April 9, 2024 • 49 mins
The 70s were the decade of the woman in the US. America finally was coming around to the understanding women and men are equals and the government sponsored a conference to advance women’s rights. The opposition that arose changed the fabric of America.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, there's Chuck
and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you should know.
The watershed moment in American history edition.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
That's right, in which we tackle not literally take on
no cover.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Yes, the Houston, Texas Conference, the National Women's Conference in Houston,
that was from November eighteenth to twenty first, nineteen seventy seven,
which was the only time that the US government got
together and said here's some money, go out and put
(00:53):
together a conference and a group of delegates that represent
the women in this country and come back to us
with ideas on action we can take but mostly won't.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Well, they left off the mostly won't part. They didn't
find that out until afterward.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Gloria Steinem, who is one of the co founders of
Now and like a quintessential second wave feminist, she called
this the most important event nobody knows about, and it
really was. This was a very specific moment in time
where Olivia helped us with this, where she pointed out
that this is probably the last moment where the federal
(01:33):
government would be like, sure, we're going to fund a
conference to find out how to better womenkind womenkind, and
then at the same time the last moment where those
women could go into that conference assuming that the stuff
they came up with was going to actually have legs
(01:55):
and move forward in Congress.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yeah. Did you see the FX mini series This Is America?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I did not, which is surprising because I've been chewing
around the edges of it in other research and I've
still not seen it.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
It was really good.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Oh, I'm sure it looked like it's just a murderer's
row of great actors.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Great actors, and it's I'm sure you can still watch it.
But a lot of the people in this story figure
in that mini series.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Well, that's the thing. This is a It was a huge,
huge deal. The historian named Marjorie J. S. Spruell wrote
a book on this, and she called it the crest
of the second wave of US feminism. It is also
conceivably the time the moment where the Christian right became
(02:44):
a thing, where the religious rite, i should say more specifically,
and that the religious right became came to hold tremendous
way over the Republican Party. A lot of people point
to the election of Ronald Reagan. Some people take it
a little further back and point to Jerry Folwell's organization
of the Moral Majority Political Action Committee. Nope, Apparently it
(03:07):
happened two years before Fallwell in Houston, Texas, and it
was an rally that was designed to oppose this women's
conference by women who were threatened by the idea of
women being stripped of their traditional roles of homemaker. There
was a huge opposition of women who believed that the
(03:29):
family was the basic unit of society and that that
family was meant to have the mom stay home with
the kids and the dad go off and be the
wage journer. And that worked fine in Dandy after the
post war World War two era, but that became increasingly
difficult as this time war on wag's real wages failed
(03:51):
to keep up with inflation, and all of a sudden,
you actually kind of needed the mom to go out
and work. And so to these women, this is like
a literal breakdown in the fabric of society, and they
were very upset about this, and they very much blamed
feminists who seemed to want to push things in that direction.
Not only weren't opposed to it, they wanted to push
things in that direction, and so this huge opposition came up.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
That's right. And it was also a time specifically, you know,
you were talking about the opposition movement just in general,
but specifically to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment, which was
proposed first in nineteen twenty three, technically passed the House
and Senate in nineteen seventy two, still not written into
(04:33):
the US Constitution. We can't get into it now because
it is a very long and convoluted story.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Well, we did an episode on it, did we on.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
The whole thing? How when was that?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
I know, man, I know, I would say in the
last three years.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Interesting because there's new stuff that's happened in the last
few years. So I wonder, yeah, if it was before that,
dish well, I mean, just like lawsuits like Virginia coming
on board, which meant which means we had three quarters
of the state approval basically everything in place that is
required to make a constitutional amendment. But then people are like,
(05:14):
well wait a minute, other people rescinded THEIRS and Virginia
came on late and there said previously been rescinded. So
then there were lawsuits and here I said, we weren't
getting into it, and I'm kind of getting into it.
But I think the last lawsuit said it's still not happening, man,
and that was in the last couple of years.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
That's still just crazy to me.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah it is. But anyway, Yeah, we did do an
episode on that. That's why it seems so familiar. But
we did.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
And the reason why it seems familiar is because Phillis
Shaffley figured Big into that, and she figures Big into
this too.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah. So Phillis Shafflee was an attorney, a very much
conservative right wing activist, and who was played by Cate
Blanchette wonderfully in Missus America. Yeah, she did a great job.
She founded the Stop Era. I was about you call
(06:10):
it a club or organization, and I just have to
shout out the fact that stop is what's called a backronym.
That's when you have an acronym that's already a word,
So all you really needed was an organization called stop Era.
It actually stands for stop taking our privilege privileges. And
(06:33):
you can't use a word from the acronym or backronym
in your acronym or backronym, it's no.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Or else you're just saying it twice, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
It's just so clumsy, and we like to critique acronyms
as good or bad. I give stop Era just an unnecessary.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Okay, yeah, we need a rubber stamp for that, or no,
a metal clanging sound like you've embossed it.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
At any rate, philishafflete foun you don't want to work
this out? All right? What are we doing?
Speaker 2 (07:04):
The So you remember like the old production company that
created Dragnet, It was like Mark seven or something like that.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Don't remember that, but sure, well we'll go.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Off and watch an episode of Dragnet and then at
the end I'll point it out to you, okay.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
And it was like a set ubu set good dog thing.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Kind of but yes, exactly it was the same premise,
but it was it was somebody like putting like a
metal stamp and they hit it with like, ah, like
a hammer. Yeah. It made that that metal emboss engraving sound. Okay,
that I want to rip off is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
All right, so we give stop e r a an
unnecessary Oh.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
That sounds good. That was really good, Jerry.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
The we should talk about the beginnings, the seed of
this conference It happened on the heels of the UN
saying nineteen seventy five is the International Woman's Year, and
they had a international conference in Mexico City that year.
And that's when gerald Ford stood up and said, all right,
(08:09):
here's an Executive Order number one one eighty three to two.
We'll give you five million bucks to about twenty nine
million dollars today to create the National Commission on the
Observance of in an International Women's Year, and like, go
have your big conference, work out what you want to
bring back to us, which is what we're refer too earlier.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah, and that five million sounds like a lot to
fund some conferences, and it is, but I've read from
somebody who was kind of sour on the whole thing
point out that that's less than a nickel a woman
for every woman that was in America at the time.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Yeah, but twenty nine million comparatively, you can't pull a
conference off for that. I'm with you, But okay, they'll
do it for a million.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
A very important point was it was also a series
of conferences. First. They had state conferences first, Yeah, figure
out what they were going to bring the national conference.
So it was like this year long of conference, and
like looking back now, you're like, wow, people were talking
about women and women's rights a lot at the time,
(09:11):
and it was a huge like there was. It was
just in the zeitgeist, like women's rights was moving forward
at this incredible clip. Just two things. Time declared the
nineteen seventy five Man of the Year to be the
American Woman. Yeah, and I read that the nineteen seventy
one seventy two Congress, I think that was the ninety
second Congress, they passed more women's rights legislation than all
(09:35):
previous legislative sessions combined. So it was it was a
huge It seemed like a juggernaut. And of course women
were going to have all the rights that men have.
The Equal Rights Amendment was going to be become a
part of the Constitution. It was just in the air.
So this conference just made sense.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah. Can I read that Time magazine quote because it's
pretty great. Yeah, this was in the quote unquote Man
of the Year article said enough US women have so
deliberately taken possession of their lives that the event is
spiritually equivalent to the discovery of a new continent.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
That's so awesome.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Man, whoever wrote that, nice work.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
James time.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Oh, Jimmy time. So there's a congress person named Bella
Abzug battling Bella Abzug from New York who was a
real firebrand and was one of the biggest advocates for
this congress. I'm sorry for this conference in Congress. And
she got together with some other organizers, like you mentioned,
(10:35):
there were state and regional conferences. They were gonna choose
about two thousand delegates, and they were really really smart
because and you know, maybe if we told Josh I
was putting together sort of a easily two parter on
just the history of feminism.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Oh, you weren't talking to me just that.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
I see, No, let's talk to the listener. You know.
