| Chapter 1: | An Introduction to Emily's List |
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List. During the 1970s, women were faced with a series of challenges that forced them to take a stand on issues heretofore deemed personal and private; thus, the personal became political.4 Issues such as abortion, education, employment, marriage, and children divided women from men and divided women from women. These issues even divided organizations (Barakso 2005). However, by the mid-1970s, the liberal feminist women's movement reached critical mass and became strong enough to maximize on the political opportunities available (Costain 1992). One of these political opportunities was the ability of groups to form PACs.
The arrival of PACs on the political stage was serendipitous for women. The second part of chapter 2 provides a brief history of the first two women's PACs: the National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC) and the Women's Campaign Fund (WCF). I explore the impact of these PACs before the formation of EMILY's List and then compare the three (NWPC, WCF, and EMILY's List) in terms of structure and impact through the 1992 election. It was that election that changed the trajectory of EMILY's List. Not only did EMILY's List become the leading women's PAC, but the 1992 election also set the stage for Malcolm's plan of making EMILY's List into a “full-service political organization.”5
EMILY's List Is Transformed
I begin chapter 3 with a discussion of women as candidates and the obstacles they faced in spite their apparent success in the 1992 election. It is far from coincidental that when EMILY's List planned its post-1992 transformation, it focused on the very cornerstones that scholars identified as inhibiting women's success in the electoral arena. Ellen Malcolm's entrepreneurial leadership is critical to this strategy; she has kept the organization agile and dynamic, leading its expansion into new arenas of influence,