She first joined the feminist movement through the August 26, 1970, New York City Women's Strike for Equality March and Rally and an autumn 1970 NYRF consciousness-raising group.
In January 1972, Connell and Wilson began work on what was to be a pamphlet "from a pile of (conference) notes and cassette tapes in a Bloomingdale's bag."
As volunteers, they transcribed tapes, obtained rights from the conference's speakers and workshop participants scattered about the country, and added other articles for the 283-page book's fruition in December 1974.
NOW-NYS sponsored feminist contingents Connell lead to research international women's rights movements in England, Iceland, Norway and Spain.
[5] The organization also held a statewide day-long meeting with 25 organizations in which Connell, Congresswoman Bella Abzug and Brooklyn District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman were keynote speakers about continued discrimination against women in the New York State legal system despite a year's passing after the release of the April 1986 Report of New York Task Force on Women in the Courts.
She was fired from the waitress job she held while at the New School for taking time from work to attend the August 26, 1970 Women's Equality Day March and Rally.