developed by the minority civil rights program offered useful guides for first steps. Although women had benefited from the Foundation's poverty, family-planning, and school-reform programs, relatively few women or women's organizations were direct recipients of Foundation support. Moreover, no sustained women's program existed.

Ford Foundation personnel by race and gender.

In 1972 Bundy appointed a small, interdivisional Task Force on Women to investigate grant-making possibilities in the area of women's rights and opportunities. Its five original members began a wide-ranging exploration of subjects relating to women's status, changing gender roles, work patterns, and the family—primarily in the United States, but also in developing countries. Discussions soon placed the heaviest emphasis on questions of poverty and women's economic roles. Task Force members reasoned that improving women's economic status would help improve other aspects of their lives and their families' well-being. This became a guiding assumption as members investigated sex discrimination, both in the law and in social practice; access to education and employment; health and family issues, including the sensitive matter of reproductive choice; and changing assumptions about "proper" sex roles. Almost a year of study and consultation culminated in a 1973 report to the Board of Trustees, which recommended Foundation support for "a program starting with a concern for women's economic role but reaching out to many of the ramifications that develop from that...."

As a result, the National Affairs and the Education and Research divisions each set aside $1 million in reserve funds for this program and assigned responsibility for women's grants to particular program officers. In the International Division, the pace of developments was slower. Some program officers believed that women's