I got to people out there in podcast land.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
I'm psyched about that one. I've been wanting to do
that forever and we need to We need to do
that sooner than later, for sure, because I've been wanting
to do that one for years.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yeah, for sure. But I think where I was going
was that they were really smart in that. Uh oh,
I nowhere else head it is that in certain ways
of feminism, there was not the most representation and as
feminism grew through the different movements that expanded, and this
was one of those moments where they got really smart
(11:30):
and they were like, you know, we can't just make
this about white suburban women or white you know, I
guess urban women either. We need to expand our pool
and talk to women who are farmers and women who
are basically women who haven't been you know, minority women
(11:50):
who haven't been included as much in this conversation. Will provide,
provide childcare. If you can't afford to come, we'll pay
your entrance fee. Like it was just a really smart
way to go about it, which is like, let's bring
everybody together finally here in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, and it is the conference encouraged that they were
trying to get the best representation of women in America
that they possibly could, and so that conference kind of
inadvertently encouraged all these different types of feminists to come
together like they never had before. That was a huge
lasting impact of it. Yeah, a lot of there was
(12:27):
a lot of infighting in feminism at the time. There
was the old Guard, kind of personified by Betty Ferdan
who wrote The Feminine Mystique, who was kind of opposed
to say, the gay contingent, which she called the lavender menace,
which she believed prevented mainstream society from accepting feminism and
(12:48):
seeing it as credible. Like you said, feminism was largely
viewed through the lens of white, middle class women. This
was an expand scope and it was it made some
people nervous. They were like, well, how are we going
to get anything done with all these opposing views? And
it was very fortunate that there was that small contingent
(13:11):
of conservatives who were super mad about this, it still
attended this conference that allowed all the other groups to
come together to oppose them and get these planks pushed
forward rather than fighting it amongst one another. And it
actually brought together different branches of feminism that are still
just part of this coalition today.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, there was a lot of coalescing on both sides
because of this event. It's pretty incredible. Yeah, because philis
Shaffley early on championed to try and stop this from
even happening, like, hey, Congress, don't fund this thing. That
didn't work. And so a woman named Lottie Beth Hobbes
of Texas, who features pretty prominently here, had the idea
(13:53):
to like to show up and rabble rows and make
their voices heard on the other side. She initially proposed it,
and interestingly, Shaffley, I think you found this wasn't immediately
on board because she was very you know, she liked
to play chess and not checkers, and she was like, Hey,
if we show and there's a low opposition turnout, we're
(14:16):
going to look like fools. But Lottie Beth Hobbs said no,
we're going and you should get on board, and she did.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Yeah. That was Marjorie J. Sproule, the historian turned that up,
which is fascinating as we'll see how that played out.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
And the committee that was actually formed by the anti
era activist was the IWY Citizens Review Committee, and again
a coalescing, They're like, are you anti gay, come and
join us? Are you anti abortion? Get over here? Do
you not want the era bill passed? Come along Catholics, Mormons, evangelicals,
(14:55):
And this is what you were talking about earlier. That
really sort of galvanized the beginning of the religious right.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Yeah. So the more inclusive the feminists were in the conference,
the more targets it presented to people opposed to it,
the more likely it made for those opponents to come
together in opposition and form like an actual movement with
real political clout, and that became the religious right. And
apparently it was the inclusion of a woman's right to
(15:24):
abortion included as part of the like the goals of
this conference that really kind of created that what had
not been a coalition before where it was basically the
Catholics who were anti abortion up to that point and
the Evangelicals were saying, like anti gay. Well, now they
had something in common feminism. Feminism is going to ruin everything.
(15:46):
There are other people who are anti era, and it
just brought all of them together. Like you were saying,
it's just nuts how the fabric of our society today
formed over this weekend essentially in November. Yeah, it's insane
to me, Like history so rarely tucked into one little
tiny corner three days. Yeah, and this is a really
(16:10):
good example of that rare, rare instance.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Yeah, because you know, you mentioned the anti abortion like
Roe v. Wade went through in seventy three, but it
didn't even become officially part of the Republican platform anti
Roe v. Wade until nineteen seventy six, And like you said,
it was something to coalesce and bring people together. So
like both sides it's almost like they're going to war,
(16:34):
you know, both sides are bringing in back up and
they're mounting the troops to sort of dig in on
both sides. At this one weekend in Houston, there were
conservative delegates that did get elected. Utah, Mississippi had delegates there.
They got elected because they had more you know, conservative
voters in those states.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah, those state conferences that were held before the nation conference. Yeah,
that's where they elected delegates. And if you're in a
conservative state, you were sending conservative delegates. So much so
Mississippi sent six men to the women's conference, as I
guess a symbol as well of like these are the men,
these are this is who in charge. Is in charge,
(17:16):
they should be the ones who are the delegates. There
was actually seven men. South Carolina sent a male delegate too,
but he apparently didn't show up. So you will very
frequently see that out of the two thousand delegates, only
only six were men.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yeah, and Mississippi also sent Dallas Higgins, who was married
to George Higgins, who was the leader of the Kukux
Klan in Mississippi. So do with that what you will.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Got a lot of ground to cover Mississippi.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
So as far as the other delegates on the you know,
the non conservative delegates, they were obviously feminists there with
their agenda. A lot of them were political insiders who
had been around for a long time. They brought out
all the stars though, they're like, Gloria Steinem, you get
in here, Correta, Scott King, come on down, Shirley Chisholm,
(18:11):
who Ruby just did a project on Churley Chislm for
Black History Month, so I learned all about her, which
is amazing.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
She was the first black woman elected to Congress.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Right, first black woman elected to Congress, and first black
woman to run for president of the United States.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Oh, I didn't know that, nat.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Which is incredible. Barbara Jordan of course was there. And
if you want a real showstopper, you got to get
my Angelou to write a custom poem for the event.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yeah. What was it called? Like toward to More Perfect.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Union, to form a more Perfect Union that was written
for this conference.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Yeah, pretty cool. So we keep talking about Houston and
Texas and if you're like, well, why would they hold
a women's rights conference in Houston? Or in Texas. There
are a couple of reasons why Texas was actually one
of the states that had already ratified the ER, and
Houston was a well. Also, Barbara Jordan was a congress
(19:05):
person from Texas from Houston, so they had even more
feminist cred And then Houston actually had a an agency
basically a Woman's Advocate agency in the city office. And
so like all of these things put together, mete Houston
seemed like, hey, this is a city on the rise
as far as feminism goes in. In reaction and response
(19:29):
to finding out that Houston was where the national conference
was going to be, the Governor of Texas declared that
week national Family Week. Very clearly through his lot or
Texas's lot in with the anti era people, the Houston
City Council had diminished the funding for that Woman's Advocate
office to one dollar a year and essentially just eliminated it.
(19:53):
They took a lot of steps to kind of go
backwards when they found out this is this is going
to be in Houston, like most of Houston's establishment was
not happy that this was going to happen here.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I thought you were going to say it happened in Houston,
because that meant that I'm one day closer to you.
M Mmm, No, No, you ever heard that song?
Speaker 2 (20:15):
No? Is that a tron D song?
Speaker 1 (20:17):
No, it's uh, he's a Gallon Brothers or Larry Gatlin.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Maybe what's the song?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Houston? Parentheses means I'm one day closer to you. It's
a good song.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Okay, I've not heard it.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Stun means that I'm one day closer to you.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Nope, still have not heard that.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Yeah, I guess maybe she lived in Dallas or something. Anyway,
that joke didn't work. So let's take a break.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Is this our first break?
Speaker 1 (20:44):
It's got to be Yauza. All right, we'll be right back.
(21:14):
All right. So this conference began with a very symbolic
event or gesture, I guess, or a series of gestures.
They modeled it on the Seneca Falls Convention of eighteen
forty eight, which was the big sort of bedrock event
of the beginnings of the woman's suffrage movement. And so
they got a torch Olympic style, got all these athletes,
(21:36):
all these women to go, I mean all across the board,
like high school girls, all the way to Olympians themselves,
and they passed that torch quite symbolically from Seneca Falls
all the way to Houston. Maya Angelou comes in with
that poem, brings the house down. All the heavy hitters
are there. That national news coverage is just going bonkers.
(22:00):
There were morning TV shows that literally set up camp.
There was in all the magazines. The first Ladies got together.
I think Roslynd Carter was the active first Lady at
the time, but Lady brig Johnson, Betty Ford, they all
came and got on stage together and in the end,
including the delegates, anywhere between seventeen and mid thirty thousand people,
(22:25):
it depends on who's counting.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Yeah, that's a significant number of people who came to
show up. And so they were talking about a ton
of different stuff. Remember all each state sent delegates. In
each delegate or group of delegates had their own pet
project that they wanted to pass their own The point
was to put together a bunch of planks to form
(22:47):
a platform to send to Congress and the President and
say this is what you start passing this and women
will be much more equal in the United States. Right.
So Olivia pointed out, some of the planks are all
of the planks in The final plan covered arts and humanities.
May I do this one sure? Battered women, business, child abuse, childcare, credit,
(23:09):
disabled women, education, elective and appointed office, employment, equal Rights Amendment, health, homemakers, insurance,
international affairs, media, minority women, offenders, older women, rape, reproductive freedom,
rural women, sexual preference statistics, and women welfare and poverty.
Those are the planks that ended up in this final platform.
(23:31):
It covered everything, and that was a direct result of
bringing so many different women from so many different walks
of life together and say like, what do you need
to be to thrive in the United States?
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, they've tried foot rubs here, Like can we just
get like one a week from our partner? Is that
too much to ask without some without grousing?
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Is that okay? Can you imagine if the federal government
mandated that you have to do that would be hilarious.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Well at the time they probably said, all right, you
get your foot rub, but we get two in return.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Oh yeah, So.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
There was You know, I mentioned that the news was
covering it big time, and I don't think this is
any accident that it was a woman's conference. There was
a lot of talk of like of in fighting and
even fighting or not even fighting, but obviously fighting between
the two sides, and they may even physically confront one
(24:23):
another and get in fistfights, and it's just that sort
of old, you know, cat fight trope that's so worn out,
and it was I'm sure worn out in the mid
seventies as well. Of course that did not happen. One
of the reasons is because there were only about three
hundred Conservatives there and they were just far out numbered.
