ABSTRACT
The growth and transformation of feminist groups in the 1970s had special significance for those organizations whose major goal was changing the American political system to make it work for women. By mid-decade, many of the political and educational associations joined forces in Washington and the various states to lobby for legislation and enforcement of existing laws that extended and protected women’s rights, and to seek greater representation of women among policymakers at all levels of government. Although women’s interests were represented in part by the leadership elite of the women’s policy network that emerged at this time, this mobilization of the feminist movement into a broad-based interest group was also visible at the grass roots, as millions of individual feminists became active in support of the Equal Rights Amendment and reproductive rights.
