Fighting for NOW: Diversity and Discord in the National Organization for Women

An unparalleled exploration of NOWs trajectory, from its founding to the presentand its future

A new wave of feminist energy has swept the globe since 2016from womens marches and the #MeToo movement to transwomens inclusion and exclusion in feminism and participation in institutional politics. Amid all this, an organization declared dead or dying for thirty yearsthe National Organization for Womenhas seen a membership boom. NOW presents an intriguing puzzle for scholars and activists alike. Considered one of the most stable organizations in the feminist movement, it has experienced much conflict and schism. Scholars have long argued that factionalism is the death knell of organizations, yet NOW continues to thrive despite internal conflicts. 

Fighting for NOW seeks to better understand how bureaucratic structures like NOWs simultaneously provide stability and longevity, while creating space for productive and healthy conflict among members. Kelsy Kretschmer explores these ideas through an examination of conflict in NOWs local chapters, its task forces and committees, and its satellite groups. NOWs history provides evidence for three basic arguments: bureaucratic groups are not insulated from factionalism; they are important sites of creativity and innovation for their movements; and schisms are not inherently bad for movement organizations. Hence, Fighting for NOW is in stark contrast to conventional scholarship, which has conceptualized factionalism as organizational failure. It also provides one of the few book-length explorations of NOWs trajectory, from its founding to the modern context. 

Scholars will welcome the books insights that draw on open systems and resource dependency theories, as well as its rethinking of how conflict shapes activist communities. Students will welcome its clear and compelling history of the feminist movement and of how feminist ideas have changed over the past five decades.