Honoree Profile: Mary Eastwood

Mary Eastwood was a young attorney in 1960 when she started working in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel; she remained there almost 20 years, until 1979.

After President Kennedy's Commission on the Status of Women was established in 1961,Eastwood served on loan from the Justice Department as technical secretary for the Committee on Civil and Political Rights. There she met several other women who were to be key in bringing about the Second Wave: Pauli Murray, Catherine East and Marguerite Rawalt.

She and Murray subsequently co-authored "Jane Crow and the Law," published in the George Washington Law Review in December 1965. It set forth for the first time a feminist interpretation of women's rights under the Constitution and the new equal employment opportunity provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

By the winter of 1965 Betty Friedan was meeting often with Eastwood and Catherine East to discuss what was happening in the government regarding women. They repeatedly urged Friedan to start an organization in the private sector that could put pressure on government agencies to properly enforce the nondiscrimination laws. This resulted in the founding of NOW in June 1966; Eastwood arranged for the organizing conference that October in DC. During the late 60s and early 70s, she also served as legal staff for the Interdepartmental Committee and Citizens Advisory Council on the Status of Women, drafting position papers on the Equal Rights Amendment, family planning and equal employment opportunity.

In the late 1960s, Alice Paul, the National Woman's Party's long-time president, recommended Eastwood as a member of the National Council of the NWP, where she served as president from1989 to 1991 and on the board and as an officer for many years. During the 1970s, she was also EEO officer for the department's offices, divisions and boards.She worked with Caruthers Berger, Sylvia Ellison and Rawalt on the early sex discrimination cases under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Because of her employment at the Justice Department, she did this work voluntarily and anonymously.

With Ellison, Berger and Ti-Grace Atkinson, Eastwood founded Human Rights for Women in 1968, the first tax-exempt organization devoted solely to women's rights.

In 1980 she was designated Acting Special Counsel of the Merit Systems Protection Board by President Carter. In 1985 she became president of Equal Opportunity Consultants, a Maryland corporation that investigated discrimination complaints for federal agencies.

Working with all factions of the feminist movement from radical to conservative, Eastwood was a peacemaker when conflicts arose. She extended her kindness to all and her couch in DC put up countless visiting feminists. She and East were early members and strong supporters of VFA; VFA's bylaws were drafted by Eastwood and she has been a board member since 1992. Since retiring in 1988, she's lived on her farm in southwest Wisconsin.

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