Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women

by Susan Faludi

  “IWY was our ‘boot camp’ . . .”: Klatch, New Right, pp. 123-24.

  I had never . . .”: Ibid., pp. 143-44.

  A woman’s nature . . .”: Connaught C. Marshner, The New Traditional Woman (Washington, D.C.: Free Congress Research and Education Foundation, 1982) p. 12.

  “If anywhere . . .”: Personal interview with Connaught Marshner, May 1988.

  Oh yeah . . .”: Ibid. (Following quotations are from personal interview with Marshner unless otherwise noted.)

  Both cerebral and . . .: Connaught C. Marshner, Why the Family Matters: From a Business Perspective (Washington, D.C.: The Free Congress Foundation, 1985) p. 8.

  Abortion, for example . . .: Ibid., p. 14.

  Just quit whining . . .: Schlafly, Positive Woman, pp. 70-71.

  Women need to know . . .”: Klatch, New Right, p. 45.

  She is new . . .”: Marshner, New Traditional Woman, p. 1.

  It had unleashed “a new image . . .”: Ibid., p. 3.

  Macho feminism has . . .”: Ibid., pp. 3-4.

  Marshner’s out of it now . . .”: Personal interview with Paul Weyrich, 1988.

  As he speaks . . .: Personal interviews with staff members, 1988.

  The woman who is truly . . .”: Beverly LaHaye, The Spirit-Controlled Woman (Eugene, Ore.: Harvest House Publishers, 1976) p. 71.

  “God didn’t make me . . .”: Personal interview with Beverly LaHaye, May 1988.

  “Betty Friedan doesn’t . . .”: Ibid. (Following LaHaye quotations are from interview unless otherwise noted.)

  At the time, LaHaye was a “fearful . . .”: LaHaye, Spirit-Controlled Woman, p. 13.

  I refused most invitations . . .”: Ibid.

  “One very well-meaning . . .”: Ibid., pp. 13-14.

  “In my case . . .”: Ibid., p. 89.

  When her youngest child . . .: Personal interview with Beverly LaHaye, May 1988.

  The speaker, the popular . . .: Ibid.

  “This is what I needed!” LaHaye, Spirit-Controlled Woman, pp. 13, 14, 30, 34.

  By tapping “spiritual power” . . .: Ibid., pp. 14, 34.

  A spirit-controlled woman must . . .: Ibid., p. 34.

  LaHaye’s journey toward . . .: Personal interview with Beverly LaHaye, May 1988.

  “Modern research . . .”: Tim and Beverly LaHaye, The Act of Marriage: The Beauty of Sexual Love (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing, 1976) p. 109.

  “Regrettably some husbands are carryovers . . .”: Ibid., p. 121.

  “Many women are . . .”: Ibid., p. 126.

  The LaHayes even declared . . .: Ibid., pp. 73, 258.

  As if all this weren’t . . .: Ibid., pp. 240-41.

  She declared herself . . .: LaHaye, Who But a Woman?, p. 53.

  “I discovered an organization . . .”: Mary Schmich, “A Spokeslady of the Right,”

  Chicago Tribune, March 23, 1986, p. 1. 263 She organized what she claimed . . .: Barrie Lyons, Beverly LaHaye’s sister and CWA’s vice president, told an interviewer that the organization arrived at a figure of a half-million constituents by counting as a member anyone who expressed “interest” in the group by requesting a newsletter or signing a petition. About 150,000 women, on the other hand, were actually official members who paid the minimum $15 dues each year. Most of the media, however, accepted CWA’s inflated roster claims: A Time cover story, for example, described CWA as having more members “than the combined following of the National Organization for Women, the National Women’s Political Caucus and the League of Women Voters.” (“Jerry Falwell’s Crusade,” Time, Sept. 2, 1985.) NOW, in fact, had more dues-paying members than CWA.

  Father, we pray . . .”: Randi Henderson, “In the Tradition,” Baltimore Sun, March 26, 1986, p. C1.

