In 1966, the newly formed National Organization for Women created seven initial task forces to work for women's equality. During its first year, the NOW Task Force on Legal and Political Rights called for women to fully partake of their rights and responsibilities as U.S. citizens. This meant, among other things, increasing women’s participation in voting, political party leadership and running for political office.
The Task Force on Legal and Political Rights also wanted to raise awareness among women and men nationwide about the inequality women faced legally and politically. How did the NOW feminists achieve their goals? What did the feminists of the 1960s want to do first? In a 1967 introductory statement, the Task Force on Legal and Political Rights recommended ongoing action to help meet NOW’s goals, including the following steps:
- Review the legal and political rights of men and women at the national, state and municipal levels.
- Present the results of this review of legal and political rights to the national NOW committee for evaluation and next steps.
- Get information from as many sources as possible about state level discrimination of women, since much of the task force's subject matter would fall to state legislatures to correct.
- Get this state information to the national NOW committee in order to effectively mobilize members to act wherever a discrimination issue arises.
- Adopt a realistic attitude, because laws are expressions of cultural patterns and changing them may require a lot of time.
- Investigate state political party structure and work for greater participation by women at the policy level.