(24:45):
They did have ribbons, they had lapel ribbons that said majority,
which is kind of where this whole idea of hey
with a moral majority, like we are the majority, Like
most American women don't want what you're suggesting, so here's
our little pin to suggest.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
That, right, And so that was kind of how the
media portrayed the people who were what the feminists the
other delegates called antis. The conservative delegates were called antis
by everybody else because they were anti everything. When they
passed passed the platform, you could vote on individual planks,
they just voted against the whole thing. So it was
(25:26):
viewed as this kind of single coalition and step with
philis Shaffley. And it turns out that there was a
reporter for the Nation named Lucy Kamasar, who did more
digging than the rest of the media and found that actually, no,
like a lot of the women walking around with majority
pins on are like, yes, they're anti federal government, but
(25:48):
they're pro federally funded healthcare or childcare. They oppose rape
like they weren't. It wasn't just like complete locksteps she showed,
but that wasn't the story that got told about the
opposition at the conference by the rest of the media.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
I'm loath to make another music joke, now, let's hear it.
I just wonder if every time she walked into the
room they said, hey, don't turn around.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Is that a Ace of bass joke?
Speaker 1 (26:19):
You get this one?
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Ace of bass?
Speaker 1 (26:21):
No Falco, don't turn around? They're commisars in town.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Oh yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
That's got better or worse than the other one?
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Uh, much better because i've heard that song.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Yeah, different spelling.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Plus it's a good song. I'm not convinced that the
Houston one day closer to the song is good.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Oh you probably like it. Larry Gatlin, Sure you remember
the Gatlin Brothers.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
What was their big hit?
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Houston? Was it?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Really? Because I've heard them before, but I've never heard
a big hit of that song.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
They were big. That was that whole seventies thing when
country just had a big sort of movement country music
with a Mandres Sisters and all that.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
But there was another song of theirs that I would
have heard of.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Well, how about this. You look that up and I'll
bring us forward. I haven't set it back like I
keep doing. So the platform itself passed, you know, and
with flying colors, like most people expected it would, with
all the progressive delegates there. One of the biggest exceptions
of that, though, was how they were dealing with racial inequality,
(27:28):
because they had put together a brief addressing this that
basically just said, hey, no double discrimination here, Like, it's
already bad enough that women of color are being discriminated
against because of their skin tone, but you can't double
up because they're women as well. And maybe let's get
(27:48):
some bilingual programs going. So they trot this out to
their delegation and a lot of women of color stood up,
and I was like, this isn't enough. This is very vague.
So we actually have a plan that we put together beforehand.
It's called the Black Women's Plan of Action, the b
w p A and we would like to swap that
(28:09):
in for this minority resolution that you've crafted.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Right, And that was a that was a big deal
that it actually got that far, and even better than that,
it actually was voted on enthusiastically. It was like a
six page plank that really covered everything that the that
women of color generally were interested in seeing resolved, and
(28:35):
it got added to this to this platform. Kreta Scott
King presented it on the last night to the delegation
and it received it passed by an overwhelming majority. And
this was really kind of part of the spirit of
this conference. The women broke into singing, we shall overcome
(28:58):
together after they voted in favor of adding that plank,
rather than just the hey, let's all be you know,
let's be considerate of women of color, like that was
the original plank.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Yeah. And it's also notable because once the Black Women's
Plan of Action was presented and they came forward, then
Asian women and Puerto Rican women and Chicana Native American
women they were delegates. There were delegates there as well
representing them and they were like, well, hey, like we
should all have our voice. And I think it was
(29:31):
just one of those big moments like we've been talking
about of coalescing, where a lot of these white feminists
were like, hey, you know, I don't know if we've
done right by our sisters of color, So like, we
we're all about inclusion, yet we're not being as inclusive
as we should be, right, And this was that moment
(29:52):
when it happened.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Yeah, a very similar thing happened with the gay contingent
of the feminist second Wave, which again Betty Fredaine called
the lavender Menace, not because she necessarily had a personal
problem with lesbians, but because she saw that as a
huge obstacle to mainstream America taking feminism seriously. And one
(30:15):
of the reasons why is because at the time, you've
heard of man haters, right, it was just kind of
like a trope that was funny, and it was usually
assigned to all feminists. That was what they used to
describe lesbians before. That's what they were characterized as in
the media and in the popular culture. Man haters. That's
the only reason anybody could ever be a lesbian. You'd
(30:37):
have to hate men. And that also kind of dovetailed
with an actual thread of like real disdain for the
patriarchy and male dominance that was alive and well in
some sections of second wave feminism at the time. And
although they represented a minority of feminists in general, including
(30:58):
the feminists at this convention, those are the ones who
get the microphone stuck in their face because they made
the great the best press, So they had a disproportionately
large voice, and they seemed like they were hobbling feminism
as a result, because who wants to get in league
with man haters?
Speaker 1 (31:15):
You know, Yeah, for sure, And I think that was
a real It seems like at least there was a
realization within this conference and within the delegation that they
were like, this is really our moment to bring everybody
together because there's obviously going to be you know, it's
going to be a stronger movement if we're representing everyone
and everyone's on board. So Betty for Dan during the debate,
(31:38):
very publicly endorsed the resolution, completely reversed her previous position,
and that was, you know, people within the movement, Betty
for Dan was a very sort of a founding member
and a voice that was important. So it was a
big deal.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Yeah. And so when they voted overwhelmingly again in favor
of including the gay and less being contingent as part
of that. I don't remember exactly what the plank was,
but it was essentially saying like, guess we're your legit
human beings and we recognize that, and everybody should. They
broke out into song again and they sang, Houston, I'm
(32:15):
one day closer than to you.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
I thought you were going to say, like an Indigo
Girl song.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
No, but I did look up Larry Gatlin. Still no clue.
I have no idea how I've ever heard of him,
because I've not heard of any of his songs.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
That the Gatlin Brothers nothing.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Nope, all right, there's a song called Broken Lady, which
sounds awful, but that's their biggest hit, and I don't
think i've heard that one.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
H Was it Broken Lady? Parentheses? Get me some glue?
Speaker 2 (32:44):
What is going on with you today?
Speaker 1 (32:46):
I don't know. I'm a big lover of the parenthetical
song title. You don't see those anymore.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
It's true, It's true, you really don't who What was it? Oh?
That Cutting Crew song? I Just Died in your Arms
tonight song? Great song?
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Is that a parenthetical?
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Yes? I just is in parentheses? Is need?
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (33:07):
The title of the song is in parentheses. I just
in parentheses died in your arms tonight, Like it couldn't
just be died in your arms tonight.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Wow, a frontloaded parenthetical. That's unique.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
But also I say we brand this one unnecessary too,
shall we? Okay, very nice. I did not see that
coming up again, frankly.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
So they did not sing that song. But after that vote,
there was also obviously a reproductive Freedom resolution. This supported
government funding for abortion and sex said that passed very
easily as well, like everything else, But the Conservatives were
really upset about this one obviously, And say they got
(33:49):
up on stage with a huge blown up picture of
an aborted fetus and they sang everyone's getting up and singing,
I imagine, much to John and Yoko's may they saying.
All we were saying is give life a chance. And
in the meantime, the other side is out there chanting choice, choice, choice,
(34:10):
and it's just a you know, it's quite a scene
happening there. Like the energy in that conference center must
have been incredible for sure.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
And then everybody got brought down when the plank, the
proposal to create a cabinet level Department of Women's Affairs
was voted down, and they had good reason too. Actually,
there were a lot of women who are like, sure,
that sounds good. There are a lot of other women
at the conference who are like, no, we do not
want to pigeonhole all of women's problems into one agency.
(34:43):
Like our problems and the thing are our goals and
our hopes. They spread over everything else, Like we're humans,
like we should we have all the same interests that
men do. Why should we just have one cabinet position
that all of our stuff is shoveled into. It doesn't
make any sense. So they actually combine their votes with
the anties, who again, we're voting against literally everything that
(35:04):
everybody else was voting yes on, and they actually managed
to scuttle that one. I think that was a good move.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
I think so too, because I wonder if all the
eggs had been in that one basket, if you know,
four years later, they're like, you know what we're gonna
We're gonna acts that position and all together, yeah, or
that cabinet.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Yeah, like they did with the Woman's Advocate Agency in Houston.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Yeah, And then all of a sudden, you're nowhere again.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Right. All we're saying is give life a chance, you
want to take our second break and then come back
and talk a little bit more about the counter mobilization
and what came of that.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Let's do it all, right, So we mentioned at the
(36:09):
beginning in sort of pepper throughout some of these counter protests.
