2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

When the National Organization for Women (NOW) was founded in 1966, it sought to pressure state agencies to bring about “a new movement…toward a fully equal partnership of the sexes.”  In the following decades, NOW became the largest feminist membership organization in American history.  NOW also became a sophisticated lobby group that pursued feminist aims at the national policy level.  But members’ and leaders’ efforts to build an enduring organization and craft a coherent agenda also gave rise to tensions within NOW—including struggles to limit the power of “majorities” and protect the interests of “minorities” in its membership—as well as opposing forces beyond it. As Elizabeth Fraterrigo and Mary Ziegler show, these fault lines appeared in battles about the representation of women in the media and the scope of a woman’s right to control her body in the context of sex and sexuality.  Katherine Turk reveals how NOW’s many approaches to the law created deep tensions about the organization’s fundamental goals.

 Our commentator, Julie Berebitsky, is a distinguished historian who has published extensively on modern American culture and politics. Our chair, Mary Jean Collins, was a national leader in NOW for two decades, serving, among other roles, as NOW Midwest regional director and action vice president. Drawing on the perspectives of historians, legal academics, and feminist activists, this panel will mark NOW’s 50^th anniversary with critical conversation about NOW’s place in history and a broader discussion of state-oriented feminist politics, then and now.