feminist organization, and contended that only NOW was up to the job. She noted that NOW was the first organization to form in the second-wave feminist movement and that “it predated even the first of the woman’s liberation groups, which rose in a different constituency and developed a sort of loose parallel formation starting in the late 1960s.” Jones linked the woman’s liberation movement’s distrust of NOW’s formal structure with broader generational tensions. She believed that a younger generation of women influenced by the New Left’s distrust of centralization was abandoning the opportunity to change institutions: “[They] want to talk about changing their life style rather than changing institutionalized sexism, [and] in the name of democracy repudiate structure and rule in little cliques.” Jones’ argument had a somewhat defensive tone, no doubt reflecting the criticisms of NOW coming from younger members of the feminist movement.
Like Jo Freeman, who also analyzed the dangers of “structurelessness” in social movements,6 Jones argued that if leadership emerges without some electoral process, it cannot be easily dislodged; there are no orderly processes for resolving conflicts. The document reads as though Jones was struggling to suppress her own intense irritation with feminists who reject formal structures. The anger breaks through loud and clear in the final pages:
That organized oppression can be fought by unorganized opposition is almost too silly a statement to comment on … unaffiliated women often feel they are making individual progress of a feminist sort struggling alone in the home and on the job. And they think of this over-all struggle of the unaffiliated as unorganized opposition. However, if there were no organized groups bringing lawsuits, lobbying, marching, conducting boycotts, and otherwise making headway and headlines, unaffiliated women would have precious little leverage to apply in individual struggle.
There’s no evidence as to how widely Jones’ analysis was read or may have influenced the younger women drawn to the unstructured organizations Jones attacks. No doubt, some would have been alienated by the somewhat hectoring tone rather than impressed by the strength of Jones’ arguments.
It is undeniable that NOW’s focus on structure was one of its great strengths and was generally acknowledged as one of its defining characteristics. Like many advocacy organizations, NOW at times conveyed the impression that it was the sole force behind legislative victories and changes in government regulations. In the area of employment discrimination, NOW can certainly claim that it played the leading role. NOW was also a major (but certainly not the only) force in combating sexism in educational institutions. NOW acknowledged it shared the credit, noting it had “substantially aided the passage of amendments to the Higher Education Act of 1972 which include … prohibitions against sex discrimination in any educational program or activity receiving federal funding.”
Not all the accomplishments NOW cited in the 1972 press release were tied to specific pieces of legislation or changes in government regulations. Some were in the more nebulous category of changing hearts and minds, such as, “raising the consciousness of the country to the stereotyped images of women pervasive in the media and in advertising.” NOW was clearly not alone in this effort; however, NOW focused not only on changing consciousness but also on changing the rules of the game.
NOW would not have been as effective had it not been for the many local chapters across the country working to advance national policies. Among the national NOW objectives most vigorously pursued by Philadelphia NOW was the desegregation of classified ads in local newspapers. When the United States Supreme Court ruled sex-segregated want ads unconstitutional on June 21, 1973, Philadelphia NOW pressured major daily newspapers to comply with the court decision immediately. Philadelphia NOW’s public relations officer Judy Foley wrote letters to the local newspapers urging speedy compliance. The responses to her letters indicated the newspapers were less than enthusiastic about the change.
With the same message coming from both national NOW and local chapters, NOW’s message was amplified and the pressure intensified. the major daily newspapers capitulated and announced they would end their sex-segregated reporting as of August 29, 1973. Philadelphia NOW cautioned: "Let none of us think the battle stops there... Some persistent monitoring can help see to it that this does not become a means of subtly evading the spirit of the ruling."
Given that the Supreme Court ruling was a 5–4 decision with liberal icon William O. Douglas among the four dissenters, NOW members had reason to fear attempts to undermine the ruling. Douglas framed his dissenting opinion in terms of freedom of speech, asserting: “I believe that commercial materials also have First Amendment protection … there can be no valid law censoring the Press.” It is inconceivable that the Supreme Court in 1973 would let stand separate classified ads for whites and Blacks on first amendment grounds. The dissenting justices’ justification of gender-segregated ads as protected by the first amendment speaks volumes about the depth and pervasiveness of sexism in the early 1970s.
Although NOW was generally acknowledged as the major feminist organization fighting sexism in the media and discrimination in employment, in the struggle to eliminate sexism in education other organizations played key roles (for example, the American Association of University Women, the National Education Association, and numerous women’s caucuses in teachers unions and professional organizations). It appeared that just about every woman (and some men) involved in education awoke at the same time to the pervasive sexism in schools. In the mid-1970s national NOW made combating sexism in schools a top priority, focusing on advocacy for Women’s Studies programs in high schools and colleges and for expansion of athletic opportunities for girls. NOW chapters across the country took up the crusade; the Philadelphia chapter was especially active, no doubt because of the many educators among its activist core. NOW’s federated structure was well suited to wage the battle to eliminate sexism in education as educational policy was made on national, state, and local levels, providing NOW activists with the opportunity to coordinate strategy on all three levels of government.
Although NOW was generally acknowledged as the major feminist organization fighting sexism in the media and discrimination in employment, in the struggle to eliminate sexism in education other organizations played key roles (for example, the American Association of University Women, the National Education Association, and numerous women’s caucuses in teachers unions and professional organizations). It appeared that just about every woman (and some men) involved in education awoke at the same time to the pervasive sexism in schools. In the mid-1970s national NOW made combating sexism in schools a top priority, focusing on advocacy for Women’s Studies programs in high schools and colleges and for expansion of athletic opportunities for girls. NOW chapters across the country took up the crusade; the Philadelphia chapter was especially active, no doubt because of the many educators among its activist core. NOW’s federated structure was well suited to wage the battle to eliminate sexism in education as educational policy was made on national, state, and local levels, providing NOW activists with the opportunity to coordinate strategy on all three levels of government.
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