These aren't the actual conservative conservative delegates that are there
at the conference. This is the group headed by Texan
Lottiebeth Hobbes, who was the president of an anti era
group called Women who Want to Be Women, the w
(36:33):
W w W. This was happening across town. There was
also a woman named Nellie Gray. She was the president
of March for Life. They had their own big rally,
and this is where they really brought together. Like we
mentioned earlier, like hey, if you're if you lead a group,
a Catholic group or a conservative group or any sort
(36:56):
of this is where they started sort of dubbing themselves
the I don't know about traditional family, but just the
family movement, the pro family movement, right, which is a
bit of a thumb in the eye to the other side,
saying you don't care about families.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Exactly, you must be anti family standard grade school tactics,
and you still see it today oh.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
You absolutely do. But this was the moment where they
got together on the other side of town and said,
everyone who is against this stuff come together and will
will at least try to put our differences aside and
coalesce as well.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Yes, they also got huge support from No Ma'am, the
National Organization for Men against Amazonian Masterhood, and I think
something like fifteen thousand people came out for this antier,
anti feminist rally that they held in opposition to the
Women's Conference. Remember the high end of Women's Conference was
(38:01):
thirty two thousand the lower and that the number ICEE
bandied about most often is around twenty thousand, So this
is a significant number of people in opposition coming to
Houston for this. And remember Philis Shaffley was like, I
don't think we should do this, and had Lottie Beth
Hobbs not been like, we're doing it anyway, this probably
(38:22):
never would have happened. And Philis Shafflee gets all like
across the board the credit for founding this rally. It
was almost all Lotti Beth Hobb But once Lotti Beth
Hobb was like, we're doing it anyway, Phylis Shaffley was like, Okay,
can't beat them, join them, And so she came and
spoke and in establishing a lot of like that, like
you said, thumb and the eye kind of tactics that
(38:44):
we still see today. The first thing she said when
when Philis Shafflee gave her remarks on stage, she thanked
her husband for allowing her to be there, and apparently
the crowd just went wild for that one. And one
of the other things that I saw is that a
lot of the people there had signs or boasted to
the press about how they had paid their own way
(39:06):
to make it there, which was a shot at the
women who needed help or government funding to attend the
Houston conference. It's not very nice stuff. So it was
a really very targeted, very specific, very effective anti er
anti women's conference rally, the pro family rally, and it
(39:26):
got a lot of press attention as well, Like people
would report from the women's conference then they go over
to the proe pro family rally and it was just
crazy amazing press.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yeah, totally, And it was the moment where they were like,
not only did the press notice, but and this was
one of the bigger reasons why they did this is
they wanted and got the attention of the Republican Party.
So it's like all of this stuff wasn't officially platformed yet,
and or some of it wasn't, and so this was
when the Republican Party was like, all right, listen, we
(39:59):
need to platform all this stuff officially. And it was
just again, just this this three days. It's really incredible
how much it shaped things. I know, you found an
interview where Lottie Beth Hobbs, you know, because she was
from Houston and a Texan, like, had this big rally,
and like, what would have happened had this not even
(40:19):
been in Texas? And who knows? You can only speculate
of what would have happened. I imagine, you know, Jerry
Folwell came around not too long afterward anyway, So I'm
sure this movement would have taken hold, but maybe not
as soon.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Here's the thing. Maybe not as soon, maybe not as tenaciously.
Because that rally, the pro Family rally that was in
opposition of the Women's Conference, it attracted fifteen thousand attendees,
that got the attention of a lot of different people,
including the Republican Party. But also it showed those people
(40:53):
the attendees, like hey, you're an orthodox Jew. Hey you're Catholic.
Hey you're an evangelical Christian. Hey, you just hate the
idea of the federal government overstepping its bounds. All of us,
we have all sorts of stuff that we disagree on.
Doesn't matter because we all hate this other stuff more
and want it to not happen. So if we just
hang in together, if we just stay together, like we
(41:16):
can actually have a lot of political clout as a coalition.
That rally showed them that. So had that rally not happened,
it's entirely possible that coalition might not have formed or
not have formed in the way that it did form,
and it certainly wouldn't have formed in time to basically
take over the Republican Party and support the Reagan presidency
(41:38):
for the vast majority of the eighties. Like it's sounding
to think for good and bad, what how different the
United States would be? Like this is a turning point
in American modern American history this weekend.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Yeah, for sure, it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
That was by the way, that was Marjorie's sprule again
that historian who was being interviewed in Houstonia magazine sisod interview.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah, so the outcome of all this was obviously you know,
they passed all these planks. They ride up their report,
I guess called the Spirit of Houston, and they handed
it over to President Carter and Congress. So Carter says,
you know, I support all this stuff. Of course, your
(42:25):
goals look pretty great to me. But then, like I
said at the very very beginning, not a lot actually happened.
As far as real practical moves there was. They extended
the and we talked about this in my freshly remembered
era episode where there are a lot of different cutoff dates,
(42:46):
like you got to get it done by this year
or else it's off the table. He extended the time
for ratification to nineteen eighty two. There was some protections
against discrimination based on pregnancy. They said, hey, you can
get some Social Security benefits if you have been a
homemaker your whole life and you got divorced, Like we're
(43:07):
recognizing that as a job for the first time. And
a lot of feminists that were there were like pretty
upset by inaction and by the fact that Carter supported
the High Amendment, which totally took down the reproductive Funding Plank,
basically banning the use of federal funding for abortion.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Yeah. They were also really mad at Carter for cutting
social programs to pay for increased defense spending as well,
which is not what you think of when you think
of Jimmy Carter. But apparently he got a little more
conservative later in his presidency. And so it just essentially
went nowhere. Like if you read like assessments of what
(43:49):
came out of the Women's Conference of nineteen seventy seven
in Houston, most of the most of the positive silver
lining parts are that it helped women come together who
otherwise would not have ever met and basically swap strategies,
stop swap organizing methods, saying like, hey, we're organizing like
(44:14):
domestic abuse shelters and rape crisis centers, and this is
how we're doing it. And basically it helped on the grassroots.
It took a bunch of different germs and put them
together and they spread beneath the federal level and the
state and local level, and it really helped women advance
in that sense. But federally it went nowhere almost at all.
(44:36):
It went almost nowhere.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
Yeah, And you know, we talked a lot in this
episode about the fact that you know, galvanizing different kinds
of women together, but one that we haven't mentioned yet
that Lucy Kammas are don't turn around. She was a
nation reporter said to her, the most remarkable aspect was
not bringing together like necessarily bringing lesbians under their wing
(45:02):
and women of color, but bringing women who might typically
vote Republican in their past, bringing them in because they
cared about some of this stuff as well, and you
don't have to care about all of it to support
this thing. And she was just like, that was the
most remarkable part to her.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Yeah, which makes a lot of sense. But unfortunately, one
of the other outcomes of that weekend was you do
have to choose, Like these groups, these coalitions solidified and
in opposition to one another, so and both of the
political parties were essentially forced to choose. There was no like, oh, actually,
(45:40):
I kind of agree with this point over here, So
I guess I'm independent. I don't know the state of
the country that we live in today, that polarized country.
You can actually date it back to this. This is
the cradle of it. It's I just can't stop being
in awe of the effect that it had.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
Yeah, totally, I'm always very fascinated by the independent voter.
It's really interesting. To be clear, I'm not knocking independent voters.
I just i'd find it fascinating.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Sure, I wasn't knocking them either. It just made me
think of something else.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
I was just trying to cut off the emails or
like Chuck didn't, Chuck thinks you should vote all one way.
That's not what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
No, no, no, no, no no, I don't think that
came across like that at all. No. So ok yeah,
if anybody was sending in that email, they would have
been wrong, wrong, wrong, Have you got anything else?
Speaker 1 (46:25):
All right? No, I'm done, done, done.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Okay, Well, Chuck said done three times in a row,
which of course automatically unlocks listener mail.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
I thought that meant the candy man appeared.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
The candy man reads listener mail. But the candy man
I'm talking about, you.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Know, you mean the kind that brings you eminems and stuff, right.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
No, the kind that smoked with a glass eye.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
No, okay, all right, this is that's fromer, an eighth grader.
We love reading these kinds of things. Hey, Josh, Chuck
and Jerry. My name is Beatrix, great name. Yeah, I'm
an eighth grader in mckinville, Oregon. I listen to your
episodes constantly all caps, and I really wanted to make
it to your Portland show, but unfortunately I missed it.
(47:10):
My mom and I live almost an hour away from
where I go to school and where she works, so
we often listen to your stuff on the way. I
recently listened to the Rock, Paper Scissors app and you
mentioned that no one plays just refined, but without needing
to make a decision. But my class does and it
really annoys me because there's no point. Also, I would
love an episode on ADHD, specifically what causes it Beatrix.
(47:34):
That's coming sort of soon. I do have a small
convention though, Guys, though I've been listening for over a year,
I still can't tell which one of you is which
That's okay. I can tell your voices apart, but if
I was asked, I wouldn't be able to say which
one of you is Josh and which one is.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Chuck if we switched from time to time.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
That's right, And if you go to that live show
in Portland next year, then you.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
Can tell yeah, there you go. That's the way they
talk about cognitive DISMCE.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
That's yeah, And how about this, Beatrix, send us an
email from that same thread when we go to Portland
next year and you and someone else can get on
the guest list.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Very nice.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
How about that you'll get to that's freebe tickets. So
Beatrix finishes up by saying, I'd love if you gave
a shout out to tech stuff and stuff they don't
want you to know.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Nice. Oh, we're gonna shout them out. Hey, way to
go tech stuff and stuff they don't want you to
know too. Excellent podcasts, you have great take.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
Coourse tricks, our longtime friends and colleagues sit to those shows.
And finally, I would love it if you would read
this on the air so me and my mom get
hear it on the way to school and wish me
good luck in high school next year.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
Good luck Beatrix, high school kids. Fun.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
You're gonna do great. Don't you worry about it. From
the sounds of this email, You're just gonna tear it apart.
I love it.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
Knock it out of the park.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
Knock it out of the park.
Speaker 2 (48:56):
Well, if you want to be like Beatrix and send
us a just patently awesome email, you can send it
to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff you Should
(49:17):
Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, there's Chuck
and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you should know.
