THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT

Inka O’Hanrahan

November 17, 1912-January 15, 1970

“We must stand up and be counted. We are individuals and we want equal opportunity under law.”  – Inka O’Hanrahan, National Conference of NOW, November 1967

Anthropologist, physiologist, biochemist. One of the founders of the National Organization for Women (NOW). Served as vice chair of the California Commission on the Status of Women (1965–1967). Organized the Northern and Southern CA chapters of NOW. National treasurer of NOW. President of the San Francisco Soroptimist Club and public affairs chair of the 13-county Soroptimist Federation of America.

Photo 1. Founders of the National Organization for Women at the first national meeting in 1966. Left to right: Dorothy Haener, Sister Joel Read, Anna Arnold Hedgeman, Betty Friedan, Inez Casiano, Richard Graham and Inka O’Hanrahan. (Courtesy of Schlesinger Library, Harvard University). Photo 2. NOW chapters nationwide barraged EEOC offices with baskets of red tape to protest the agency’s failure to desexigrate Help Wanted ads. San Francisco protesters included NOW’s secretary-treasurer Inka O’Hanrahan (third from left), second President Aileen Hernandez (holding tape) and lesbian activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon (far right). (Photo by Morton-Waters Co. December 14, 1967)