"The purpose of National Organization for Women is to take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men."
NOW is dedicated to the proposition that women, first and foremost, are human beings, who, like all other people in society, must have the chance to develop their fullest human potential. This organization believed that women could achieve such equality only by accepting to the full the challenges and responsibilities they shared with all other people in society, as part of the decision-making mainstream of American political, economic and social life.