The watershed moment in American history edition.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
That's right, in which we tackle not literally take on
no cover.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Yes, the Houston, Texas Conference, the National Women's Conference in Houston,
that was from November eighteenth to twenty first, nineteen seventy seven,
which was the only time that the US government got
together and said here's some money, go out and put
(00:53):
together a conference and a group of delegates that represent
the women in this country and come back to us
with ideas on action we can take but mostly won't.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Well, they left off the mostly won't part. They didn't
find that out until afterward.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Gloria Steinem, who is one of the co founders of
Now and like a quintessential second wave feminist, she called
this the most important event nobody knows about, and it
really was. This was a very specific moment in time
where Olivia helped us with this, where she pointed out
that this is probably the last moment where the federal
(01:33):
government would be like, sure, we're going to fund a
conference to find out how to better womenkind womenkind, and
then at the same time the last moment where those
women could go into that conference assuming that the stuff
they came up with was going to actually have legs
(01:55):
and move forward in Congress.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yeah. Did you see the FX mini series This Is America?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I did not, which is surprising because I've been chewing
around the edges of it in other research and I've
still not seen it.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
It was really good.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Oh, I'm sure it looked like it's just a murderer's
row of great actors.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Great actors, and it's I'm sure you can still watch it.
But a lot of the people in this story figure
in that mini series.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Well, that's the thing. This is a It was a huge,
huge deal. The historian named Marjorie J. S. Spruell wrote
a book on this, and she called it the crest
of the second wave of US feminism. It is also
conceivably the time the moment where the Christian right became
(02:44):
a thing, where the religious rite, i should say more specifically,
and that the religious right became came to hold tremendous
way over the Republican Party. A lot of people point
to the election of Ronald Reagan. Some people take it
a little further back and point to Jerry Folwell's organization
of the Moral Majority Political Action Committee. Nope, Apparently it
(03:07):
happened two years before Fallwell in Houston, Texas, and it
was an rally that was designed to oppose this women's
conference by women who were threatened by the idea of
women being stripped of their traditional roles of homemaker. There
was a huge opposition of women who believed that the
(03:29):
family was the basic unit of society and that that
family was meant to have the mom stay home with
the kids and the dad go off and be the
wage journer. And that worked fine in Dandy after the
post war World War two era, but that became increasingly
difficult as this time war on wag's real wages failed
(03:51):
to keep up with inflation, and all of a sudden,
you actually kind of needed the mom to go out
and work. And so to these women, this is like
a literal breakdown in the fabric of society, and they
were very upset about this, and they very much blamed
feminists who seemed to want to push things in that direction.
Not only weren't opposed to it, they wanted to push
things in that direction, and so this huge opposition came up.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
That's right. And it was also a time specifically, you know,
you were talking about the opposition movement just in general,
but specifically to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment, which was
proposed first in nineteen twenty three, technically passed the House
and Senate in nineteen seventy two, still not written into
(04:33):
the US Constitution. We can't get into it now because
it is a very long and convoluted story.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Well, we did an episode on it, did we on.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
The whole thing? How when was that?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
I know, man, I know, I would say in the
last three years.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Interesting because there's new stuff that's happened in the last
few years. So I wonder, yeah, if it was before that,
dish well, I mean, just like lawsuits like Virginia coming
on board, which meant which means we had three quarters
of the state approval basically everything in place that is
required to make a constitutional amendment. But then people are like,
(05:14):
well wait a minute, other people rescinded THEIRS and Virginia
came on late and there said previously been rescinded. So
then there were lawsuits and here I said, we weren't
getting into it, and I'm kind of getting into it.
But I think the last lawsuit said it's still not happening, man,
and that was in the last couple of years.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
That's still just crazy to me.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah it is. But anyway, Yeah, we did do an
episode on that. That's why it seems so familiar. But
we did.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
And the reason why it seems familiar is because Phillis
Shaffley figured Big into that, and she figures Big into
this too.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah. So Phillis Shafflee was an attorney, a very much
conservative right wing activist, and who was played by Cate
Blanchette wonderfully in Missus America. Yeah, she did a great job.
She founded the Stop Era. I was about you call
(06:10):
it a club or organization, and I just have to
shout out the fact that stop is what's called a backronym.
That's when you have an acronym that's already a word,
So all you really needed was an organization called stop Era.
It actually stands for stop taking our privilege privileges. And
(06:33):
you can't use a word from the acronym or backronym
in your acronym or backronym, it's no.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Or else you're just saying it twice, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
It's just so clumsy, and we like to critique acronyms
as good or bad. I give stop Era just an unnecessary.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Okay, yeah, we need a rubber stamp for that, or no,
a metal clanging sound like you've embossed it.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
At any rate, philishafflete foun you don't want to work
this out? All right? What are we doing?
Speaker 2 (07:04):
The So you remember like the old production company that
created Dragnet, It was like Mark seven or something like that.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Don't remember that, but sure, well we'll go.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Off and watch an episode of Dragnet and then at
the end I'll point it out to you, okay.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
And it was like a set ubu set good dog thing.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Kind of but yes, exactly it was the same premise,
but it was it was somebody like putting like a
metal stamp and they hit it with like, ah, like
a hammer. Yeah. It made that that metal emboss engraving sound. Okay,
that I want to rip off is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
All right, so we give stop e r a an
unnecessary Oh.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
That sounds good. That was really good, Jerry.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
The we should talk about the beginnings, the seed of
this conference It happened on the heels of the UN
saying nineteen seventy five is the International Woman's Year, and
they had a international conference in Mexico City that year.
And that's when gerald Ford stood up and said, all right,
(08:09):
here's an Executive Order number one one eighty three to two.
We'll give you five million bucks to about twenty nine
million dollars today to create the National Commission on the
Observance of in an International Women's Year, and like, go
have your big conference, work out what you want to
bring back to us, which is what we're refer too earlier.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah, and that five million sounds like a lot to
fund some conferences, and it is, but I've read from
somebody who was kind of sour on the whole thing
point out that that's less than a nickel a woman
for every woman that was in America at the time.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Yeah, but twenty nine million comparatively, you can't pull a
conference off for that. I'm with you, But okay, they'll
do it for a million.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
A very important point was it was also a series
of conferences. First. They had state conferences first, Yeah, figure
out what they were going to bring the national conference.
So it was like this year long of conference, and
like looking back now, you're like, wow, people were talking
about women and women's rights a lot at the time,
(09:11):
and it was a huge like there was. It was
just in the zeitgeist, like women's rights was moving forward
at this incredible clip. Just two things. Time declared the
nineteen seventy five Man of the Year to be the
American Woman. Yeah, and I read that the nineteen seventy
one seventy two Congress, I think that was the ninety
second Congress, they passed more women's rights legislation than all
(09:35):
previous legislative sessions combined. So it was it was a
huge It seemed like a juggernaut. And of course women
were going to have all the rights that men have.
The Equal Rights Amendment was going to be become a
part of the Constitution. It was just in the air.
So this conference just made sense.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah. Can I read that Time magazine quote because it's
pretty great. Yeah, this was in the quote unquote Man
of the Year article said enough US women have so
deliberately taken possession of their lives that the event is
spiritually equivalent to the discovery of a new continent.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
That's so awesome.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Man, whoever wrote that, nice work.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
James time.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Oh, Jimmy time. So there's a congress person named Bella
Abzug battling Bella Abzug from New York who was a
real firebrand and was one of the biggest advocates for
this congress. I'm sorry for this conference in Congress. And
she got together with some other organizers, like you mentioned,
(10:35):
there were state and regional conferences. They were gonna choose
about two thousand delegates, and they were really really smart
because and you know, maybe if we told Josh I
was putting together sort of a easily two parter on
just the history of feminism.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Oh, you weren't talking to me just that.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
I see, No, let's talk to the listener. You know.
