ABSTRACT
Historians of second-wave feminism have generally devoted less attention to the growth of feminist service organizations than to the political movement for women’s rights. The service organizations were certainly implicated in this tendency as they generally focused on one issue, although it’s not clear to what extent the service organizations were a cause or a consequence of the fragmentation. Despite National Organization for Women's ambivalent response toward service-oriented volunteerism, NOW consistently advocated for services for women and defended service organizations when they were threatened with loss of funding. While some feminist service providers worried about the consequences of their organization’s heavy reliance on volunteer labor, a new insidious form of volunteer work was emerging—volunteering on the job. Institutionalization of service organizations may be necessary both to achieve long-term social change and to cope with day-to-day challenges.
