Feminist Majority Foundation

The Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF) is a noprofit organization dedicated to research and action by, about, and for women and feminists. Founded in 1987, the FMF is the sister organization of the Feminist Majority, with the former being focused on feminist research and education and the later focused on the legal and political means of ensuring female and male equality. The FMF is also the publisher of Ms. magazine-the premier popular magazine of the women's movement.

Eleanor Smeal is the founder and president of the FMF. Smeal is a 1961 graduate of Duke University who began her feminist activism while a student, working for the complete integration of women into Duke. She has also earned a master's degree in political science from the University of Florida. Smeal eventually joined the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1970 and served two terms as president of NOW between 1977-82 and 1985-87. Smeal gained national media attention for NOW during her first term as an organizer and spokesperson for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. During her second term as president of NOW, Smeal organized a national abortion rights march that drew more than 10,000 activists to Washington, D.C.

After leaving NOW in 1987, Smeal founded the FMF as an organization dedicated to research, education, and political action. Smeal named the organization after a 1986 Newsweek/Gallup poll revealed that 56 percent of women identified themselves as feminists, and noting that this number constitutes a majority. Smeal founded the FMF to unite the men and women who were part of the feminist majority and to provide a clearinghouse for education and research that could affect social policy.

The stated goals of the FMF are to advance women's equality, nonviolence, economic development, and the general empowerment of women and girls across national boundaries, and the FMF has used a variety of techniques to advance these goals. For example, in the late 1980s, the FMF developed the National Clinic Access Project in response to violence enacted by antiabortion advocates, which threatened women's access to reproductive healthcare clinics. The project has trained over 45,000 individuals in nonviolent clinic defense techniques; these individuals have protected clinics in 26 states.

The FMF also started an outreach program to inform young feminists about feminist issues including threats to reproductive rights for women, violence toward women on college campuses, and other [Page 541]issues related to women and equality. The program, called Choices Campus Program, in part helps students organize and maintain pro-choice feminist activist groups, called Feminist Majority Leadership Alliances, on their home campuses. At this time, the FMF has aligned with over 700 college campuses to promote these organizations for young feminists.

In 2001, the FMF and Eleanor Smeal purchased Liberty Media for Women, LLC, publishers of Ms. magazine. The magazine was launched in the early 1970s as a voice for the liberal feminist movement and has continued for several decades as an advertising-free publication dedicated to feminist investigative journalism and critical, political analysis. The acquisition of Liberty Media for Women by the FMF was considered a positive change by the magazine's cofounders and Liberty Media copartners Gloria Steinem and Marcia Gillespie. The magazine has retained its original format and thematic focus since the FMF assumed responsibility for its publication.

...