Smeal has promoted the involvement of young women in the feminist movement. Smeal initiated the Choices Campus Leadership Program, a groundbreaking organizing effort on college campuses throughout the country. This program is comprised of a nationwide network of campus-based feminist activist groups called Feminist Majority Leadership Alliances. Leadership Alliances are based on the Feminist Majority Foundation’s innovative study and action model which focuses on four critical “choice” issues: Reproductive Choices, Career Choices, Leadership Choices, and Saving Choices: Fighting the Backlash. Smeal’s innovative campus program has energized young feminist leaders on hundreds of public and private, two and four-year, large and small college campuses in 32 states and the District of Columbia.
As President of the Feminist Majority, Smeal shifted women's organizations' strategies on electing women from a philosophy of carefully targeting a few races to the need for recruiting record numbers of feminists to run for political office. Two-awarding videos, Abortion for Survival and Abortion Denied: Shattering Women's Lives, which Smeal co-authored and co-produced, helped reframe the abortion debate by documenting importance of abortion as a global public health issue and the devastating impact of parental consent and notification laws.
Smeal helped lead the campaign to save affirmative action at the national level and to defeat California's Proposition 209. She re-framed the debate by mobilizing women's groups to demand the inclusion of women and provided a compelling analysis of the impact of affirmative action attacks on women's opportunities and sex discrimination law.
Expanding feminist activism to a global level, Smeal in 1997 launched the international Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan to counter the Taliban’s abuse of women, which included edicts that banished women from the work force, closed schools to girls, prohibited women from leaving their homes unless accompanied by a close male relative, and forced women to wear the burqa. Smeal and the Feminist Majority were the first to draw world attention to the Taliban’s brutal treatment of women in Afghanistan. The Campaign helped stop the U.S. and United Nations from officially recognizing the Taliban. Since the fall of the Taliban, Smeal has been leading efforts to increase reconstruction and humanitarian aid to Afghanistan and expand peacekeeping troops outside the capital of Kabul to ensure stability and progress in women’s rights.
In December 2001, Smeal, feminist author and activist, Gloria Steinem, and Ms. magazine joined forces and FMF became the sole publisher of Ms. magazine. Smeal's commitment to achieving equality for women and her vision for Ms. as the voice of the feminist movement brings new life into the 30-year trailblazing history of the magazine. Through this combination, Ms. will continue to be a forum for challenging conventional ideas and a springboard for the development and dissemination of feminist ideas throughout the world.
A variety of well-known publications have acknowledged Smeal's leadership. The World Almanac for 1983 chose her as the fourth most influential woman in the United States; she was named as Time Magazine's as one of the "50 Faces for America's Future" in their August 6, 1979 cover story; she was featured as one of the six most influential Washington lobbyists in U.S. News and World Report. Smeal has appeared on most network news and talk shows including "The Today Show," "Nightline," "Good Morning America," "The Larry King Show," and "Crossfire."
A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Duke University, Smeal holds an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Florida and an honorary Doctor of Law degree from Duke University. Eleanor Smeal has a son, Tod, who is a Ph.D. in molecular biology, and a daughter, Lori, who is an attorney.
With a face like hers, she doesn't have to worry about birth control.