I got to people out there in podcast land.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
I'm psyched about that one. I've been wanting to do
that forever and we need to We need to do
that sooner than later, for sure, because I've been wanting
to do that one for years.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yeah, for sure. But I think where I was going
was that they were really smart in that. Uh oh,
I nowhere else head it is that in certain ways
of feminism, there was not the most representation and as
feminism grew through the different movements that expanded, and this
was one of those moments where they got really smart
(11:30):
and they were like, you know, we can't just make
this about white suburban women or white you know, I
guess urban women either. We need to expand our pool
and talk to women who are farmers and women who
are basically women who haven't been you know, minority women
(11:50):
who haven't been included as much in this conversation. Will provide,
provide childcare. If you can't afford to come, we'll pay
your entrance fee. Like it was just a really smart
way to go about it, which is like, let's bring
everybody together finally here in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, and it is the conference encouraged that they were
trying to get the best representation of women in America
that they possibly could, and so that conference kind of
inadvertently encouraged all these different types of feminists to come
together like they never had before. That was a huge
lasting impact of it. Yeah, a lot of there was
(12:27):
a lot of infighting in feminism at the time. There
was the old Guard, kind of personified by Betty Ferdan
who wrote The Feminine Mystique, who was kind of opposed
to say, the gay contingent, which she called the lavender menace,
which she believed prevented mainstream society from accepting feminism and
(12:48):
seeing it as credible. Like you said, feminism was largely
viewed through the lens of white, middle class women. This
was an expand scope and it was it made some
people nervous. They were like, well, how are we going
to get anything done with all these opposing views? And
it was very fortunate that there was that small contingent
(13:11):
of conservatives who were super mad about this, it still
attended this conference that allowed all the other groups to
come together to oppose them and get these planks pushed
forward rather than fighting it amongst one another. And it
actually brought together different branches of feminism that are still
just part of this coalition today.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, there was a lot of coalescing on both sides
because of this event. It's pretty incredible. Yeah, because philis
Shaffley early on championed to try and stop this from
even happening, like, hey, Congress, don't fund this thing. That
didn't work. And so a woman named Lottie Beth Hobbes
of Texas, who features pretty prominently here, had the idea
(13:53):
to like to show up and rabble rows and make
their voices heard on the other side. She initially proposed it,
and interestingly, Shaffley, I think you found this wasn't immediately
on board because she was very you know, she liked
to play chess and not checkers, and she was like, Hey,
if we show and there's a low opposition turnout, we're
(14:16):
going to look like fools. But Lottie Beth Hobbs said no,
we're going and you should get on board, and she did.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Yeah. That was Marjorie J. Sproule, the historian turned that up,
which is fascinating as we'll see how that played out.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
And the committee that was actually formed by the anti
era activist was the IWY Citizens Review Committee, and again
a coalescing, They're like, are you anti gay, come and
join us? Are you anti abortion? Get over here? Do
you not want the era bill passed? Come along Catholics, Mormons, evangelicals,
(14:55):
And this is what you were talking about earlier. That
really sort of galvanized the beginning of the religious right.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Yeah. So the more inclusive the feminists were in the conference,
the more targets it presented to people opposed to it,
the more likely it made for those opponents to come
together in opposition and form like an actual movement with
real political clout, and that became the religious right. And
apparently it was the inclusion of a woman's right to
(15:24):
abortion included as part of the like the goals of
this conference that really kind of created that what had
not been a coalition before where it was basically the
Catholics who were anti abortion up to that point and
the Evangelicals were saying, like anti gay. Well, now they
had something in common feminism. Feminism is going to ruin everything.
(15:46):
There are other people who are anti era, and it
just brought all of them together. Like you were saying,
it's just nuts how the fabric of our society today
formed over this weekend essentially in November. Yeah, it's insane
to me, Like history so rarely tucked into one little
tiny corner three days. Yeah, and this is a really
(16:10):
good example of that rare, rare instance.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Yeah, because you know, you mentioned the anti abortion like
Roe v. Wade went through in seventy three, but it
didn't even become officially part of the Republican platform anti
Roe v. Wade until nineteen seventy six, And like you said,
it was something to coalesce and bring people together. So
like both sides it's almost like they're going to war,
(16:34):
you know, both sides are bringing in back up and
they're mounting the troops to sort of dig in on
both sides. At this one weekend in Houston, there were
conservative delegates that did get elected. Utah, Mississippi had delegates there.
They got elected because they had more you know, conservative
voters in those states.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah, those state conferences that were held before the nation conference. Yeah,
that's where they elected delegates. And if you're in a
conservative state, you were sending conservative delegates. So much so
Mississippi sent six men to the women's conference, as I
guess a symbol as well of like these are the men,
these are this is who in charge. Is in charge,
(17:16):
they should be the ones who are the delegates. There
was actually seven men. South Carolina sent a male delegate too,
but he apparently didn't show up. So you will very
frequently see that out of the two thousand delegates, only
only six were men.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yeah, and Mississippi also sent Dallas Higgins, who was married
to George Higgins, who was the leader of the Kukux
Klan in Mississippi. So do with that what you will.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Got a lot of ground to cover Mississippi.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
So as far as the other delegates on the you know,
the non conservative delegates, they were obviously feminists there with
their agenda. A lot of them were political insiders who
had been around for a long time. They brought out
all the stars though, they're like, Gloria Steinem, you get
in here, Correta, Scott King, come on down, Shirley Chisholm,
(18:11):
who Ruby just did a project on Churley Chislm for
Black History Month, so I learned all about her, which
is amazing.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
She was the first black woman elected to Congress.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Right, first black woman elected to Congress, and first black
woman to run for president of the United States.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Oh, I didn't know that, nat.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Which is incredible. Barbara Jordan of course was there. And
if you want a real showstopper, you got to get
my Angelou to write a custom poem for the event.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yeah. What was it called? Like toward to More Perfect.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Union, to form a more Perfect Union that was written
for this conference.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Yeah, pretty cool. So we keep talking about Houston and
Texas and if you're like, well, why would they hold
a women's rights conference in Houston? Or in Texas. There
are a couple of reasons why Texas was actually one
of the states that had already ratified the ER, and
Houston was a well. Also, Barbara Jordan was a congress
(19:05):
person from Texas from Houston, so they had even more
feminist cred And then Houston actually had a an agency
basically a Woman's Advocate agency in the city office. And
so like all of these things put together, mete Houston
seemed like, hey, this is a city on the rise
as far as feminism goes in. In reaction and response
(19:29):
to finding out that Houston was where the national conference
was going to be, the Governor of Texas declared that
week national Family Week. Very clearly through his lot or
Texas's lot in with the anti era people, the Houston
City Council had diminished the funding for that Woman's Advocate
office to one dollar a year and essentially just eliminated it.
(19:53):
They took a lot of steps to kind of go
backwards when they found out this is this is going
to be in Houston, like most of Houston's establishment was
not happy that this was going to happen here.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I thought you were going to say it happened in Houston,
because that meant that I'm one day closer to you.
M Mmm, No, No, you ever heard that song?
Speaker 2 (20:15):
No? Is that a tron D song?
Speaker 1 (20:17):
No, it's uh, he's a Gallon Brothers or Larry Gatlin.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Maybe what's the song?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Houston? Parentheses means I'm one day closer to you. It's
a good song.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Okay, I've not heard it.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Stun means that I'm one day closer to you.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Nope, still have not heard that.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Yeah, I guess maybe she lived in Dallas or something. Anyway,
that joke didn't work. So let's take a break.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Is this our first break?
Speaker 1 (20:44):
It's got to be Yauza. All right, we'll be right back.
(21:14):
All right. So this conference began with a very symbolic
event or gesture, I guess, or a series of gestures.
They modeled it on the Seneca Falls Convention of eighteen
forty eight, which was the big sort of bedrock event
of the beginnings of the woman's suffrage movement. And so
they got a torch Olympic style, got all these athletes,
(21:36):
all these women to go, I mean all across the board,
like high school girls, all the way to Olympians themselves,
and they passed that torch quite symbolically from Seneca Falls
all the way to Houston. Maya Angelou comes in with
that poem, brings the house down. All the heavy hitters
are there. That national news coverage is just going bonkers.
(22:00):
There were morning TV shows that literally set up camp.
There was in all the magazines. The first Ladies got together.
I think Roslynd Carter was the active first Lady at
the time, but Lady brig Johnson, Betty Ford, they all
came and got on stage together and in the end,
including the delegates, anywhere between seventeen and mid thirty thousand people,
(22:25):
it depends on who's counting.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Yeah, that's a significant number of people who came to
show up. And so they were talking about a ton
of different stuff. Remember all each state sent delegates. In
each delegate or group of delegates had their own pet
project that they wanted to pass their own The point
was to put together a bunch of planks to form
(22:47):
a platform to send to Congress and the President and
say this is what you start passing this and women
will be much more equal in the United States. Right.
So Olivia pointed out, some of the planks are all
of the planks in The final plan covered arts and humanities.
May I do this one sure? Battered women, business, child abuse, childcare, credit,
(23:09):
disabled women, education, elective and appointed office, employment, equal Rights Amendment, health, homemakers, insurance,
international affairs, media, minority women, offenders, older women, rape, reproductive freedom,
rural women, sexual preference statistics, and women welfare and poverty.
Those are the planks that ended up in this final platform.
(23:31):
It covered everything, and that was a direct result of
bringing so many different women from so many different walks
of life together and say like, what do you need
to be to thrive in the United States?
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, they've tried foot rubs here, Like can we just
get like one a week from our partner? Is that
too much to ask without some without grousing?
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Is that okay? Can you imagine if the federal government
mandated that you have to do that would be hilarious.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Well at the time they probably said, all right, you
get your foot rub, but we get two in return.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Oh yeah, So.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
There was You know, I mentioned that the news was
covering it big time, and I don't think this is
any accident that it was a woman's conference. There was
a lot of talk of like of in fighting and
even fighting or not even fighting, but obviously fighting between
the two sides, and they may even physically confront one
(24:23):
another and get in fistfights, and it's just that sort
of old, you know, cat fight trope that's so worn out,
and it was I'm sure worn out in the mid
seventies as well. Of course that did not happen. One
of the reasons is because there were only about three
hundred Conservatives there and they were just far out numbered.
