U.S. Women's Interest Groups

No other reference analyzes the origins, development, programs, publications, and political action of 180 major American organizations concerned with women's issues in such depth. Over 100 experts give an overview of how national women's groups of all kinds and representing varied and broad segments of society have had an impact on a wide array of public policy issues in Washington in recent years. An introduction provides a content analysis, general background, and historical sketch for the profiles, which are arranged alphabetically. An appendix describes six government agencies of primary importance in handling women's issues, as agenda setters and bridges. A second appendix consists of the questionnaire which was sent to each organization covered in the volume. The alphabetically arranged profiles cover organizations with all types of goals and concerns, different racial and ethnic identification, church and temple affiliations: civil, elderly, professional, and occupational associations; social and sorority groups; labor and business organizations; not-for-profit and for-profit groups; research centers; and both partisan and nonpartisan organizations. Students, teachers, professionals in governmental and nongovernmental agencies, researchers, and citizen activists will find that this handy sourcebook is a treasury of authoritative information about how private citizens work to affect national policy and legislation in essential ways.

SARAH SLAVIN is Professor of Political Science and Women's Studies Unit Coordinator, State University of New York College at Buffalo. She has authored an intellectual history of feminism in the United States (1979), and coauthored a history of attitudes toward women (1988), as well as published articles and chapters about public law and jurisprudence and women and politics. She edited Volume 8 of the Female Studies Series (1975) and the journal Women & Politics (1979-86). She has served as president of the Women's Caucus for Political Science and Seneca Falls National Women's Center and Educational Institute, copresident of Remove Intoxicated Drivers Niagara Frontier chapter and cocoordinator of the Gay and Lesbian Caucus for Political Science. In the mid 1970s she was part of the National Organization for Women's National Leadership. She has underway a volume on lesbian and gay citizenship politics in the United States.