Angela Howard - Reaction to the Modern Womens Movement, 1963 to the Present

A Collection of Readings from the Literature of the Opponents to U.S. Feminism, 1848 to the Present

Series Editors

Angela Howard and Sasha Rana Adams Tarrant
University of Houston Clear Lake

Edited with introductions by
Angela Howard and Sasha Rana Adams Tarrant
University of Houston Clear Lake

First published 1997 by Garland Publishing, Inc.

Published 2016 by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Introductions copyright 1997 Angela Howard and Sasha Rana
Adams Tarrant. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Reaction to the modern women's movement, 1963 to the present / edited with introductions by Angela Howard and Sasha Rana Adams Tarrant.
p. cm. (Antifeminism in America ; 3)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-8153-2715-3 (alk. paper)
1. Anti-feminismUnited States. 2. FeminismUnited States. 3. WomenUnited StatesSocial conditions. I. Howard, Angela. II. Tarrant, Sasha Rana Adams. III. Series.
HQ1426.R416 1997
305.42dc21

97-38205
CIP

ISBN 13: 978-0-8153-2715-8 (hbk)

The purpose of this three-volume collection of primary sources is to generate a more complete understanding and appreciation of the social and political context in which the advocates of women's rights have labored and labor from 1848 to the present. The editors have selected original documents from mainstream literature to allow the reader immediate access to this continuing public discourse that accompanies the prospective and the real changes in women's role and status in the United States. Those opposed to the feminist goal of women's equality have addressed to the public, directly through contemporary popular books and magazines, their concerns regarding the particular nineteenth-century issues of the woman's rights movement. These include woman suffrage and dress reform, as well as topics relating to the discerning and enforcing the proper role and status of women. Public discourse over such topics has extended into the twentieth century, as opponents raised arguments against increased opportunities in women's employment and education, denied the propriety and practice of family planning, and admonished against women's involvement in political issues and activities. In these three volumes, the opponents of feminism speak directly to the reader who is free to evaluate the merits of each author's arguments.

Diversity of opinion and perspective has persisted among those who oppose the assertion of women's rights as reform movement, which challenges the concepts and institutions of patriarchy as well as the gender system that supports and perpetuates a gender-defined, limited, and segregated existence for women. The constellation of conservative definitions of proper womanhood has varied widely in approach, intent, and intensity. Over the past two-hundred years the critics of feminism, of advances in women's rights, and of the increased opportunity in education and employment for women have had to absorb changes in the status of middle-class women. These critics therefore have co-opted and redefined some of the fait accompli changes to maintain that contemporary practices uphold the primary limitation for women in any century, that for women "biology is destiny." All these opponents to sexual equality ultimately assert that an inescapable maternal duty grounds every woman's identity in her relationships to others and especially to men: each woman's usefulness to society through filial, uxorial, maternal, professional, and civic responsibilities define and limit her identity as an individual.

Some opponents merely dismissed or ridiculed advocates for changes in women's status, and eschewed the need to specify particular flaws in the feminist position on any particular issue. Others relied on interpretations of divine ordination, appeals to natural law, and manipulations of public fears of familial and social disintegration. Often opponents sought to discredit the propriety or to challenge the necessity of any change in the gender system proposed by advocates of women's rights. They utilized divisive tactics to separate women by race or ethnic group, religion, or economic class. Frequently, these critics resorted to ad hominum charges of lesbianism, communism, and socialism, or disgruntled spinsterhood against the advocates of women's rights and against the movement itself. Opponents defined the effort to promote the women's movement out of the domestic sphere and into the public arena of political, economic, and social reform as inherently destructive of social order. By focusing on maintaining a limited role for women, adversaries of the women's movement, both women and men, expressed their common fear that has been created by ongoing social, economic, and political changes beyond their control.

Therefore, much of the value in reading these sources is to experience the variety of perspectives that provide the historical and intellectual context for these documents from the distant and near past. The editors offer this varied selection of sources to allow the reader to assess the merit and validity of the arguments presented by these representative opponents of women's rights and equality. Not all opponents of specific feminist reforms would define themselves as antifeminist; most would deny that they are anti-woman, although opposed to expanding women's rights. For the student of women's history, the temptation to look for patterns of opposition will become irresistible. To facilitate an evaluation of the texts in their own historical context, the editors have grouped the documents within three major historical periods. Because the sources of mainstream opponents were more readily available, we elected to focus on the debate among writers who represented the middle class and who exerted a presence in the popular press. Especially for students of American women's history, this collection provides the opportunity to encounter directly the opinions of those who resisted and criticized the goals as well as the tactics of feminism in all its forms.