  Tim LaHaye offered . . .: The CWA’s National Advisory Council, for example, included Jerry Falwell’s wife Macel, Senator Jesse Helms’s wife Dorothy, and Jimmy Swaggart’s wife Frances, to name just a few.

  “She has the kind of . . .”: Geoffrey Aronson, “The Conversion of Beverly LaHaye,” Regardie’s, March 1987, p. 105.

  She refused . . .: Ibid., p. 120; Morgan, “Evangelicals as a Force Divided,” p. A1; Maralee Schwartz, Lloyd Grove, and Dan Morgan, “Kemp Loses Endorsement,” Washington Post, March 3, 1988, p. A15.

  One year she went to . . .: Mary Battiata, “Beverly LaHaye and the Hymn of the Right,” Washington Post, Sept. 26, 1987, p. C1.

  While on the road . . .: Cathy Trost, “Conservatives Enter into the Fray on Child Care, Arguing for Tax Breaks, Against Regulation,” The Wall Street Journal, May 6, 1988, p. 44.

  And she made it clear . . .: Nadine Brozan, “Politics and Prayer: Women on a Crusade,” New York Times, June 15, 1987, p. C1.

  I think the women’s movement . . .”: Personal interview with Beverly LaHaye, May 1988.

  “Mrs. LaHaye had that . . .”: Personal interview with Rebecca Hagelin, 1988.

  (Her latest antifeminist book. . .): Beverly LaHaye, The Restless Woman (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing, 1984) pp. 88, 108, 109.

  I just love it . . .”: Personal interview with Elizabeth Kepler, 1988.

  I change the car . . .”: Personal interview with Susan Larson, 1988.

  “Now, let’s see . . .”: Personal observation and interview with Rebecca Hagelin, 1988.

  CHAPTER TEN. MS. SMITH LEAVES WASHINGTON

  On the bench . . .: Jane Mayer, “Unfair Shake? Women Charge They Don’t Get Their Share of White House Jobs,” The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 10, 1985, p. 1.

  On the White House staff . . .: Barbara Gamarekian, “Women Are Liberating a Citadel of Male Power,” New York Times, May 18, 1988, p. 24.

  In fact, even 62 . . .: Information from Federally Employed Women.

  At the start of . . .: Mayer, “Unfair Shake?” p. 1.

  At the Justice Department . . .: There were, as well, no women in the Justice Department’s twenty-one presidentially appointed jobs. Meese’s record was no better among minorities; in his first two years, he named no black senior policymakers either. In Reagan’s first six years, he appointed only two women out of the 93 U.S. attorneys and 27 women out of 292 federal judges. See Howard Kurtz, “Affirmative Action: A Vacuum at Justice? Meese Puts No Blacks or Women in Top Jobs,” Washington Post, Nov. 26, 1986, p. A19.

  The Federal Women’s Program . . .: Personal interviews with staff of the Federal Women’s Program, 1989, 1991.

  Each year, our budget . . .”: Personal interview with Betty Fleming, May 1991.

  U.N. ambassador . . .: Mayer, “Unfair Shake?” p. 1.

  The Reagan administration, she . . .: Lindsy Van Gelder, “Countdown to Motherhood,” Ms., Dec. 1986, p. 37.

  “I know the president . . .”: Whittlesey, “Radical Feminism in Retreat,” Dec. 8, 1984.

  As she headed for . . .: Mayer, “Unfair Shake?” p. 1.

  First, antiabortion activist . . .: Steve Chapple and David Talbot, Burning Desires: Sex in America (New York: Doubleday, 1989) pp. 77-88. The squeal rule was eventually blocked by the courts.

  Jo Ann Gasper, Conservative Digest . . .: Ibid., pp. 78-82; Conway and Siegelman, Holy Terror, p. 372.

  Mandate for Leadership demanded . . .: Mandate for Leadership, pp. 179-180.

  “I was a ‘known feminist,’” . . .: Personal interview with Leslie Wolfe, Feb. 1988.

