CHARLESTON W.Va. (WVDN) – On Monday, Jan. 8, at its 7 p.m. meeting, former Delegate Barbara Evans Fleischauer will be sharing with the Monongalia County Democratic Executive Committee that she has accepted a position with the Feminist Majority, a national women’s rights organization. The Feminist Majority Foundation, its sister organization, is the publisher of Ms. Magazine.
Fleischauer will be working with Feminist Majority’s National President, Eleanor Smeal, on its national 2024 campus campaign, organizing young women on college campuses on two main issues – adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and the urgent need to protect abortion rights.
“I feel like I can make a difference mobilizing young women in battleground states on these critical issues,” Fleischauer said. “And I am thrilled to have the chance to map out and implement strategies with Ellie Smeal, whom I have long admired.”
Successful campus organizing campaigns launched by the Feminist Majority in 2020 and 2022 contributed to achieving democratic majorities in the Virginia state House and Senate and securing state constitutional abortion rights in Ohio.
According to Fleischauer, many young women are not aware that the ERA is not officially part of our federal constitution.
“After the U.S. Supreme Court eviscerated women’s reproductive freedoms in the Dobbs decision,” she said, “it is imperative that we educate and mobilize this important voting group to protect women’s rights and help save our democracy.”
Barbara Evans Fleischauer has the longest tenure of any female elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates, representing Monongalia County for 26 years. Fleischauer has successfully championed legislation benefitting children and veterans and focused on laws improving health care, including requiring insurance coverage for people with autism, lowering prices for insulin and diabetes supplies, and providing support for nurses who treat sexual assault victims.
After careful consideration, Fleischauer has decided not to file for a seat in the House of Delegates in 2024, but she said she is not ending her political career in West Virginia.
“At this historic time,” she added, “working on women’s issues nationally to protect our democracy feels like the best way to honor my core value of public service.”
