During the 1970s, the fight for women's rights took its place alongside the civil rights movement, anti-Vietnam protests, and the drive for political reform as one of the grand upheavals of our time. Women won a Supreme Court decision affirming their right to abortion, entered the work force in ever-increasing numbers, established day-care centers to facilitate raising children while pursuing careers, forayed into the political arena, and made headway in changing America's century-old perceptions of the woman's "proper role."

But now, even though feminists might justifiably feel that they have earned the right to sit back, relax and proudly survey their accomplishments of the past decade, women's rights seem threatened as never before. From coast to coast, pressure groups banding together under a "right-to-life" banner are successfully beginning to undermine state laws guaranteeing women easy access to abortion. Uniting with other conservative groups--ranging from TV-evangelist Rev. Jerry Falwell and his "Moral Majority" to Phyllis Schafly and her "STOP ERA" diehards, these "pro-family" forces have vowed to reverse the progressive trends of the '70s. They are plotting to prevent the ERA's enactment, repeal abortion laws, eliminate federal financing of day-care centers, and prevent revocation of the Internal Revenue Service's so-called "marriage tax" which penalizes two-income households.

Despite the conservative trends threatening women's rights, women have come far enough to shift the focus of the movement to problems facing particular groups of women. Two of those groups--office workers and Black women--have encountered difficulties that they are now striving to combat, encouraged by the victories of the women's rights crusade.

As the first women allowed in male-dominated work places, secretaries and other office-workers have long endured the indignity of being told exactly what women could and could not do. As the victims of America's 350-year plunge into slavery. Black women bear a tragic legacy unknown to any other member of their gender in this country.

While the Betty Freidans and Gloria Steinems stole the limelight and the headlines during the peak of the women's movement, these women watched from the sidelines, wondering if Women's Lib would ever have any relevance to them. But now they are speaking out. And they think what they have to say could greatly affect American society.

In the Office

Since joining "9 to 5," the national organization for secretaries and other women office workers, Maureen O'Donnell, a secretary at the Massachussetts College of Pharmacy, says she feels "autonomous" and has "a sense of power that with other women office workers I can effect change in the workplace."

Before her affiliation with the Boston chapter, O'Donnell "always had a sense I was doing something very valid, that I was making a contribution. But it was constantly undermined, worn away on a day-to-day basis. Every mistake that a secretary makes, such as a typo, is very obvious--and a boss can use that to put you in your place if he wants to."

Nancy Snyder, a staff organizer at 9 to 5, says working for "rights and respect for the women office workers of Boston" is her organization's chief objective. She points to the low self-esteem O'Donnell felt in her job as one of the primary obstacles facing secretaries in their drive for recognition. "Women office workers felt they weren't being treated with respect on the job and that they weren't valued at their true worth to a company. They tended to be underpaid--not given opportunities for promotion or advancement--and had a lack of knowledge about their legal rights," Snyder says.

So two years ago secretaries from Boston, Cleveland, and San Francisco formed 9 to 5. With 12 affiliates around the country, it boasts a national membership of 10,000, including the Boston chapter of 1000 secretaries and clerical workers.

Citing a typical example of the attitudes that 9 to 5 is striving to erase, Snyder says that businessmen and students often walk into offices with only the secretary present and ask her, "Isn't anyone here today?" "It's being treated like you don't have a brain and the work you do is idiot work--when it takes some skill to do it--when, in fact, office workers are the backbone of business in Boston and elsewhere."

9 to 5 rejects the notion that a secretary is merely an extension of her boss--"to cater to his personal whims and perform his personal errands." But for all its concern with office relationships, the organization's primary focus is economic--it advocates what Snyder terms a doctrine of "comparable worth".

A direct response to the ineffectiveness of the Equal Pay Act--which mandates that men and women holding the same job must draw the same salary--the "comparable worth" argument holds that all people should receive pay commensurate with their contribution to the company--regardless of their specific job duties. The Equal Pay Act "doesn't work because there are no men doing the same work women are," Snyder says. "We're put in low-paying, low-status jobs and stuck there."

For example, Snyder notes that the only substantial difference between a company's "junior" and "senior" claims adjuster, other than a $6000- to $10,000-per-year salary gap, may be the "coincidence" that all the junior claims adjusters are women.

Deploring the statistic that women still only make 59 cents for every dollar earned by men, Snyder cites 9 to 5's year-long (April 1979-April 1980) action against the First National Bank of Boston as exemplifying the group's hopes for what it can accomplish. The organization won a 10-per-cent pay increase for non-managerial employees, the implementation of job-posting for vacant positions, and the institution of promotion opportunities for women.