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One of the most inspirational women I’ve ever met is Eleanor Smeal. She has arguably done more to advance the status of women in the United States than any other single individual in the last 50 years. The former president of the National Organization for Women and the founder of The Feminist Majority, Smeal has never received nearly as much credit as she deserves.
Outside of feminist circles, Smeal does not have the name recognition, the iconic status of some other more famous leaders of second wave feminism—e.g., Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan. The Nation recently had a cover story, “That Seventies Show” on the recent spate of books on the 1970’s with 9 photos of those they considered the major newsmakers of the 70’s; only one (!) was a woman, Gloria Steinem. The article doesn’t even mention feminism—the really big story of the 70’s.
I have tremendous respect for Gloria Steinem. Both she and Friedan were talented media strategists who had much to do with feminist ideas breaking into the mainstream media and changing hearts and minds. But the major legislative victories of the 60’s and 70’s would not have happened without organization and the brilliant strategic thinking of women like Eleanor Smeal.
Smeal’s organizational savvy was always in the service of her vision of gender justice. As she puts it in “The Art of Building Feminist Institutions to Last” in Sisterhood is Forever:
The generation of ideas and consciousness are central to guiding a movement. More than money and resources, more than marching millions, first must come an understanding of what’s wrong—better yet, a sense of outrage—and ideas for creating change. Then come resources: people skills, in-kind services, materials, faxes, postage, phones and now computers—and the money to make it happen.
A prodigious fundraiser, Smeal understood the importance of raising money for the movement. Again from “The Art of Building Feminist Institutions to Last:”
Under-funded work is too frequently falsely valued as “noble work,” and fundraising thought of as “dirty.” Let’s face it: under-funded work can’t get the job done.
I’ve been doing archival research for a book Feminism in Philly: The Glory Years, 1967-1982, and it's become clear what a major impact Smeal had on NOW in particular and the feminist movement more generally. What emerges is how NOW under her leadership began to take on race/class issues and develop a much more inclusive form of feminism.
Smeal understood the importance of addressing issues of women of color and the need for a coalition with organized labor. With Smeal’s presidency a dramatic change in coverage of the labor movement was evident in NOW publications. From the Sept./ Oct. 1977 issue of the national NOW newsletter Do it NOW:
NOW President Eleanor Smeal testified in support of the Labor Law Reform Act of 1977 before the House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Labor-Management Relations on September 8, 1977...
President Smeal made the observation that ". . .women, concentrated in the lowest paying, unorganized occupations, have the most to gain through the collective bargaining process...
President Smeal concluded with an expression of NOW's unity with other organizations backing Labor Law Reform stating, "The struggle for women's rights is really a struggle for human rights and dignity, which these reforms will help to insure."
Smeal understood the importance of a labor/feminist alliance, now more urgent than ever. Her support for the goals of organized labor was much appreciated by the labor movement. From the June 1978 National NOW Times:
"The women's movement and labor also have common opponents," she said. "While the right wing is busily defeating the Equal Rights Amendment, it has also been busy defeating common site picketing and promoting 'right to work' laws. It is no coincidence that of the fifteen states against the ERA, the bulk of them are also 'right to work' states."
Sadly, the feminist movement under Smeal’s leadership lost the battle for the ERA, but the involvement in that struggle taught a whole generation of feminists a range of political skills which led to the entrance of more and more women into political life in the 80’s and 90’s. Smeal coined the term gender gap and was the first to note, track, and analyze the divergent political preferences of women and men.
When Smeal left the presidency of NOW she once
