Tidal Wave: How Women Changed America at Century's End by Sara M. Evans

Author:Sara M. Evans [Evans, Sara M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Feminism, 2nd wave, Women
ISBN: 9780743255028
Amazon: 074325502X
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2004-03-02T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

Deep Currents

The Reagan administration did it so quietly…. [P]icture the Department [of Education] as a big egg. They didn’t crack it and break it and make an omelet. They poked a hole in the bottom and all the essence just fell right out. And you still have a beautiful egg, but there’s just nothing inside…. Today it is a pale, pitiful shadow of what it was supposed to be.

—LESLIE WOLFE, FORMER DIRECTOR OF WEEA IN THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION1

THE FORCE OF THE BACKLASH made feminists more invisible in the media and even to themselves in the 1980s, yet feminism not only persisted but flowed into new channels. It had to adjust, however, to a dramatically altered political context. The conservative ethos of the Reagan administration abruptly reversed the political influence of the feminist movement. As the New Right gathered political force in the late 1970s, it framed its concerns around “family values” (the mother-centered traditional patriarchal family). Making effective use of cultural themes initially politicized by feminists—family, sexuality, and reproduction—the new conservatism reshaped the 1980 Republican Party platform, eliminating its long-standing endorsement of the ERA. Both overtly and indirectly, the Republican campaign tarred feminists with blame for skyrocketing divorce, for rising rates of single motherhood (falsely portrayed as a rising rate of teen pregnancy), for growing welfare rolls, and for the displacement of large numbers of high-paying traditionally male jobs in a deindustrializing economy.2 When Ronald Reagan won the presidential election in 1980, the force of the recoil was felt by feminists of every stripe.

Hostility to feminism was a key component of the new administration’s outlook. Once elected, the new administration removed many feminists from positions on commissions and in federal departments, replacing them with appointees hostile to affirmative action and other governmental activism on behalf of women’s rights and civil rights. Overnight the political atmosphere in Washington became overwhelmingly antagonistic to feminists. The elimination of CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) and LEAA (Law Enforcement Assistance Administration Grants) removed two national programs through which grassroots groups had received funds for staff. Reagan proposed to cut spending on social welfare programs by 17 percent. He accomplished just over half of that, mostly in the first year, and combined with the onset of a devastating recession in 1981 social services and nonprofits found themselves facing higher demand with sharply reduced resources.3 In addition, that legislative initiatives to restrict reproductive choice and oppose lesbian and gay rights remained at the rhetorical forefront (though for the most part they did not succeed) kept feminists in a defensive posture throughout the 1980s.

The ERA had already lost its momentum by 1980, and in this new atmosphere, even with an extended deadline, it proved impossible to gain the required number of states for ERA ratification. By the time the clock ran out in 1982, several states had even repealed their ratification. Most of the large feminist organizations had focused their energies on this struggle for several years and remained committed to it to the end.

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