Divided we stand : the battle over women's rights and family values that polarized American politics

More than forty years ago, two women's movements drew a line in the sand between liberals and conservatives. The far-reaching legacy of that rift is still felt today.

One of Smithsonian Magazine 's "Ten Best History Books of the Year"

Gloria Steinem was quoted in 2015 (the New Yorker) as saying the National Women's Conference in 1977 "may take the prize as the most important event nobody knows about." After the United Nations established International Women's Year (IWY) in 1975, Congress mandated and funded state conferences to elect delegates to attend the National Women's Conference in Houston in 1977. At that conference, Bella Abzug, Steinem, and other feminists adopted a National Plan of Action, endorsing the hot-button issues of abortion rights, the Equal Rights Amendment, and gay rights--the latter a new issue in national politics. Across town, Phyllis Schlafly, Lottie Beth Hobbs, and the conservative women's movement held a massive rally to protest federally funded feminism and launch a Pro-Family movement.

Although much has been written about the role that social issues have played in politics, little attention has been given to the historical impact of women activists on both sides. DIVIDED WE STAND reveals how the battle between feminists and their conservative challengers divided the nation as Democrats continued to support women's rights and Republicans cast themselves as the party of family values.

The women's rights movement and the conservative women's movement have irrevocably affected the course of modern American history. We cannot fully understand the present without appreciating the events leading up to Houston and thereafter.

Author Notes

Marjorie J. Spruill is Distinguished Professor Emerita of History from the University of South Carolina. She is the author of New Women of the New South and the editor of numerous anthologies including One Woman, One Vote. Spruill's research for Divided We Stand was supported by fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She lives in South Carolina.

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In this parable of how sensible and practical paths toward broader equality get overwhelmed by threat, fear, and bigotry, historian Spruill (New Women of the New South) suggests that the current political landscape of paralyzing divisiveness, hateful rhetoric, and persistent obstructionism took form in 1977, when the two women's movements of the 1970s, each side purporting to represent the majority or speak for "real" American women, came to a head at the National Women's Conference in Houston. Incensed that political equality would infringe on their privileges, a small group of opponents to the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) organized and mobilized a bloc of religious and socially conservative women with the threat that an overreaching government was out to destroy the American family and traditional, Bible-based morals. Meanwhile, those in favor of the ERA rallied diverse women with a victorious vision of full human rights. Spruill remains evenhanded in her treatment, tracing the tensions within each group and among their supporters. The lasting outcome of the failed ERA, Spruill reveals, was the embrace of social conservatives into the Republican party. They brought an antiabortion, profamily platform that propelled Reagan to the presidency and has since been a GOP mainstay. Spruill's narrative is detailed and precise; her blow-by-blow accounts and alternating chapters of moves and countermoves allows for repetition and lacks meaningful analysis, but her rigorous research and intense accuracy will make this an indispensible handbook on the history of the National Women's Conference and its enduring legacy on American politics. Agent: Lisa Adams, Garamond Agency. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

In this timely history, Spruill takes a deep look at the 1977 National Women's Conference and the political polarization that subsequently developed between Republicans and Democrats over women's rights. As expected, all the major names are here, from Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug to Phyllis Schlafly and Lottie Beth Hobbs. Spruill goes far behind the highlights, however, detailing how the battle for equal rights, which was primarily about pay, became entangled in the more provocative cultural wars about homosexuality and abortion. Through the presidencies of Carter, Reagan, and George H. W. Bush and dominating platform choices in both political parties, the fight for women's rights devolved into farce-like levels as Schlafly led opposition to countless so-called feminist laws, even those protecting battered women. The open-armed GOP embrace of the pro-family movement led feminists to declare there was a Republican war against women, which led to the near abandonment of such basic issues as equal pay and healthcare. A solid work and a must-read for understanding political and cultural divisions over women's lives in today's America.--Mondor, Colleen Copyright 2017 Booklist