(24:45):
They did have ribbons, they had lapel ribbons that said majority,
which is kind of where this whole idea of hey
with a moral majority, like we are the majority, Like
most American women don't want what you're suggesting, so here's
our little pin to suggest.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
That, right, And so that was kind of how the
media portrayed the people who were what the feminists the
other delegates called antis. The conservative delegates were called antis
by everybody else because they were anti everything. When they
passed passed the platform, you could vote on individual planks,
they just voted against the whole thing. So it was
(25:26):
viewed as this kind of single coalition and step with
philis Shaffley. And it turns out that there was a
reporter for the Nation named Lucy Kamasar, who did more
digging than the rest of the media and found that actually, no,
like a lot of the women walking around with majority
pins on are like, yes, they're anti federal government, but
(25:48):
they're pro federally funded healthcare or childcare. They oppose rape
like they weren't. It wasn't just like complete locksteps she showed,
but that wasn't the story that got told about the
opposition at the conference by the rest of the media.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
I'm loath to make another music joke, now, let's hear it.
I just wonder if every time she walked into the
room they said, hey, don't turn around.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Is that a Ace of bass joke?
Speaker 1 (26:19):
You get this one?
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Ace of bass?
Speaker 1 (26:21):
No Falco, don't turn around? They're commisars in town.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Oh yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
That's got better or worse than the other one?
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Uh, much better because i've heard that song.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Yeah, different spelling.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Plus it's a good song. I'm not convinced that the
Houston one day closer to the song is good.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Oh you probably like it. Larry Gatlin, Sure you remember
the Gatlin Brothers.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
What was their big hit?
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Houston? Was it?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Really? Because I've heard them before, but I've never heard
a big hit of that song.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
They were big. That was that whole seventies thing when
country just had a big sort of movement country music
with a Mandres Sisters and all that.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
But there was another song of theirs that I would
have heard of.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Well, how about this. You look that up and I'll
bring us forward. I haven't set it back like I
keep doing. So the platform itself passed, you know, and
with flying colors, like most people expected it would, with
all the progressive delegates there. One of the biggest exceptions
of that, though, was how they were dealing with racial inequality,
(27:28):
because they had put together a brief addressing this that
basically just said, hey, no double discrimination here, Like, it's
already bad enough that women of color are being discriminated
against because of their skin tone, but you can't double
up because they're women as well. And maybe let's get
(27:48):
some bilingual programs going. So they trot this out to
their delegation and a lot of women of color stood up,
and I was like, this isn't enough. This is very vague.
So we actually have a plan that we put together beforehand.
It's called the Black Women's Plan of Action, the b
w p A and we would like to swap that
(28:09):
in for this minority resolution that you've crafted.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Right, And that was a that was a big deal
that it actually got that far, and even better than that,
it actually was voted on enthusiastically. It was like a
six page plank that really covered everything that the that
women of color generally were interested in seeing resolved, and
(28:35):
it got added to this to this platform. Kreta Scott
King presented it on the last night to the delegation
and it received it passed by an overwhelming majority. And
this was really kind of part of the spirit of
this conference. The women broke into singing, we shall overcome
(28:58):
together after they voted in favor of adding that plank,
rather than just the hey, let's all be you know,
let's be considerate of women of color, like that was
the original plank.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Yeah. And it's also notable because once the Black Women's
Plan of Action was presented and they came forward, then
Asian women and Puerto Rican women and Chicana Native American
women they were delegates. There were delegates there as well
representing them and they were like, well, hey, like we
should all have our voice. And I think it was
(29:31):
just one of those big moments like we've been talking
about of coalescing, where a lot of these white feminists
were like, hey, you know, I don't know if we've
done right by our sisters of color, So like, we
we're all about inclusion, yet we're not being as inclusive
as we should be, right, And this was that moment
(29:52):
when it happened.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Yeah, a very similar thing happened with the gay contingent
of the feminist second Wave, which again Betty Fredaine called
the lavender Menace, not because she necessarily had a personal
problem with lesbians, but because she saw that as a
huge obstacle to mainstream America taking feminism seriously. And one
(30:15):
of the reasons why is because at the time, you've
heard of man haters, right, it was just kind of
like a trope that was funny, and it was usually
assigned to all feminists. That was what they used to
describe lesbians before. That's what they were characterized as in
the media and in the popular culture. Man haters. That's
the only reason anybody could ever be a lesbian. You'd
(30:37):
have to hate men. And that also kind of dovetailed
with an actual thread of like real disdain for the
patriarchy and male dominance that was alive and well in
some sections of second wave feminism at the time. And
although they represented a minority of feminists in general, including
(30:58):
the feminists at this convention, those are the ones who
get the microphone stuck in their face because they made
the great the best press, So they had a disproportionately
large voice, and they seemed like they were hobbling feminism
as a result, because who wants to get in league
with man haters?
Speaker 1 (31:15):
You know, Yeah, for sure, And I think that was
a real It seems like at least there was a
realization within this conference and within the delegation that they
were like, this is really our moment to bring everybody
together because there's obviously going to be you know, it's
going to be a stronger movement if we're representing everyone
and everyone's on board. So Betty for Dan during the debate,
(31:38):
very publicly endorsed the resolution, completely reversed her previous position,
and that was, you know, people within the movement, Betty
for Dan was a very sort of a founding member
and a voice that was important. So it was a
big deal.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Yeah. And so when they voted overwhelmingly again in favor
of including the gay and less being contingent as part
of that. I don't remember exactly what the plank was,
but it was essentially saying like, guess we're your legit
human beings and we recognize that, and everybody should. They
broke out into song again and they sang, Houston, I'm
(32:15):
one day closer than to you.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
I thought you were going to say, like an Indigo
Girl song.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
No, but I did look up Larry Gatlin. Still no clue.
I have no idea how I've ever heard of him,
because I've not heard of any of his songs.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
That the Gatlin Brothers nothing.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Nope, all right, there's a song called Broken Lady, which
sounds awful, but that's their biggest hit, and I don't
think i've heard that one.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
H Was it Broken Lady? Parentheses? Get me some glue?
Speaker 2 (32:44):
What is going on with you today?
Speaker 1 (32:46):
I don't know. I'm a big lover of the parenthetical
song title. You don't see those anymore.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
It's true, It's true, you really don't who What was it? Oh?
That Cutting Crew song? I Just Died in your Arms
tonight song? Great song?
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Is that a parenthetical?
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Yes? I just is in parentheses? Is need?
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (33:07):
The title of the song is in parentheses. I just
in parentheses died in your arms tonight, Like it couldn't
just be died in your arms tonight.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Wow, a frontloaded parenthetical. That's unique.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
But also I say we brand this one unnecessary too,
shall we? Okay, very nice. I did not see that
coming up again, frankly.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
So they did not sing that song. But after that vote,
there was also obviously a reproductive Freedom resolution. This supported
government funding for abortion and sex said that passed very
easily as well, like everything else, But the Conservatives were
really upset about this one obviously, And say they got
(33:49):
up on stage with a huge blown up picture of
an aborted fetus and they sang everyone's getting up and singing,
I imagine, much to John and Yoko's may they saying.
All we were saying is give life a chance. And
in the meantime, the other side is out there chanting choice, choice, choice,
(34:10):
and it's just a you know, it's quite a scene
happening there. Like the energy in that conference center must
have been incredible for sure.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
And then everybody got brought down when the plank, the
proposal to create a cabinet level Department of Women's Affairs
was voted down, and they had good reason too. Actually,
there were a lot of women who are like, sure,
that sounds good. There are a lot of other women
at the conference who are like, no, we do not
want to pigeonhole all of women's problems into one agency.
(34:43):
Like our problems and the thing are our goals and
our hopes. They spread over everything else, Like we're humans,
like we should we have all the same interests that
men do. Why should we just have one cabinet position
that all of our stuff is shoveled into. It doesn't
make any sense. So they actually combine their votes with
the anties, who again, we're voting against literally everything that
(35:04):
everybody else was voting yes on, and they actually managed
to scuttle that one. I think that was a good move.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
I think so too, because I wonder if all the
eggs had been in that one basket, if you know,
four years later, they're like, you know what we're gonna
We're gonna acts that position and all together, yeah, or
that cabinet.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Yeah, like they did with the Woman's Advocate Agency in Houston.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Yeah, And then all of a sudden, you're nowhere again.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Right. All we're saying is give life a chance, you
want to take our second break and then come back
and talk a little bit more about the counter mobilization
and what came of that.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Let's do it all, right, So we mentioned at the
(36:09):
beginning in sort of pepper throughout some of these counter protests.
