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Politically and Socially Rightist and Conservative A Dissertation Entitled “The Heart of the Battle Is Within:” Politically and Socially Rightist and Conservative Women and the Equal Rights Amendment By Chelsea A. Griffis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy in History ____________________________________ Dr. Diane F. Britton, Committee Chair ____________________________________ Dr. Susan Hartmann, Committee Member ____________________________________ Dr. Ronald Lora, Committee Member ____________________________________ Dr. Kim E. Nielsen, Committee Member ____________________________________ Dr. Patricia Komuniecki, Dean College of Graduate Studies The University of Toledo May 2014 Copyright 2014, Chelsea A. Griffis This document is copyrighted material. Under copyright law, no parts of this document may be reproduced without the express permission of the author. An Abstract of “The Heart of the Battle Is Within:” Politically and Socially Rightist and Conservative Women and the Equal Rights Amendment by Chelsea A. Griffis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree in History The University of Toledo May 2014 This dissertation analyzes the construction of divergent definitions of womanhood of politically and socially rightist and conservative women and how those definitions affected their stance for or against the Equal Rights Amendment. It argues that the way a woman defined her gender identity informed her position on the proposed amendment. Challenging the idea that all rightist and conservative women held a monolithic political ideology, this dissertation evaluates different women and women’s organizations of the right to show that this was not the case. Instead, some of these groups and individuals supported the ERA while opposed it. Opponents, such as Phyllis Schlafly and STOP ERA, the National Association of Evangelicals’ Women’s Fellowship, and Beverly LaHaye and Concerned Women for America, did so based on more traditional definitions of womanhood. Supporters, such as Betty Ford, the Evangelical Women’s Caucus, and the Association of Libertarian Feminists, did so based on their belief in greater freedom for women outside of patriarchal constructs. While all of these women and groups were socially and politically rightist or conservative, they came to different conclusions about the Equal Rights Amendment based on how they defined their womanhood. iii To my mother, Anita, for her constant support and for teaching me that being a woman means whatever I want it to mean. Thank you. My love always. iv Acknowledgements I have been blessed with the support of a number of people and organizations. Many thanks for travel grants, scholarships and funding go to the Gerald R. Ford Library & Museum, the Phi Alpha Theta Historical Honors Society, the Toledo Branch of the American Association of University Women (Dean Katherine Easley Wemmer Scholarship), the History Department (Lapp Family Fund), and the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies. I could not have done this without my dissertation advisor, Dr. Diane F. Britton. Thank you for talking me off years of academic and existential cliffs. Dr. Ronald Lora and Dr. Susan M. Hartmann, and Dr. Cynthia Ingham, your comments and criticism strengthened this work. Dr. Kim E. Nielsen, our discussions mean more to me than you know. To my fellow history graduate students, past and present, you have my respect and empathetic admiration. Lorne Napier, Amber Bertram, and Sheila Solhtalab: your friendship, empathy, care, and interest have sustained me. Finally, to my sister Aryn, brother Jory, father Jeff, and mother Anita – your love has seen me through. v Table of Contents Abstract iii Acknowledgements v Table of Contents vi 1. Introduction 1 2. “Women's Libbers Do Not Speak for Us:” Phyllis Schlafly and the Defense of Womanhood 25 3. “Being Ladylike Does Not Require Silence:” Betty Ford, the Republican Party, and the Equal Rights Amendment 78 4. “In the Beginning Was the Word:” Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christian Women, the Equal Rights Amendment, and Competing Definitions of Womanhood 115 5. “Male Domination or State Domination—Neither Should Be Tolerated”: Libertarian Feminists, the Equal Rights Amendment, and Challenges to the Definition of Womanhood 173 6. Conclusion 208 References 221 vi Chapter One Introduction On March 22, 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) passed through Congress and went to the states for addition to the United States Constitution. After a strenuous battle, the amendment failed on June 30, 1982, falling short by only three states. Historians, political scientists, and other scholars from a wide range of fields have analyzed and discussed the ERA in the decades since its defeat. The majority of the literature describes the pro-ERA movement, the various organizations and individuals who fought for the amendment's success. The authors ask a number of important questions: what went wrong? Why did the Equal Rights Amendment fail? What tactics and strategies were most useful in obtaining the thirty-five state ratifications? Most importantly, if the ERA ever comes back to the states for another ratification attempt, what can be done differently to ensure success? There is a growing body of work which studies the anti-ERA movement, those who sought to secure the amendment's failure. Since the anti-ERA movement was successful, the questions these scholars ask are the opposite to those asked above: how were amendment opponents successful? What tactics and strategies did they use to assure defeat? Additionally, though, works on anti- 1 ERA activists ask questions which point to a discourse with great historiographical importance: who were these people, these women and men? Why did they fight against an amendment that had equal rights for women as its ostensible goal?1 No matter if a person stood in advocacy of the ERA or in protest, all who participated in the ratification process entered into a debate over the meanings of American womanhood. The Equal Rights Amendment served as one of the most important discourses concerning definitions of womanhood during the twentieth century. Thanks to the proliferation of second-wave feminism, women's statuses within American society, politics, and law were in constant and visible flux. While it ended in failure, the ERA ratification attempt was the consummation of second-wave feminist energy as it sought to legally and politically redefine womanhood. Empowered by the growing strength of the women's liberation movement, feminists believed that the amendment was the logical and necessary next step in obtaining gender equality. While they recognized that the amendment would not be supported by all Americans, they argued that there would easily be enough support for it to pass successfully through the ratification process. Unfortunately for those who fought for the amendment's addition to the Constitution and were invested in the idea of female legal and political equality, they 1 The amount of secondary sources on the Equal Rights Amendment has been nothing short of prolific, so much so that an annotated bibliography was compiled in 1986. See Renee Feinburg, The Equal Rights Amendment: An Annotated Bibliography of the Issues, 1976-1985 (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1986). While this dissertation cites many of these sources and cites them in the bibliography, for especially useful accounts, see Susan M. Hartmann, From Margin to Mainstream: American Women and Politics Since 1960 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989); Jane J. Mansbridge, Why We Lost the ERA (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); Ruth Rosen, The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America (New York: Viking Press, 2000); Sarah Slavin, ed, The Equal Rights Amendment: The Politics and Process of Ratification of the 27th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution (New York: The Haworth Press, 1982). A work which focuses on the entirety of the anti-ERA movement has yet to be written. For a good example of the possibilities for analysis of ERA opponents, see Donald Critchlow, Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism: A Woman's Crusade (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005). 2 were wrong. Most shockingly, some of the most vocal anti-ERA advocates were women who were against what they perceived to be changes to womanhood that were epitomized by the proposed amendment.2 The Equal Rights Amendment was not just a battle over legal and political gender equality. It was also a battle over definitions of American womanhood. While some women sought to change traditional views of womanhood through striking out legal and political inequality, other women viewed the ERA and second-wave feminism as an attempt to destroy the vision of their gender identity that they held dear. To further illuminate this discourse, this dissertation analyzes the divisions between these two groups, those who supported the Equal Rights Amendment and those who were against it, within the political and social right, which includes the Republican Party as well as self- defined social and political conservatives. The discussion is national in scope and chronologically focused on the years 1972 through 1982, the years of the ERA ratification debate, though some brief discussion of the 1950s and 1960s is included to explore women's intellectual and political motivations and philosophies. This dissertation argues that rightist and conservative women had varied reactions
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