Book Review – THE WOMEN OF NOW by Katherine Turk

Katherine Turk, The Women of NOW: How Feminists Built an Organization that Transformed America. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2023. 448 pp. ISBN: 978-0374601539.

Reviewed by Einav Rabinovitch-Fox, Department of History, Case Western Reserve University

In women’s history surveys and courses, the standard narrative about “second wave” feminism often tells a story of struggle, dissent, and discord between different organizations and different personalities. Students typically learn about leaders such as Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm, and Gloria Steinem, as well as events like the No More Miss America protest, which brought radical feminists onto the national stage. In this familiar story, the battle over abortion and reproductive rights, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), and political and economic equality receive the most attention. 

Katherine Turk’s The Women of NOW indeed acknowledges this narrative. Focusing on the most prominent feminist organization—the National Organization for Women (NOW)—the book’s first chapter depicts the political and social background as well as the famous hotel meeting in 1966 that led to the founding of NOW. That chapter highlights the contributions of Friedan, lawyer and activist Pauli Murray, and labor leader Catherine Conroy made to the nature of the organization in its early years. However, Turk’s most significant achievement and contribution to the scholarship in this book is by complicating and challenging this familiar narrative, offering a deeper and more nuanced history of the feminist organization and of the movement as a whole.

As Turk mentions, the more “famous” architects of NOW left its leadership within four years of its existence, and indeed the book focuses on three lesser-known women who became part of NOW leadership: Alieen Hernandez, Patricia Hill Burnett, and Mary Jean Collins. These three women, Turk observes, “shaped NOW in its vital first two decades, [and] also represented different kinds of members and their approaches to organizing women” (31). Hernandez, who began her career as an Equal Employment Opportunity Commissioner in California, became NOW’s second president and worked to strengthen their appeal to women of color. Burnett, a former beauty queen and a middle-class homemaker from Detroit, focused on boosting the organization’s political diversity and international reach. Collins, a labor organizer from Wisconsin, emphasized the importance of grassroots-driven campaigns, helping to steer NOW’s most extensive anticorporate campaign against Sears.

The Women of NOW is not a group biography of these three women, but a biography of NOW itself. By including their biographies and roles within the organization, Turk sheds light on the intricate politics of women’s organizing, highlighting both the possibilities and limitations of creating a large tent organization and fighting for social change. Hernandez, Burnett, and Collins each prioritized a different emphasis for NOW, and each sought to expand the movement in different ways. But by working together, despite and because of these differences, Turk argues, they were able to build a sustaining model for organizing and a powerful movement for years to come.

One of the book’s strengths is its focus on the mundane components that go into building an organization. In chapters like “Getting Paid” and “Put it on the Line NOW for Equality,” Turk convincingly shows how much work it takes to mobilize people and conduct successful campaigns, and how much this type of work matters. One might dismiss the importance of maintaining mailing and telephone contact lists, writing bylaws, and paying officers. But it was this relentless, and oftentimes thankless, day-to-day work—rather than more publicized actions by radical feminist organizations—that brought real change to women’s lives and made NOW so powerful. This was evident not only in the 1970 Women’s Strike for Equality, but also in later campaigns for the ERA and against Sears.

Turk does not portray a rosy picture of NOW or shy away from delving into the disagreements, internal tensions, and sometimes bitter feelings that characterized the relationships within the organization. Especially enlightening is the chapter titled “The Chicago Machine vs. The Pennsylvania Railroad,” which recounts the internal battles within NOW regarding its direction that erupted during its 1974 annual convention. But unlike more common histories of feminism, Turk’s is not one of constant conflict, splintering, and failure. Unlike many of the social movements and feminist organizations of the 1960s, NOW did not collapse or give in to friction, but was able to adapt and transform.

And perhaps, this is the most important lesson one could take from The Women of NOW. Despite its limitations, biases, and tensions, NOW, as Turk reminds us, “played a key role in creating the feminist identity, making this identity mainstream, and, most important, one that can be easily enacted” (302). By doing so, it not only transformed American society but also offered a model for women’s organizing and empowerment. Especially these days, when the need for organizing and activism becomes more urgent, learning from the past can be a helpful exercise. 

With its accessible prose and meticulous research, The Women of NOW is a captivating and welcome addition to the scholarship on feminism. But more importantly, it offers both valuable lessons and hope for those who look to mobilize women to fight for equality and change.