The newly founded National Organization for Women created a Task Force on Education in 1966, one of seven initial NOW task forces. In its first year, the education task force goals included changing attitudes and increasing aspirations for girls and women at all stages of their education. Here is a summary of the NOW Task Force on Education goals and proposed action, as outlined in 1967.
Education Task Force Goals: Specific Action to be Undertaken
What steps did the NOW Task Force on Education recommend?
- Work with Dr. Eli Ginzberg. The prominent economist and researcher was known for his expertise on employment issues and had conducted a national study of education and employment counseling. The NOW task force’s concern with influences on junior high and high school girls related to Dr. Eli Ginzberg’s findings on counseling girls and young women.
- Contact and work with junior high and high school counselors. NOW wanted to achieve a “crucial change” in the outlook and expectations for girls’ lifetime ambitions. Among other things, feminists desired an end to the practice of telling girls their studies didn’t matter because they would be getting married, which was never told to boys, who would also be getting married.
- Work with school leaders and administrators. The NOW Task Force on Education would encourage administrators to provide boys and girls with visible, respected, outside-the-home women role models.
- Work with parents and parent teacher associations. The task force sought to educate parents about the situation of women in society and encourage them to have high expectations for their daughters as well as their sons.
- Work with men’s service clubs. As a significant social force, men’s service clubs could encourage fathers to have higher expectations for their daughters.
Immediate Focus: Changing Attitudes
The 1967 statement from the NOW Task Force on Education acknowledged that there were many reasons for the lack of women in influential leadership positions. Two “chief culprits” cited were:
- Women’s lack of aspiration to achieve what their intellectual ability will allow them to achieve
- The sex-oriented self-concept taught to children from an early age, which limits what girls do and what people believe they can do
However, the statement went on to say that these attitudes could be changed. The primary goals of the NOW Task Force on Education would be raising girls’ aspirations and fighting against the sex-oriented concept of girls and women as the “other” sex.