- NOW was founded in 1966. (Same year as Black Panthers)
- Largest feminist grassroots organisation.
- Founded by 28 women, the most well-known of the founders being Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisolm, Pauli Murray and Muriel Fox.
- Betty Friedan:The iconic feminist leader who started it all with the 1963 publication of her book, The Feminist Mystique.Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray:An African American attorney, poet, author, college professor and administrator, the first African American to earn a doctorate at the Yale Law School and the first African American woman Episcopal priest in the U.S.
Muriel Fox:
The former executive vice president of Carl Byoir & Associates, one of America’s three largest public relations firms, who was described on BusinessWeek magazine’s list of 100 Top Corporate Women in June 1976 as the “top-ranking woman in public relations”.
Shirley Chisolm:
First AA woman elected to Congress in 1968. She represented one of New York’s democratic districts from 1969-83. Also, the first African American, and woman to run for the democratic presidential nomination in 1972.
NOW’s Aims
Aimed for ‘full participation in the mainstream of American society’ and a ‘truly equal relationship with men.’
“We, men and women who hereby constitute ourselves as the National Organization for Women, believe that the time has come for a new movement toward true equality for all women in America, and toward a fully equal partnership of the sexes, as part of the world-wide revolution of human rights now taking place within and beyond our national borders.”
-1966 Statement of Purpose
· The single constitutional aim of suffrage legislation provided a clear focus unlike individual campaigns for temperance or citizenship.
Promote feminist ideals of:
· Eliminating discrimination, leading societal change.
· Achieving and protecting the equal rights of all women and girls in all aspects of social, political and economic life.
These aims were harder to implement than previous aims of organised women’s groups such as suffrage or temperance.
Ensuring that women’s equal rights were protected was much harder to quantify and would threaten suburban culture.