  In a flurry of internal memos . . .: See, for example, “A Brief Look at the Women’s Educational Equity Act,” a Heritage Foundation “training” paper (which complained that the program “operated as a taxpayer-subsidized effort to insert the ‘feminist outlook’ into the U.S. school curriculum”); “Feminist Network Fed by Federal Grants: Insider Exposes Education Department Scandal,” Conservative Digest, Special issue, 8, no. 4 (April 1982): 26.

  It had been hailed . . .: Judy Mann, “Two Faced,” Washington Post, Sept. 14, 1983, p. C1.

  The projects WEEA funded . . .: Judith Paterson, “Equity in Exile,” Ms., Nov. 1984, p. 18.

  None
theless, to the men . . .: Testimony from Charles Heatherly, Heritage fellow and former deputy under secretary for management in the U.S. Education Department, at hearings before the House Education and Labor Committee, Aug. 2, 1983.

  Charles Heatherly, Heritage . . .: Personal interview with Charles Heatherly, Nov. 1989.

  Heatherly recruited . . .: Congressional hearings on WEEA transcript, Sept. 27, 1983.

  They found a . . .: Paterson, “Equity in Exile,” p. 20. 272 Human Events: National . . .: “Education Department Uncovers Grants to Feminist,”

  Human Events: National Conservative Weekly, Jan. 30, 1982.

  Conservative Digest, the publication . . .: “Feminist Network Fed,” pp. 26-27.

  Again, on a talk show . . .: Congressional WEEA hearings, Sept. 27, 1983.

  Just a week after . . .: Personal interview with Leslie Wolfe, 1988; “Statement of Dr. Leslie R. Wolfe,” Sept. 27, 1983, testimony before the Congressional WEEA hearings, pp. 17-19.

  When Wolfe reported . . .: Personal interview with Leslie Wolfe, 1988; “Statement of Dr. Leslie R. Wolfe,” p. 20.

  Every year, the program . . .: Deborah R. Eisenberg, “Evaluating the Department of Education’s Field Readers,” GAO Review, Fall 1984, pp. 32-35.

  “There was a general . . .”: Personal interview with Charles Heatherly, Nov. 1989.

  As one of them . . .: “Statement of Dr. Leslie R. Wolfe,” p. 38.

  One reader, whose job . . .: Ibid., pp. 32, 35-36.

  Finally, the General Accounting . . .: “Procedures for Making Grant Awards Under Three Department of Education Discretionary Grant Programs,” General Accounting Office, July 26, 1983.

  A year later . . .: Personal interview with Leslie Wolfe, 1988.

  All five other . . .: “More on the Women’s Issues,” New York Times, Aug. 18, 1983, p. B12.

  “The values taught on . . .”: “Can Uncle Sam Cure What Ails the Family?” U.S. News and World Report, Sept. 1, 1986.

  What Bauer found most . . .: Personal interview with Gary Bauer, 1988.

  But he was ignored . . .: Julie Johnson, “Fanning the Flames for Conservatives,” New York Times, Oct. 12, 1988, p. A15; John B. Judis, “The Mouse That Roars,” The New Republic, Aug. 3, 1987, p. 23. 275

  When the administration . . .: Judis, “Mouse That Roars,” p. 23.

  “If the mother does not do . . .”: “The Family: Preserving America’s Future,” A Report to the President from the White House Working Group on the Family, Dec. 1986.

  “I’m sorry, Sam . . .”: Ibid., p. 13.

  Even female poverty . . .: Ibid., p. 16. Actually, female-headed households are estimated to have contributed to only 1.2 percent of the increase in poverty among the nation’s children between 1979 and 1986. See Joan Smith, “Impact of the Reagan Years: Gender & Restructuring,” Paper for 1st Annual Women’s Policy Research Conference, Institute for Women’s Policy Research, May 19, 1989, pp. 2–3, 26.

