NOW: Then and Tomorrow

The Christian Science Monitor has an article up today about the history and future of NOW.

"As NOW's leaders look ahead, they are searching for ways to attract the next generation. Its Young Feminist Task Force, co-chaired by Erin Matson of Minneapolis, includes a dozen members between ages 15 and 29. They advise the national board on issues of concern to young women. This weekend's national conference includes workshops on teen dating violence, music and feminism, and fashion and feminism".

"We are a different generation," Ms. Matson says, "We're much less focused on bylaws and structure and the nuts and bolts of how organizations work. We're figuring out how we work together in a new way, side by side with the people we owe so much of our lives to."

Now President Kim Gandy says that "Perhaps the greatest changes we've accomplished in the last 40 years are that we've changed hearts and minds, we've changed laws and won lawsuits," she says. "Feminism today is what I hoped it would be 30 years ago. It's my daughters, who are 10 and 13, not just believing they can do anything, but absolutely knowing they can. Unfortunately we haven't come quite that far, but it's so important that our daughters expect equality, because they will demand it when it's not there."