New York Review of Books Review

PRAIRIE FIRES: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, by Caroline Fraser. (Picador, $22.) This excellent biography explores Ingalls's childhood and rise to prominence, and refreshes our understanding of American history, from Native Americans to the homesteaders who displaced them. The book, one of the Book Review's 10 best of 2017, traces the "Little House on the Prairie" author's role in shaping the mythology of the American West. COCKFOSTERS: Stories, by Helen Simpson. (Vintage, $16.) Nine delightful stories touch on aging, unexpected connections and more; the title selection follows a woman searching for her glasses on the London Underground, with serendipitous results. Our reviewer, Elinor Lipman, praised these stories - and their "emotional hobgoblins that throw the characters rewardingly off-kilter." DIVIDED WE STAND: The Battle Over Women's Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics, by Marjorie J. Spruill. (Bloomsbury, $24.) In 1977, more than 20,000 activists, celebrities and other luminaries descended on Houston for the National Women's Conference to iron out a unified rights agenda. Spruill tells the story of the conference, which is largely unknown now, and its lasting, unintended policy consequences. THE LOCALS, by Jonathan Dee. (Random House, $18.) The residents of a quaint Berkshires town see their lives begin to change when a hedge fund titan, spooked by the Sept. 11 attacks, moves his family there. The story gives voice to a diverse set of white, workingclass residents and their complicated relationships to the elites that pass through the town. Our reviewer, Lucinda Rosenfeld, called the novel a "quietly engrossing narrative that dishes out its food for thought in sly, quotable lines." WORLD WITHOUT MIND: The Existential Threat of Big Tech, by Franklin Foer. (Penguin, $17.) The concentration of information and power in a handful of companies - including Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google - imperils both individuals and society, Foer argues. Drawing on the intellectual history of computer science, from Descartes to Alan Turing, he cautions his readers against what he sees as a "knowledge monopoly." HOME FIRE, by Kamila Shamsie. (Riverhead, $16.) In a modern-day "Antigone," Shamsie examines the competing identities and loyalties of British Muslims. Isma is pursuing her Ph.D. in America after raising her two younger siblings, but worries especially about her brother, an ISIS recruit with second thoughts. As Isma's sister tries to bring her brother home, the personal and political collide.

Library Journal Review

To celebrate the seminal 1977 Houston National Women's Conference (NWC) 40th anniversary, Spruill (history, Univ. of South Carolina) covers decades of the fight for women's rights and the current resulting political polarization. In the 1970s, the need for increased rights rose to the forefront of political and societal consciousness, but it also splintered liberals and conservatives over intrinsic beliefs about women's familial role. According to Spruill, the positive changes peaked at the NWC, and then regressed, causing increased strife in the present day. She specializes in documenting the pivotal role women played during key moments in American history, and her analysis of the NWC is a much-needed update to Alice S. Rossi's Feminists in Politics: A Panel Analysis of the First National Women's Conference. However, without the results of the 2016 presidential race, her thesis on the gradual diminishment of hard-won rights lacks punch. Additionally, the density of information, both biographical and political, all but guarantees the book's relegation to researchers and students, for which it is a seminal work. Index not seen. VERDICT An authoritative history of the women's rights movement across decades arriving at its current incarnation.-Jessica Bushore, Xenia, OH © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

1 Four Days That Changed the World	p. 1
2 The Rise of the Feminist Establishment	p. 14
3 To Form a More Perfect Union	p. 42
4 What's Wrong with "Equal Rights" for Women?	p. 71
5 An Alternative to "Women's Lib"	p. 93
6 The Gathering Storm	p. 114
7 Armageddon State by State	p. 140
8 Out of the Kitchen and into the Counterrevolution	p. 166
9 Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This	p. 189
10 Crest of the Second Wave	p. 205
11 Launching the Pro-Family Movement	p. 235
12 We Shall Go Forth	p. 262
13 Onward Christian Soldiers	p. 292
Epilogue: A Nation Divided	p. 314
Acknowledgments	p. 345
Notes	p. 351
Index	p. 427

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