Survive, Revive, Thrive: Chapter 8: Trade Winds

Aging is not lost youth, but a new stage of opportunity and strength. - Betty Friedan, American feminist, 1921-2006 (Cofounder of the National Organization for Women) Where Are We Going? If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable. - Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Roman statesman, 4 BC-65 AD The most challenging aspect of creating a monthly column is to try to balance mission (i.e., long-term strategy), contemporary events (i.e., things happening now), and the urgent (i.e., news you need to know). This column will have a bit of all three. I chose “trade winds” as the theme for this article. As every sailor knows, you must tack to where the wind is, not where you want it to be. I know that every student and Young Professional is waiting for the wind to align with their path. Frankly, I cannot promise that will happen anytime soon, but I can promise it will happen. To borrow a phrase, “patience or pivot” is on everyone’s mind right now. What I would point out is that we have already done both; we have been patient and we have pivoted. I believe that our pivot has been to see the strength and missions of our industry as never before. This is not just in terms of the financial recovery that will significantly enhance activity across all sectors of our industry, but also the impact of having secure and cost-effective energy to power that economy and to provide so many direct benefits to society. My goal as SPE President is to ensure that every initiative that can be considered is considered, that every member feels valued, that their voice is heard, and most of all, that we collectively and proactively work to build the future of our industry. As an adolescent, a family member once told me that “sentimentality is the worst investment advisor.” Obviously, this advice was given as I was about to invest in something stupid and my family member used it as a moment to educate me. I confess it took a while to sink in, but it is true. We must be realistic about the value generated by our investments in life (e.g., time, education, personal relationships, and of course, money). SPE must make investments to remain relevant, and frankly, I need your support to ensure those investments are both wise and appropriate.

THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN AND THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN REAGAN'S AMERICA

This article explores the emergence of women in the United States as a liberal voting group in the 1980s and the impact of this development on the power of liberalism, amid the Reagan revolution – an era often viewed as the apogee of conservatism. As the Republican party shifted in a more conservative direction in the 1980s, gender started to correlate with partisan preference/election outcomes in enough contests to give credence to the belief that women were becoming a decidedly liberal voting bloc. Contemporaneously, the equality-seeking movements of the 1960s and 1970s began institutionalizing their operations and exploiting these demographic shifts, becoming more entrenched than ever within the internal politics of the Democratic party. The National Organization for Women (NOW), the largest liberal women's group, proved to be particularly successful in this respect. Therefore, by presenting substantial archival evidence that liberal politicians and organizations remained a dynamic political force during the 1980s, this article details the growing organizational prowess of NOW and examines how liberals resisted the conservative challenge to fashion a political approach suited to the ‘Reagan Era’.

“The Woman’s Movement Has Discovered a New Enemy—the Mormon Church”

This chapter talks about the woman's movement that considered the Mormon church as a new enemy because of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). It illustrates the Church of Latter-day Saints of Jesus Christ's sudden and successful political mobilization against the ERA ratification that caught the country by surprise. It examines how ERA proponents reacted to and interacted with the Mormon church during the ERA ratification process, which elucidates the power of the church's political influence in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The chapter discusses how the Mormon church's successful mobilization pushed ERA supporters, specifically the National Organization for Women (NOW), to wholly reconceptualize parts of their own mobilization. It recounts the clear success of the anti-ERA Mormon counterforce due to their ability to reach people on the local level.

Pauli Murray

The Rev. Dr. Anna Pauline "Pauli" Murray (1910–1985) was a trailblazing social activist, writer, lawyer, civil rights organizer, and campaigner for gender rights. In the 1930s and 1940s, she was active in radical left-wing political groups and helped innovate nonviolent protest strategies against segregation that would become iconic in later decades, and in the 1960s, she cofounded the National Organization for Women (NOW). In addition, Murray became the first African American to receive a Yale law doctorate and the first black woman to be ordained an Episcopal priest. Yet, behind her great public successes, Murray battled many personal demons, including bouts of poor physical and mental health, conflicts over her gender and sexual identities, family traumas, and financial difficulties. In this intimate biography, Troy Saxby provides the most comprehensive account of Murray’s inner life to date, revealing her struggles in poignant detail and deepening our understanding and admiration of her numerous achievements in the face of pronounced racism, homophobia, transphobia, and political persecution. Saxby interweaves the personal and the political, showing how the two are always entwined, to tell the life story of one of twentieth-century America’s most fascinating and inspirational figures.

The Problems of Race Discrimination and Sex Discrimination Meet in Me, 1961–1973

This chapter focuses on Pauli Murray’s contributions to Second Wave Feminism. Murray served on the President’s Commission on the Status of Women, campaigned to retain the sex amendment to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and cofounded the National Organization for Women. She also became the first African American to complete a law doctorate at Yale. Murray gained employment at Benedict College in South Carolina before moving to Brandeis University where she clashed with Black Power student activists over the establishment of Black Studies programs. Murray also won a teaching award and innovated Women’s Studies courses.

Should We Stay or Should We Go? Local and National Factionalism in the National Organization for Women

While the National Organization for Women (NOW) has endured over time, it has faced significant internal factionalism. In this article, I ask why some of these factions resulted in schisms, while other factions persisted in NOW over time. This is a critical question for understanding how organizational location and factional collective identities combine to produce different outcomes when internal conflict breaks out. My analysis of interview, archival, and secondary data indicates that organizational location influences factions’ independent collective identities, shaping what they want and their perceptions of opportunities to change their organization. Compared to national level factions, local factions also lack the ability to use NOW’s hierarchical structure to their advantage in their effort to stay. This sheds lights on the distinct patterns of factionalism and schism in formalized groups.