{"id":877,"date":"2018-12-31T14:28:42","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T14:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=877"},"modified":"2018-12-31T14:28:42","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T14:28:42","slug":"lone-star-book-reviewsby-michelle-newby-nbcccontributing-editor-90","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=877","title":{"rendered":"Lone Star Book ReviewsBy Michelle Newby, NBCCContributing Editor"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/span><\/span><\/span>Michelle Newby<\/span> is a reviewer for Kirkus Reviews<\/span> and Foreword Reviews, <\/span>writer, blogger at TexasBookLover.com, member of the Permian Basin Writers’ Workshop advisory committee, and a moderator for the Texas Book Festival. Her reviews appear in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, Concho River Review, Mosaic Literary Magazine, Atticus Review, The Rumpus, PANK Magazine,<\/span> and The Collagist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lone Star Book Reviews
of Texas books appear weekly
at LoneStarLiterary.com<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n
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Marjorie J. Spruill <\/span>teaches courses in women’s history, Southern history, and recent American history at the University of South Carolina. She is the author of New Women of the New South<\/span> and the editor or co-editor of several anthologies, including One Woman, One Vote<\/span> and The South in the History of the Nation<\/span>. She is on the editorial board of the Journal of American Studies,<\/span> the journal of the British Association for American Studies (BAAS). She lives in South Carolina.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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<\/a><\/span>POLITICS\/SOCIAL SCIENCES<\/p>\n

Marjorie J. Spruill<\/span><\/p>\n

Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women\u2019s Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Bloomsbury USA<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-1-6328-6314-6, (also available as an e-book and on Audible), 448 pgs., $33.00<\/p>\n

February 28, 2017<\/p>\n

\u201cHuman rights apply equally to Soviet dissidents, Chilean peasants and American women.\u201d \u2014Barbara Jordan<\/p>\n

Gloria Steinem refers to the National Women\u2019s Conference, <\/span>held November 18-21, 1977, in Houston, Texas, as \u201cthe most important event nobody knows about.\u201d Twenty thousand women attended the conference. These delegates were Democrats and Republicans, ranging from students to housewives to the presidents of national groups such as the League of Women Voters, the National Federation of Business and Professional Women, and the National Organization for Women. The star-studded cast included Bella Abzug, Margaret Mead, Betty Friedan, Texas\u2019s Barbara Jordan, Maya Angelou, Jean Stapleton<\/span> (aka Edith Bunker of All in the Family<\/span>), Coretta Scott King,<\/span> and three first ladies of the United States.<\/p>\n

With a remarkable degree of unity, a National Plan of Action titled The Spirit of Houston<\/span> was adopted at the conference and presented to President Jimmy Carter<\/span>. This plan included recommendations on education and employment discrimination, equal access to credit, extending social security benefits to homemakers, aid to elderly and disabled women, prevention of domestic violence, rape, and child abuse, ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment, and greater participation for women in foreign policy, among other issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cSolidarity among feminists was not the same as solidarity among American women,\u201d Spruill notes. As the conference began, across town fifteen to twenty thousand people converged on the Astro Arena for a Pro-Life, Pro-Family Rally, headed by Phyllis Schlafly.<\/span> Schlafly was the leader of Stop-ERA (Stop Taking Our Privileges), and she created the right-wing Eagle Forum to \u201ccombat women\u2019s lib,\u201d which they were convinced was a Communist plot to knock American women, \u201cbeneficiaries of a tradition of special respect for women which dates back from the Christian Age of Chivalry,\u201d off the mythical pedestal.<\/p>\n

Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women\u2019s Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics<\/span> is Professor Marjorie J. Spruill\u2019s<\/span> account of the events leading to the National Women\u2019s Conference, the disappointing results, and the rise of social conservatives. \u201cThere were two women\u2019s movements in the 1970s: a women\u2019s rights movement that enjoyed tremendous success,\u201d Spruill writes, \u201cand a conservative women\u2019s movement that formed in opposition.\u2026 Each played an essential role in the making of modern American political culture.\u201d Spruill draws a direct line between these two movements and the rigidly divided electorate of today.<\/p>\n

Spruill provides a concise history of second-wave feminism and the rise of social conservatives, as well as a detailed account of the historic gains of feminism in the 1970s. Heavily footnoted, the narrative bogs down intermittently in names and acronyms, but Divided We Stand<\/span> isn\u2019t a strenuously academic work, and is quite readable for a general audience.<\/p>\n

Divided We Stand<\/span> is filled with countless priceless details of the times. Airline executives defending before Congress their policy of \u201cmeasurement\u201d checks for stewardesses claimed the checks were \u201cessential to their business.\u201d Representative Martha Griffiths asked, \u201cWhat are you running, an airline or a whorehouse?\u201d Checkmate.<\/p>\n

Spruill\u2019s epilogue does a superb job of wrapping up events since Ronald Reagan took office, including the 2016 election, which is a tall order. An important contribution to a time and a subject that should be better known, the story told in Divided We Stand<\/span> retains its relevance, and indeed has renewed urgency.<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michelle Newby is a reviewer for Kirkus Reviews and Foreword Reviews, writer, blogger at TexasBookLover.com, member of the Permian Basin Writers’ Workshop advisory committee, and a moderator for the Texas Book Festival. Her reviews appear in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, Concho River Review, Mosaic Literary Magazine, Atticus Review, The Rumpus, PANK Magazine, and The Collagist. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}