Feminist Majority Foundation

The Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1987 to advocate for women's rights, including reproductive health, equality, and nonviolence. The organization operates on the philosophy that research and action are the ways to achieve women's rights in the economic, social, and political realms. The FMF takes its name from a Newsweek/Gallup public opinion poll that discovered a majority of women (56%) in the United States identified themselves as feminists. The FMF asserts that this majority continues in the United States with more than two thirds of young women identifying themselves as feminists. The FMF reaches across gender lines to highlight the fact that men, in general, are aware of the importance of supporting the goals put forth by the women's rights movement.

In addition to normalizing the word feminism and raising awareness about the widespread support among women and men for the women's rights movement, the FMF highlights its success in legislative and community arenas. In the late 1980s, the FMF launched the National Clinic Defense Project in order to counter the radical anti-abortion tactics of Operation Rescue. During this initiative, the FMF trained more than 7,000 clinic defense volunteers and were able to successfully defend women's health clinics where abortions were performed. In continuing to defend women's reproductive rights, the FMF launched the Campaign for RU 486 and Contraceptive Research. The organization demanded that RU 486 be made available immediately so that women could have access to an early abortion method. It also advocated for RU 486 to be researched as a potential treatment for diseases such as breast cancer, endometriosis, and Cushing's syndrome.

The FMF has sought to collaborate with other organizations to raise awareness about their mission. The organization joined the 1993 March on Washington, D.C., for lesbian and gay rights. During the early 1990s, the FMF increased its participation in the political arena by lobbying for the confirmation of Jocelyn Elders as U.S. Surgeon General and by initiating a Feminization of Power campaign that recruited women to run for political office. Continuing their collaborations from the 1990s into the new millennium, the FMF joined with anti-violence organizations to advocate for eliminating violence toward women. The FMF organized a campaign to protect the Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban, which prohibited individuals who had been convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence charges from owning guns. The organization gathered research to support the campaign's mission by raising awareness that 40% of police families had experienced domestic violence, compared to 16% of the general population. This research forced legislators and police enforcement to question the degree to which they were truly protecting women from violence.

The FMF expanded its work on anti-violence efforts globally through launching awareness campaigns and protests against the violence toward women in Afghanistan and Bangladesh. Gathering support from lawmakers and Hollywood celebrities, the FMF screened a powerful documentary, The Shroud of Silence, in order to maintain media awareness about the types of violence experienced by Afghani women. In addition to media campaigns, the FMF initiated grassroots projects in Afghanistan called Back to [Page 559]School and also launched a scholarship program that supported Afghani women in the educational arena.

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