{"id":1226,"date":"2013-06-27T10:15:21","date_gmt":"2013-06-27T15:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ssn\/?p=1226"},"modified":"2013-06-25T11:56:55","modified_gmt":"2013-06-25T16:56:55","slug":"conservative-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ssn\/2013\/06\/27\/conservative-women\/","title":{"rendered":"How Conservative Women\u2019s Organizations Challenge Feminists in U.S. Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/a>In 2008, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin grabbed the national spotlight when Republican presidential candidate John McCain nominated her to be his running mate. Although reporters were mistaken in their speculation that Palin was chosen to woo female voters from the Democratic Party, McCain\u2019s choice of a woman for the GOP ticket both underlined and heightened the profile of conservative women in U.S. politics.<\/p>\n

Conservative women activists are not a new phenomenon. As central actors in social movements on the right, they have been politically active for as long as feminists and their supporters have pushed goals such as women\u2019s suffrage, equal pay, the Equal Rights Amendment, and legalized abortion. A full understanding of women in U.S. politics is simply not possible without recognizing the many ways in which conservative women have shifted, reshaped, and pushed the boundaries of political engagement and policy debates.<\/p>\n

The Prominence of Conservative Women\u2019s Organizations<\/h3>\n

A closer look at conservative national women\u2019s organizations offers an excellent window into the efforts and impact of right-wing women. In addition to older groups like Concerned Women for America, the National Federation of Republican Women, and the Eagle Forum, a spate of newer organizations have gained visibility \u2013 including the Independent Women\u2019s Forum, the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, the Network of Enlightened Women, Smart Girl Politics, and the Susan B. Anthony List.<\/p>\n

All of these groups use proven tactics to challenge feminist claims. Conservative women deliberately organize separately and visibly as<\/i> women. In turn, their organizations position women in leadership positions and in the media to challenge feminists and argue that they, too, speak for, and represent American women. One activist referred to this strategy as playing \u201cfemball\u201d \u2013 dramatizing a political contest between conservative and feminist women about who truly understands what American women want and who acts effectively on their behalf.<\/p>\n

Non-Feminists Who Claim to Speak for American Women<\/h3>\n

Conservative women\u2019s activism requires observers to drop the assumption that women are fettered by \u201cfalse consciousness\u201d if they do not pursue feminist goals. Although media accounts dubbed Sarah Palin a \u201cconservative feminist,\u201d most female activists on the right do not embrace that term. Indeed, much of their work and public rhetoric is explicitly antifeminist, and conservative women\u2019s groups deliberately situate themselves in opposition to feminist organizations like the National Organization for Women and the Feminist Majority Foundation. They want to show that conservative women can organize for themselves, while remaining conservative in identity and goals.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>Women\u2019s political participation on the right shatters the misconception that conservatives simply encourage females to \u201cstay at home.\u201d Although it is true that some conservative leaders like Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly believe that women should be primarily wives and mothers at certain points in their lives, Schlafly and others also hold that women\u2019s domestic lives need not detract from political engagement. Groups like the Concerned Women for America maintain that it is women\u2019s moral obligation as wives and mothers to fight for and protect their families. Indeed, activism is presented as a religious mission for members of that organization.<\/p>\n

Conservative women\u2019s organizations frame their positions as true women\u2019s issues. Building on Schlafly\u2019s successful opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and early 1980s, today\u2019s female conservative activists assert that they have better policies than feminists to help American women. Schlafly, for example, once asserted that the Equal Rights Amendment would harm women by forcing them into the military draft and encouraging men to abandon their financial obligations to their wives and children. Today, right-wing women make similar claims.<\/p>\n