REPORT ON THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN CONFERENCE (NOW) INDIANAPOLIS USA 19-21 JUNE 2009
By Catherine Clarke*
I originally joined this American women’s organization as a bit of a lark – $35 USD didn’t seem a huge investment to be a part of feminist history-the National Organization For Women (NOW) being the first liberal feminist organization formed in the USA in 1966 and now the major feminist organization there with a membership of thousands. When they started trumpeting their annual national conference to be held in Indianapolis in June this year I started making vague travel plans.
I wanted to see why their liberal feminist response survived and ours didn’t (the Women’s Electoral Lobby, the Australian counterpart to NOW, was formed in 1972 and really now only consists of a website and a few veterans who’ll talk to the media if necessary) . And, after attending the Brisbane International Feminist Conference 2009 I wanted to see what American feminists look like, who they are and what they’re bangin’ on about, making a few comparisons along the way.
Approximately 500-600 feminists from all over the US attended the 3 day conference held at the swanky Sheraton Hotel and Convention Centre Keystone Crossing at Indianapolis. Like most of the delegates I booked a room at the hotel. The conference blurbs had indicated that this year was an election year, something which happens apparently every four years. Now, I hadn’t been to the US for quite a few years but seemed to recall the American personality as being somewhat more ‘intense’ generally so it had already occurred to me that this would be A BIG DEAL. The current president of NOW Kim Gandy had maxed out her 8 years allowed so there was to be a definite changing of the guard.
Lets start with the general composition of the women. If I were to compare being amongst women at the Brisbane International Feminist Conference 2009 and once staying at a hotel where a state conference for the QLD CWA (Country Women’s Association) was being held, I’d venture to say that the women reminded me more of the CWA-ers. NOW functions in localized chapter form-very tight-knit groups who didn’t tend to intermingle with each other. The average age was 45 plus. Whereas when feminists in Australia get together they have some affiliation on a professional basis-feminist academics, feminist welfare and community workers and grassroots activists make up the bulk of conferences-a lot of these women seemed to be loners who just wanted to belong somewhere -anywhere-and were willing to follow the party line of that particular chapter or NOW generally. Adding to the chapter by chapter divisiveness there were two ‘tickets’ running for the presidency and control of NOW. Chapters seemed to be ‘rooting’ for one or the other and didn’t seem to look favourably on those who supported the other team! There was not a feeling of ’sisterhood’ to put it mildly!
The younger feminists were more friendly and in fact one of the ‘tickets’ comprised a fair percentage of young women and black women and it seemed that they wanted the organization to move in a direction to address the issues of these groups which are not typical of the general membership which is overwhelmingly white and older and not to mention middle class. These wonderful young women would say ‘hi’ in their great drawly voices and upon learning that I was Australian would come out with these exquisite gems like-’Is Australia a Communist country’ and ‘How much of the population speak English as well as you do” I get a huge kick out of American egocentricity and the total lack of embarrassment about not knowing much about the rest of the world. If America is, as they see it, the centre of the Universe, why do they need to know about anywhere else’ It was good fun and a source of delight to me!
I shall say here that the electioneering totally drowned out most other aspects of the conference. You couldn’t walk in the main areas without having pamphlets and sample bags with expensive logo-ed pencils and candies thrust at you. On the positive it did mean invites to parties with free booze and food. They didn’t seem to mind when I explained to them that I was technically a “foreign- at large” member who couldn’t vote. But overall it meant that there seemed to be less discussion about feminism than about the election and lower attendance than you would expect for the keynote speakers and the workshops. I found the main keynote speakers a bit predictable and boring. The NOW women worship conventional achievement so the speakers were women who’d “made it” – as politicians, in the law and in the church. I must say though that the black women who spoke stood out for their oratory-they know how to whip the crowd into a frenzy.
I attended about four ‘breakaway’ sessions or workshops. It was a good chance to get more ‘up close’ to these women. I went to topics that reflected my own interest areas but a good range of topics including working with DV survivors, international trafficking and planning for one’s retirement were on offer. I attended a workshop on Equal Marriage Rights for Lesbians and Gay Men as women from the various states discussed how their state-wide campaigns were going. Now you would think that somehow lesbian women would predominate at such a workshop. Wrong! Most of the women at that workshop were straight and that is what really impressed me about NOW-if a chapter or NOW itself decides to take action on something members will fight tooth and nail on the issue even if it not one that affects them personally. Sitting there it just made me wish wish wish that we had a vital coordinated national feminist response in Australia rather than what we seem to have-loosely affiliated groups based around different feminist issues and feminist community services. I was to go back on this wish as I also saw less desirable aspects of national organization which I shall reveal.
I attended a Reproductive Rights workshop where activists who had worked closely with Dr Tiller (an abortion clinic doctor in Kansas who was recently murdered by “pro-lifers”) spoke of their continuing fight to keep services available for women. Here is where I learned of the less desirable aspects of national feminist organization. Christian “pro-lifers” have infiltrated many NOW chapters bringing with them their own warped logic, purporting to be feminists and grinding work on reproductive rights in their chapters and states to a halt, claiming abortion to be ‘violence against women’ and all of that quackery. Even in the workshop the passionate abortion rights advocates seemed nervous about ‘offending’ the “pro-life” feminists. Conference bloggers however let it rip and were fiercely divided about whether these women had the right to be NOW members or if they should be chucked out of the organization and how or if you could do that anyway. I felt glad that because of the autonomy of Australian feminist organizing we don’t have to put up with this-all we have is Melinda Tankard-Reist whining away at one conference every couple of years, dressing up Christian morality as feminism and a bunch of hard-working, respected feminist publishers for some reason throwing their support behind her. So all that I can say is thank god we don’t have national organization for this reason alone.
Another workshop I attended turned out to be kind of fun. It was called Accessible Orgasm and had various workers in the disability field talking about the needs of people with even the severest of disabilities to experience their sexuality to the full. It was also an example I think of how the feminism in NOW can be conservative and prescriptive. During question time I commented how in my hometown we have a wheelchair accessible suite in one of the legal brothels. This idea was met with delight by the panelists but the facilitator, a NOW member and one of the CWA types didn’t look too impressed. When I asked the panelists what they thought of government funding so that people with severe disabilities could gain ready access to brothels the two panelists started to laugh while the facilitator looked daggers at me.
“Hmmm,” said one of the panelists, a young woman with a vision disability “That is FAR more likely to happen in Australia!” And a few more in the audience laughed.
I was impressed actually. This woman was only about 26 but she’d obviously heard of Australia’s much more liberal social services funding provisions.
The election results were announced on the night before the final day of the conference, just before a dance. The non-young, black ticket got in. Many supporters of the losing ticket were so pissed off they refused to attend the dance or left then and there. In Australia we call this of course “bad sports”.
* Catherine Clake is a Brisbane based feminist historian, librarian and archivist
What an interesting experience that must have been for you. I imagine it to have been frustrating in light of such ignorance and comforting to find Australian Feminisms attitudes more progressive. I think it really highlights the importance of considering values outside of middle class existence, something that feminism is too often guilty of. Thanks for sharing your experience with us.