Kitchen Table Politics
POLITICS AND CULTURE IN MODERN AMERICA
Series Editors: Margot Canaday, Glenda Gilmore,
Michael Kazin, Stephen Pitti, Thomas J. Sugrue
Volumes in the series narrate and analyze political and social change in the broadest dimensions from 1865 to the present, including ideas about the ways people have sought and wielded power in the public sphere and the language and institutions of politics at all levels—local, national, and transnational. The series is motivated by a desire to reverse the fragmentation of modern U.S. history and to encourage synthetic perspectives on social movements and the state, on gender, race, and labor, and on intellectual history and popular culture.
KITCHEN TABLE POLITICS
Conservative Women and Family Values in New York
Stacie Taranto
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Copyright © 2017 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ISBN 978-0-8122-4897-5
For my family, and the ability for all people and families to live as they choose …
CONTENTS
Introduction. Inventing a New Politics of Family Values
Chapter 1. Becoming a Suburban Family
Chapter 2. Vatican II and the Seeds of Political Discontent
Chapter 3. Abortion and Female Political Mobilization
Chapter 4. Equal Rights and Profamily Politics
Chapter 5. Ellen McCormack for President
Chapter 7. Making a More Conservative Republican Party
Epilogue. The Politics of Women, Gender, and Family After 1980
NOTE ON TERMS
Certain key terms and organizing principles appear throughout the book. The movements, groups, and participants they refer to were not as homogeneous as the blanket terminology used to describe them suggests. The term “New York” refers to New York State, not New York City, which is labeled as such. Derivations of “pro-family” or “family values” were used for convenience. Unless otherwise noted, references to “feminists” relate to (white) liberal, as opposed to radical, feminism because liberal feminists from organizations such as the National Organization for Women were more immersed in the electoral political arena covered here. Liberal feminists offended the first-generation suburban homemakers at the center of this narrative, as women of a similar racial and class demographic who were supposed to be their friends and neighbors, not political adversaries.
Perhaps no issue is more volatile than debates over whether abortion should be legal, which necessitated a careful parsing of words. Opponents of legal abortion are labeled as “anti-abortion.” This term does not imply that advocates of legal abortion were necessarily “pro-abortion.” Proponents advocated abortion’s legality; few took the actual procedure lightly. The more politicized “pro-life” and “pro-choice” descriptors appear only in quotations from activists. Opponents of legal abortion chose the term “pro-life” to reflect their belief that unborn fetuses were akin to, and thus should be afforded the same legal rights as, those living outside the womb. Proponents of legal abortion, particularly feminists, saw legal abortion as a fundamental right—a decision that only a woman, whose body and life were directly affected by pregnancy, should make, as the “pro-choice” marker denotes. These terms reflect two very different outlooks on abortion, the origins of which unfold here.
INTRODUCTION
Inventing a New Politics of Family Values
The inspiration for this book grew from going door-to-door in 2004 collecting donations for the Democratic National Committee on behalf of John Kerry’s presidential campaign. I was disappointed to be stationed in Rhode Island instead of an exciting swing state like Ohio, but being there made the most sense. I was about to begin graduate school in the area, where I intended to research American women during World War II. That plan shifted after canvassing Rhode Island for Democratic cash. Wealthier suburban neighborhoods were our best bet. Anecdotally, it seemed that a Volvo or Subaru in the driveway guaranteed hundred-dollar checks from people eager to expound on President George W. Bush’s worst policy blunders.
We also visited many lower-middle- and working-class neighborhoods—voters who had been the backbone of the New Deal coalition, yet whose support for the party was less assured in recent years. As naïve young staffers, we thought we could convince this demographic to open their wallets. These were neighborhoods likely to benefit, for example, from Kerry’s promise of national healthcare. We suspected that issues such as abortion might repel some of these voters. Still, this was the “blue state” of Rhode Island. These were mostly Catholic families, not the Evangelicals our friends were confronting elsewhere. We were wrong.
Older women, especially ones with rosary beads and other visible Catholic insignia, were the most hostile. They said they would never vote for Kerry, a