  Of the offspring . . .: Ibid., pp. 13–14. The Rockford Institute’s The Family in America, for example, a New Right publication that features “research” on the family, focused primarily on divorce’s ill effects on sons. With only Mom in charge, the newsletter warned, boys can become emotionally stunted, develop insomnia, and turn into “sissies.” If girls lose sleep over their parents’ divorce, it’s apparently not worth noting. See, for example: “Needing Dad” and “Just Like His Dad,” The Family in America, July 1989, pp. 2, 3.

  Bauer’s “recommendations” to . . .: “The Family,” p. 38. See also follow-up report, “Report to the President on the Family,” Office of Policy Development, July 25, 1988, p. 7.

  On the other hand . . .: “The Family,” p. 45.

  We’re running at . . .”: Personal interview with Gary Bauer, 1988. (Subsequent Bauer quotes are from interview unless otherwise noted.)

  (It’s unclear how this is. . .): “Child Care: The Time Is Now,” Children’s Defense Fund, 1987, p. 9.

  “Actually, I went back . . .”: Personal interview with Carol Bauer, 1988. (Subsequent quotes are from interview.)

  The $5,000 . . .: “Report Urges President to Strengthen Families,” Washington Post, Nov. 14, 1986, p. A1.

  The measure did not go . . .: Geraldine Ferraro with Linda Bird Francke, Ferraro: My Story (New York: Bantam Books, 1985) pp. 1900–95. 279 The number of women running . . .: Data from Center for the American Woman and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University. 279 Ferraro’s nomination also . . .: Sara Diamond, “Women on the Radical Right: Meeting Our Needs?” Plexus, Nov. 1984, p. 4.

  There were rumors . . .”: Personal interview with Geraldine Ferraro, 1988.

  They even followed her . . .: Ferraro with Francke, Ferraro, pp. 223–24, 227–28.

  Ferraro herself . . .: “Ferraroblip,” The Nation, Sept. 1, 1984, p. 131.

  Rumors about Zaccaro’s . . .: James Ring Adams, “The Lost Honor of Geraldine Ferraro,” Commentary, Feb. 1986, p. 34.

  The Philadelphia Inquirer assigned . . .: Ibid., p. 35.

  “The stoning of . . .”: Ferraro with Francke, Ferraro, p. 234.

  In the end, as myriad . . .: See, for example, the 1984 Newsweek Poll; “Bad News for Mondale,” Newsweek, Sept. 24, 1988.

  In fact, a national . . .: National Women’s Political Caucus poll, 1984.

  Moreover, exit polls . . .: Exit polls by the Los Angeles Times, ABC, and Democratic pollster Dotty Lynch. See Peggy Simpson, “Myths and Realities: Did Ferraro Attract Voters?” Working Woman, Feb. 1985, p. 54.

  Polling indicated . . .”: “The Ferraro Problem,” National Review, Nov. 1, 1985, p. 20.

  Democratic party leaders . . .: Peggy Simpson, “What Happened in ’84: Did Women Make a Difference?” Working Woman, Feb. 1985, p. 52; Robin Toner, “Democrats and Women: Party Shifts Approach,” New York Times, July 11, 1987, p. 10.

  Writer Nicholas Davidson . . .: Nicholas Davidson, The Failure of Feminism (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1988) p. 149. 281 Washington Post columnist . . .: Richard Cohen, “. . . And Wobbling,” Washington Post, July 3, 1984, p. A15. 281 In subsequent press . . .: “The Hurt Was Even More Than What’s In the Book,” Newsweek, Oct. 7, 1985, p. 81.

  “[T]he defeat of one woman . . .”: Ferraro with Francke, Ferraro, p. 312.

  In 1984, 53 percent . . .: Mark Clements Research, Annual Study of Women’s Attitudes, 1984, 1987.

  By 1988, recruiters . . .: Personal interview with Jane Danowitz, executive director of the Women’s Campaign Fund, 1988; personal interview with Ruth Mandel, 1988; Ellen Hume, “Women Grow Reluctant to Run for High Office As Ferraro Euphoria Fades and Scandals Mount,” The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 16, 1987, p. 62.

