NOW Chief Has Ambitious Plans in ‘Comeback’ Bid

Declaring that the women’s movement is “on the verge of a major comeback,” National Organization for Women president Eleanor Smeal gave an impassioned speech at the National Press Club last week, lambasting the Pope, calling two senators “fascists” and describing Congress as “an auction block for the highest bidder.”

In her first major address since taking office Sept. 1, Smeal attempted to stir fervor among what she considers to be the sleeping masses, alternately shouting, whispering, quoting Thomas Jefferson and evoking names of past civil rights leaders. Smeal also touched on some facets of her plan to transform NOW into a more activist body--a philosophy that enabled her to defeat incumbent NOW president Judy Goldsmith for the group’s presidency last July.

‘Mass Mobilization’

Smeal said NOW plans a “mass mobilization” march on Washington in the spring, supporting legal abortion. A NOW press aide said plans for the march on the Supreme Court were not final yet, but that it probably would take place in late March or early April.

“I hope hundreds of thousands will come here,” Smeal said, “and I hope it is only the first of many marches.”

Smeal also announced that NOW will begin a campaign urging feminist lawyers to take on one sex discrimination case a year free of charge. She said this would help to pay back for “the doors that have been opened for them” by the women’s movement, and would be part of plan to remind successful, professional women that the fight for sexual equality is still going on. Disinterest in women’s issues on the part of young women and successful women has been seen as a reason for the decline in feminist activism.

Campus organizing efforts will be stepped up, Smeal said, and she promised what she called “an emergency campaign to save the Civil Rights of 1985.”

NOW also will continue to fight for passage of the equal rights amendment, Smeal said, and for pay equity.

Citing the Rev. Jerry Falwell’s recent comments supporting the South African government, which discriminates by race, Smeal said that “thinly veiled racism and thinly veiled sexism are running rampant in this country.”

Smeal has been criticized for promising to bring back the tactics of the 1960s, but she defended her approach, saying, “It’s time to stop thinking about what is fashionable in this city, what’s in and not in. I’m told that going to the streets is the politics of the ‘60s. We are told we’re passe.

“Thomas Jefferson said, ‘The price of liberty is eternal vigilence.’ We must be prepared to fight.”

Smeal criticized the Pope for telling Kenyans not to use birth control, even though many children are starving.

“This message is not just for Kenya. The impact is felt right here in this country,” Smeal said. “The attack on abortion is a fundamental attack on birth control, on freedom of religion and on a woman’s right to the pursuit of happiness.

A Big Problem

“One of the big problems we have is we don’t take the right-wing fascist position seriously enough.”

Asked whom she meant when she said “fascist,” Smeal replied, “The new right . . . the Helmses (Republican Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina), the Hatches (Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah)” and other far-right activists.

But Smeal made it clear that her ire was directed at Democrats as well as Republicans.

“What we’ve got is Ping-Pong--left-right, left-right, left-right, and none of it means anything most of the time,” Smeal said. “Congress is an auction block for the highest bidder.”