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Tens of thousands of women across the country from different racial, cultural, societal, and educational backgrounds took to the streets protesting for women's rights. Simultaneously with the creation of NOW, a more radical feminism grew among civil rights and New Left Activists who were frustrated with subordinate roles. Other independent liberation movements were created that consisted of small groups across the nation.
In the early 1960s policies such as the President's Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) - The Equal Pay Act of
1963 - Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the extension of affirmative action to women were initiated to combat employment discrimination against women. Government was slow to enforce these policies which led to outraged by citizens as they felt the government was not taking their concerns serious.
The National Organization for Women (NOW) is an American feminist organization founded in 1966. During the 1960s the civil rights movement helped to make protesting more respectable and its success encouraged other activist groups to express their grievances. In the 1960s and 1970s NOW was the new wave of feminism and a voice for women to express their concerns.
The women's rights movement gain public attention especially when dozens of radical feminist picketed the Miss America beauty pageant in 1968, protesting against being forced "to compete for male approval and enslaved by ludicrous beauty standards." Radical feminist called their movement "women's liberation." They differed from NOW and other main stream groups in several ways.
Appalled by the lack of governmental response, NOW was founded in 1966 by 49 women including writer and activist/feminist Betty Friedan and civil/women rights activist and attorney Pauli Murray.
NOW focused on equal treatment for women in the public arena such as equal opportunity in employment, education, child care, and abortion rights. Women's liberation (radical feminists) emphasized ending women's subordination in family and other personal relationships. Groups such as NOW wanted to integrate women into existing institutions; radical groups insisted that women’s liberation required a total transformation of economic, political, and social institutions.
By the 1970s feminists groups
embraced each other’s differences and combined efforts, however, internal conflicts resulted in a multifaceted movement where other organizations were created to address the needs of specific ethnic or social groups. Other new groups focused on single issues such as health, abortion rights, education, and violence against women. NOW's influence is evident in present day and helped women experience tremendous transformations in their legal status, public opportunities, personal and sexual relationships, and popular expectations about gender roles.
B. Friedan
P. Murray
See comment section for NOW achievement fun facts.