Women at the crossroads: Feminists, conservatives, and gender politics in Indiana, 1950–1980

Erin M Kempker, Purdue University

Abstract

This dissertation maps the interplay of conservative forces and their feminist foes in Indiana from 1950 through 1980 and argues that issues like the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and International Women’s Year helped anticommunism transition into antifeminism. Although conservatives began by seeing second wave feminists as “Trotskyites” or dupes of communist subversives, they focused on different fears by the latter seventies and eighties. Suspicion of one-worldism and anti-statism, always part of anti-communist grassroots movements, eclipsed the threat of world domination by the Soviet Union or its satellites in the minds of many. For these anti-statist activists the federal government’s recent “power grab” in the form of civil rights legislation presented the real potential of federal domination but even more threatening was the loss of sovereignty under the auspices of global cooperation in the United Nations. Older anti-communist fears of atheistic feminists combined with a growing focus on United Nations’ initiatives and collectivism generally to shape the public confrontations between feminist activists and their foes, few more bitter than the Indiana meeting for International Women’s Year. This project also uncovers a feminism organic to the Midwest in which statewide feminist organizations attempted to reconcile their demands with a conservative Republican power structure by agreeing to a “soft touch” approach concerning ERA ratification. This tactic included marginalizing the concerns of women of color, liberationists, and lesbian women. Ironically, the successful ratification struggle in the state led to a fractured and weakened feminist coalition, while empowering conservatives. “Women at the Crossroads” documents the in tandem formation of conservative and feminist organizations in the state and argues conservative opposition did not first appear as part of the Reagan revolution, but shaped feminist demands from the beginning of the movement. Too, this dissertation expands on the geographic limits of histories concerning second wave feminism and conservatism. “Women at the Crossroads” not only adds to our understanding of the limits and successes of second wave feminism, but further explores how late twentieth century conservatism, forged in dislike and distrust of the New Deal and the welfare state, affected the political possibilities of feminists.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Gabin, Purdue University.

Subject Area

American history|Womens studies

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