Liberal feminism

The National Organization for Women (NOW) is the largest Liberal Feminist organization in the United States. Though their primary focus and issue currently is the Constitutional Equality Amendment, they also deal with reproductive issues and abortion access as well as ending violence against women, combating racism, economic justice and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender rights (LGBT).

Various other issues the National Organization for Women also deals with are:

The National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC) was founded in 1971, this organization is the only national organization dedicated exclusively to increasing women's participation in all areas of political and public life as elected and appointed officials, as delegates to national party conventions, as judges in the state and federal courts, and as lobbyists, voters and campaign organizers.[16]

Founders of NWPC include such prominent women as Gloria Steinem, author, lecturer and founding editor of Ms. Magazine; former Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm; former Congresswoman and current president of Women USA Bella Abzug; Dorothy Height, president of the National Council of Negro Women; Jill Ruckelshaus, U.S. Civil Rights Commissioner; Ann Lewis, Political Director of the Democratic National Committee; Elly Peterson, former vice-chair of the Republican National Committee; LaDonna Harris, Indian rights leader; Liz Carpenter, author, lecturer and former press secretary to Lady Bird Johnson; and Eleanor Holmes Norton, former chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

These women were spurred by Congress' failure to pass the Equal Rights Amendment in 1970. They believed legal, economic and social equity would come about only when women were equally represented among the nation's political decision-makers. Their faith that women's interests would best be served by women lawmakers has been confirmed time and time again, as women in Congress, state legislatures and city halls across the country have introduced, fought for and won legislation to eliminate sex discrimination and meet women's changing needs.[16]

The Women's Equity Action League (WEAL) was a national membership organization, with state chapters and divisions, founded in 1968 and dedicated to improving the status and lives of all women primarily through education, litigation, and legislation. Its sister organization, the Women's Equity Action League Fund, was incorporated in 1972 "to help secure legal rights for women and to carry on educational and research projects on sex discrimination". The two organizations merged in 1981 following changes in the tax code.[17]

The stated purposes of WEAL were:

• to promote greater economic progress on the part of American women;
• to press for full enforcement of existing anti-discriminatory laws on behalf of women;
• to seek correction of de facto discrimination against women;
• to gather and disseminate information and educational material;
• to investigate instances of, and seek solutions to, economic, educational, tax, and employment problems affecting women;
• to urge that girls be prepared to enter more advanced career fields;
• to seek reappraisal of federal, state and local laws and practices limiting women's employment opportunities;
• to combat by all lawful means, job discrimination against women in the pay, promotional or advancement policies of governmental or private employers;
• to seek the cooperation and coordination of all American women, individually or as organizations *to attain these objectives, whether through legislation, litigation, or other means, and by doing any and all things necessary or incident thereto.

• Feminist Majority Foundation
• Ms. Magazine

Three years after women won the right to vote, the Equal Right Amendment (ERA) was introduced in Congress by Senator Curtis and Representative Anthony, both Republicans. This amendment stated that civil rights cannot be denied on the basis of one's sex. It was authored by Alice Paul, head of the National Women's Party, who led the suffrage campaign. Through the efforts of Alice Paul, the Amendment was introduced into each session of the United States Congress. But it was buried in committee in both Houses of Congress. In 1946, it was narrowly defeated by the full Senate, 38–35. In February 1970 twenty NOW leaders disrupted the hearings of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments, demanding the ERA be heard by the full Congress. In May of that year, the Senate Subcommittee began hearings on the ERA under Senator Birch Bayh. In June, the ERA finally left the House Judiciary Committee due to a discharge petition filed by Representative Martha Griffiths. In March 1972, the ERA was approved by the full Senate without changes, 84–8. Senator Sam Ervin and Representative Emanuel Celler succeeded in setting an arbitrary time limit of seven years for ratification. The ERA went to individual states to be ratified by the state legislatures. The ERA first attempted to be passed after the passing of the nineteenth amendment in 1920 by the feminists in the National Woman's Party, but it got little attention at the time.

In 2008, the ERA was stopped three states short of ratification. The state legislatures that were most hostile to the ERA were Utah, Florida, Illinois, North Carolina and Oklahoma. The NOW believes that the single most obvious problem in passing the ERA was the gender and racial imbalance in the legislatures. More than 2/3 of the women and all of the African Americans in state legislatures voted for the ERA, but less than 50% of the white men in the targeted legislatures cast pro-ERA votes in 1982.[18]

The Constitutional Equity Amendment (CEA) was rolled out in 1995 by American women's organizations. The CEA incorporated all of the concerns that have arisen out of a two-year study by NOW and other groups of the ERA which reviewed the history of the amendment from 1923 until the present. The items that were included in the CEA which were missing in the ERA include:

• States that women and men shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place and entity subject to its jurisdiction;
• It guarantees rights without discrimination on account of sex, race, sexual orientation, marital status, ethnicity, national origin, color or indigence;
• It prohibits pregnancy discrimination and guarantees the absolute right of a woman to make her own reproductive decisions including the termination of pregnancy;

Critics of liberal feminism argue that its individualist assumptions make it difficult to see the ways in which underlying social structures and values disadvantage women. They argue that even if women are not dependent upon individual men, they are still dependent upon a patriarchal state. These critics believe that institutional changes like the introduction of women's suffrage are insufficient to emancipate women.[24]

One of the more prevalent critiques of liberal feminism is that it, as a study, allows too much of its focus to fall on a "metamorphosis" of women into men, and in doing so, disregards the significance of the traditional role of women.[1] One of the leading scholars who have critiqued liberal feminism is radical feminist Catherine A. MacKinnon, an American lawyer, writer and social activist. Specializing in issues regarding sex equality, she has been intimately involved in the case regarding the definition of sexual harassment and sex discrimination.[4] She, among other radical feminist scholars, views liberalism and feminism as incompatible because liberalism offers women a "piece of the pie as currently and poisonously baked".[25]

bell hooks' main criticism of the philosophies of liberal feminism is that they focus too much on equality with men in their own class.[26] She mentions that the "cultural basis of group oppression" is the biggest challenge, in that liberal feminists tend to ignore it.[26]

Another important critique of liberal feminism is the "white woman's burden" or White savior complex. The phrase "white woman's burden" derived from The White Man's Burden. Critics such as black feminists and postcolonial feminists assert that mainstream liberal feminism reflects only the values of middle-class, heterosexual, white women and has largely ignored women of different races, cultures or classes.[27] With this, white liberal feminist reflect the issues that underline the White savior complex. They do not try to understand feminists that are outside the dominant society but try to "save" or "help" them by pushing them to assimilate to their ideals of feminism. Liberal feminism tends to not look at the power dynamics that are in play with women of color and transnational women which ties into the lack of acknowledging Intersectionality.