These aren't the actual conservative conservative delegates that are there
at the conference. This is the group headed by Texan
Lottiebeth Hobbes, who was the president of an anti era
group called Women who Want to Be Women, the w
(36:33):
W w W. This was happening across town. There was
also a woman named Nellie Gray. She was the president
of March for Life. They had their own big rally,
and this is where they really brought together. Like we
mentioned earlier, like hey, if you're if you lead a group,
a Catholic group or a conservative group or any sort
(36:56):
of this is where they started sort of dubbing themselves
the I don't know about traditional family, but just the
family movement, the pro family movement, right, which is a
bit of a thumb in the eye to the other side,
saying you don't care about families.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Exactly, you must be anti family standard grade school tactics,
and you still see it today oh.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
You absolutely do. But this was the moment where they
got together on the other side of town and said,
everyone who is against this stuff come together and will
will at least try to put our differences aside and
coalesce as well.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Yes, they also got huge support from No Ma'am, the
National Organization for Men against Amazonian Masterhood, and I think
something like fifteen thousand people came out for this antier,
anti feminist rally that they held in opposition to the
Women's Conference. Remember the high end of Women's Conference was
(38:01):
thirty two thousand the lower and that the number ICEE
bandied about most often is around twenty thousand, So this
is a significant number of people in opposition coming to
Houston for this. And remember Philis Shaffley was like, I
don't think we should do this, and had Lottie Beth
Hobbs not been like, we're doing it anyway, this probably
(38:22):
never would have happened. And Philis Shafflee gets all like
across the board the credit for founding this rally. It
was almost all Lotti Beth Hobb But once Lotti Beth
Hobb was like, we're doing it anyway, Phylis Shaffley was like, Okay,
can't beat them, join them, And so she came and
spoke and in establishing a lot of like that, like
you said, thumb and the eye kind of tactics that
(38:44):
we still see today. The first thing she said when
when Philis Shafflee gave her remarks on stage, she thanked
her husband for allowing her to be there, and apparently
the crowd just went wild for that one. And one
of the other things that I saw is that a
lot of the people there had signs or boasted to
the press about how they had paid their own way
(39:06):
to make it there, which was a shot at the
women who needed help or government funding to attend the
Houston conference. It's not very nice stuff. So it was
a really very targeted, very specific, very effective anti er
anti women's conference rally, the pro family rally, and it
(39:26):
got a lot of press attention as well, Like people
would report from the women's conference then they go over
to the proe pro family rally and it was just
crazy amazing press.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yeah, totally, And it was the moment where they were like,
not only did the press notice, but and this was
one of the bigger reasons why they did this is
they wanted and got the attention of the Republican Party.
So it's like all of this stuff wasn't officially platformed yet,
and or some of it wasn't, and so this was
when the Republican Party was like, all right, listen, we
(39:59):
need to platform all this stuff officially. And it was
just again, just this this three days. It's really incredible
how much it shaped things. I know, you found an
interview where Lottie Beth Hobbs, you know, because she was
from Houston and a Texan, like, had this big rally,
and like, what would have happened had this not even
(40:19):
been in Texas? And who knows? You can only speculate
of what would have happened. I imagine, you know, Jerry
Folwell came around not too long afterward anyway, So I'm
sure this movement would have taken hold, but maybe not
as soon.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Here's the thing. Maybe not as soon, maybe not as tenaciously.
Because that rally, the pro Family rally that was in
opposition of the Women's Conference, it attracted fifteen thousand attendees,
that got the attention of a lot of different people,
including the Republican Party. But also it showed those people
(40:53):
the attendees, like hey, you're an orthodox Jew. Hey you're Catholic.
Hey you're an evangelical Christian. Hey, you just hate the
idea of the federal government overstepping its bounds. All of us,
we have all sorts of stuff that we disagree on.
Doesn't matter because we all hate this other stuff more
and want it to not happen. So if we just
hang in together, if we just stay together, like we
(41:16):
can actually have a lot of political clout as a coalition.
That rally showed them that. So had that rally not happened,
it's entirely possible that coalition might not have formed or
not have formed in the way that it did form,
and it certainly wouldn't have formed in time to basically
take over the Republican Party and support the Reagan presidency
(41:38):
for the vast majority of the eighties. Like it's sounding
to think for good and bad, what how different the
United States would be? Like this is a turning point
in American modern American history this weekend.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Yeah, for sure, it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
That was by the way, that was Marjorie's sprule again
that historian who was being interviewed in Houstonia magazine sisod interview.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah, so the outcome of all this was obviously you know,
they passed all these planks. They ride up their report,
I guess called the Spirit of Houston, and they handed
it over to President Carter and Congress. So Carter says,
you know, I support all this stuff. Of course, your
(42:25):
goals look pretty great to me. But then, like I
said at the very very beginning, not a lot actually happened.
As far as real practical moves there was. They extended
the and we talked about this in my freshly remembered
era episode where there are a lot of different cutoff dates,
(42:46):
like you got to get it done by this year
or else it's off the table. He extended the time
for ratification to nineteen eighty two. There was some protections
against discrimination based on pregnancy. They said, hey, you can
get some Social Security benefits if you have been a
homemaker your whole life and you got divorced, Like we're
(43:07):
recognizing that as a job for the first time. And
a lot of feminists that were there were like pretty
upset by inaction and by the fact that Carter supported
the High Amendment, which totally took down the reproductive Funding Plank,
basically banning the use of federal funding for abortion.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Yeah. They were also really mad at Carter for cutting
social programs to pay for increased defense spending as well,
which is not what you think of when you think
of Jimmy Carter. But apparently he got a little more
conservative later in his presidency. And so it just essentially
went nowhere. Like if you read like assessments of what
(43:49):
came out of the Women's Conference of nineteen seventy seven
in Houston, most of the most of the positive silver
lining parts are that it helped women come together who
otherwise would not have ever met and basically swap strategies,
stop swap organizing methods, saying like, hey, we're organizing like
(44:14):
domestic abuse shelters and rape crisis centers, and this is
how we're doing it. And basically it helped on the grassroots.
It took a bunch of different germs and put them
together and they spread beneath the federal level and the
state and local level, and it really helped women advance
in that sense. But federally it went nowhere almost at all.
(44:36):
It went almost nowhere.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
Yeah, And you know, we talked a lot in this
episode about the fact that you know, galvanizing different kinds
of women together, but one that we haven't mentioned yet
that Lucy Kammas are don't turn around. She was a
nation reporter said to her, the most remarkable aspect was
not bringing together like necessarily bringing lesbians under their wing
(45:02):
and women of color, but bringing women who might typically
vote Republican in their past, bringing them in because they
cared about some of this stuff as well, and you
don't have to care about all of it to support
this thing. And she was just like, that was the
most remarkable part to her.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Yeah, which makes a lot of sense. But unfortunately, one
of the other outcomes of that weekend was you do
have to choose, Like these groups, these coalitions solidified and
in opposition to one another, so and both of the
political parties were essentially forced to choose. There was no like, oh, actually,
(45:40):
I kind of agree with this point over here, So
I guess I'm independent. I don't know the state of
the country that we live in today, that polarized country.
You can actually date it back to this. This is
the cradle of it. It's I just can't stop being
in awe of the effect that it had.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
Yeah, totally, I'm always very fascinated by the independent voter.
It's really interesting. To be clear, I'm not knocking independent voters.
I just i'd find it fascinating.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Sure, I wasn't knocking them either. It just made me
think of something else.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
I was just trying to cut off the emails or
like Chuck didn't, Chuck thinks you should vote all one way.
That's not what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
No, no, no, no, no no, I don't think that
came across like that at all. No. So ok yeah,
if anybody was sending in that email, they would have
been wrong, wrong, wrong, Have you got anything else?
Speaker 1 (46:25):
All right? No, I'm done, done, done.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Okay, Well, Chuck said done three times in a row,
which of course automatically unlocks listener mail.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
I thought that meant the candy man appeared.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
The candy man reads listener mail. But the candy man
I'm talking about, you.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Know, you mean the kind that brings you eminems and stuff, right.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
No, the kind that smoked with a glass eye.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
No, okay, all right, this is that's fromer, an eighth grader.
We love reading these kinds of things. Hey, Josh, Chuck
and Jerry. My name is Beatrix, great name. Yeah, I'm
an eighth grader in mckinville, Oregon. I listen to your
episodes constantly all caps, and I really wanted to make
it to your Portland show, but unfortunately I missed it.
(47:10):
My mom and I live almost an hour away from
where I go to school and where she works, so
we often listen to your stuff on the way. I
recently listened to the Rock, Paper Scissors app and you
mentioned that no one plays just refined, but without needing
to make a decision. But my class does and it
really annoys me because there's no point. Also, I would
love an episode on ADHD, specifically what causes it Beatrix.
(47:34):
That's coming sort of soon. I do have a small
convention though, Guys, though I've been listening for over a year,
I still can't tell which one of you is which
That's okay. I can tell your voices apart, but if
I was asked, I wouldn't be able to say which
one of you is Josh and which one is.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Chuck if we switched from time to time.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
That's right, And if you go to that live show
in Portland next year, then you.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
Can tell yeah, there you go. That's the way they
talk about cognitive DISMCE.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
That's yeah, And how about this, Beatrix, send us an
email from that same thread when we go to Portland
next year and you and someone else can get on
the guest list.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Very nice.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
How about that you'll get to that's freebe tickets. So
Beatrix finishes up by saying, I'd love if you gave
a shout out to tech stuff and stuff they don't
want you to know.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Nice. Oh, we're gonna shout them out. Hey, way to
go tech stuff and stuff they don't want you to
know too. Excellent podcasts, you have great take.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
Coourse tricks, our longtime friends and colleagues sit to those shows.
And finally, I would love it if you would read
this on the air so me and my mom get
hear it on the way to school and wish me
good luck in high school next year.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
Good luck Beatrix, high school kids. Fun.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
You're gonna do great. Don't you worry about it. From
the sounds of this email, You're just gonna tear it apart.
I love it.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
Knock it out of the park.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
Knock it out of the park.
Speaker 2 (48:56):
Well, if you want to be like Beatrix and send
us a just patently awesome email, you can send it
to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff you Should
(49:17):
Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Josh Clark
Chuck Bryant
Show Links
Order Our BookRSSStoreSYSK ArmyAboutPopular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Death, Sex & Money
Anna Sale explores the big questions and hard choices that are often left out of polite conversation.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.