Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!jarthur!ucivax!gateway
From: travis@houston.cs.columbia.EDU (Travis Lee Winfrey)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: The Feminist Majority
Message-ID: <9007091850.AA19989@houston.cs.columbia.edu>
Date: 10 Jul 90 05:44:25 GMT
Lines: 57
Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu

>   ok... based on a '% effectiveness' scale, which of the following are the
>   best ones to support:

That's an interesting question.  I'm presuming that you mean effectiveness
in the context of pushing specifically feminist issues in America, since
none of these organizations are trying to stop pollution, torture, etc..

I think personal involvement is more important than giving money to a proxy
organization.  This is especially true of on tightly-focused issues like
abortion rights.  You should already know the positions of your
representative and your two congressmen, plus your state legislators.  If
you haven't given money for Gant's election bid, please do so.  If you
haven't written your representatives, even to people like Helms, you should
do that.  Many former pro-choice politicians like Bush still have the
pre-Webster impression that abortion is not a single-issue factor for
pro-choice the way that it has been for the opponents of abortion.  They
need to be informed.

It's paradoxical that writing a check is easier than writing a letter to a
politician or a newspaper.  I can't explain why, but the latter is equally
important.

Here are a few random thoughts on these groups.  If you want numbers, I
can't give you any, although I feel these groups listed in order of their
effectiveness.

>	 1) Fund for the Feminist Majority  (doesn't look good, so far)

Apart from the other comments being made about them, there is a growing
push towards limiting or disallowing PAC money for political contributions.
All PACs may become relatively ineffective, although it may take years for
the appropriate legislation to pass.

>	 2) NOW
>	 3) NARAL

Both of these seem relatively powerful in terms of making politicians jump,
and fighting the appropriate court battles.  I'm undecided about the
effectiveness or usefulness of pushing for the ERA again, which I think NOW
President Molly Yard wants to do again, primarily because their numbers
doubled in the 70's ERA battle.  I was also not pleased by her decision to
have a second pro-choice rally in the same year.  It was badly timed with
respect to elections; and it was irrelevant to the Supreme Court's hearing
of the Minnesota/Ohio parental notification cases -- the outcomes of which
were both predictable from past decisions.  We did show some adequate
numbers, which was good.

>	 4) ACLU  (maybe worth it for other things they do, but they are
>		   in the abortion rights battle as well)

The ACLU is always worth it, because they fight the fights others want to
leave alone.  Nat Hentoff, a First Amendment absolutists, has been recently
critical of the ACLU for local decisions involving the supression of
speech, e.g., racist epithets.  In general, he's a maniac, but I think he
is correctly noting a slippery slope in the ACLU arguments.

t