  The popular California . . .: Hume, “Women Grow Reluctant,” p. 62.

  On Election Day, only two women . . .: Statistics from Center for the American Woman and Politics. These figures include nominees of the two major parties only.

  When the election results . . .: Ibid.

  Not one of . . .: “GOP Candidates Snub Women’s Conference,” Dallas Times Herald, Jan. 21, 1988; personal interviews with conference organizers, 1988.

  As the organization’s executive director . . .: “GOP Candidates Snub Women’s Conference.”

  The “gender gap” appeared . . .: Information from Gallup poll, 1982, p. 35; analyses by Center for American Women and Politics; Thomas G. Exter, “What Men and Women Think,” American Demographics, August 1987, p. 34. Among college graduates, the gap was 15 percent in this election. See Susanna Downie, “Decade of Achievement: 1977-1987,” p. 34.

  On the top of the ticket . . .: The New York Times/CBS News exit poll, 1988. See “Portrait of the Electorate,” New York Times, Nov. 10, 1988, p. A16. According to the exit polls, 8 percent, or about 3 million, fewer women than men voted for Reagan. See Eleanor Smeal, Why and How Women Will Elect the Next President (New York: Harper & Row, 1984) p. 3; Simpson, “What Happened in ’84,” p. 43.

  Women’s rights, in fact . . .: Klein,
Gender Politics, p. 159.

  The first substantial feminist . . .: Ibid., p. 161.

  It was “the first election,” . . .: Ibid., pp. 159-60.

  By 1988, in fact, . . .: Fund for the Feminist Majority poll, 1988.

  As the decade progressed, . . .: “Gender Gap Found in All Areas, Social Levels,” The Gallup Report, March 1983; “Reagan Popularity: Men vs. Women,” The Gallup Report, March 1983; Smeal, Why and How Women Will Elect The Next President, p. 3.

  By 1986, the gender . . .: “The Gender Gap,” WEJC Update, Women’s Economic Justice Center, 2, no. 1 (Spring 1989): 3; “Women and the Vote—1988: Women’s Impact at the Polls,” National Commission on Working Women, 1988.

  By 1988 the voting preferences . . .: ABC News/ Washington Post, Nov. 8, 1988; NBC News/Wall Street Journal, Nov. 8, 1988; Los Angeles Times, Nov. 8, 1988. See “The Exit Poll Results,” Public Opinion, Jan.—Feb. 1989, p. 26; the Washington Post/ABC News Survey, June 15–19, 1988; R. W. Apple, Jr., “Bush’s Growing Appeal Fails to Include Women,” New York Times, Oct. 27, 1988, p. B15.

  It was single women . . .: “In Review,” The American Woman 1990–91, p. 49; “Quayle’s Votes on Gender Gap Issues,” Eleanor Smeal Report, 5, no. 24 (Aug. 19, 1988): 3.

  “We are particularly . . .”: David Hoffman, “Reagan Coalition’s Not Yet Bush’s: Women, Blue Collars May Be Drifting from GOP, Polls Show,” The Washington Post, May 11, 1988, p. 1A.

  This shouldn’t have . . .: Women represent more than 90 percent of the federal AFDC recipients, 66 percent of those depending on federally subsidized housing, 66 percent of those needing legal services, 60 percent of Medicaid beneficiaries, and 60 percent drawing food stamps. Power, “Women, the State and the Family,” p. 55.

  Instead, GOP leaders . . .: Amy Brooke Baker, “Low Marks for GOP on Women’s Issues,” The Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 21, 1988, p. 3; Kenneth H. Bacon, “Bush Backs Away From Birth-Control Program As Congress Braces for a Tough Fight on Issue,” The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 2, 1990, p. A12.

  At the 1988 Republican . . .: Sara Rimer, “For Women, Taking on One Role at a Time,” New York Times, Sept. 23, 1988, p. B1.