| Chapter 2: | The Second Wave and Emily's List |
|
|
Goldwater in 1968 finally had a voice in the White House and gained control of the Republican Party, much to the dismay of liberal women's organizations. That, combined with the failure to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in 1982—which had served as a rallying point for the liberal feminist women's movement since its passage in 1972—left “groups within the women's movement in a state of disarray” on two fronts (Costain 1992, 120).
Internally, the two threads of the movement argued amongst themselves over future strategy, finances, and leadership (Barakso 2005, 90–92); externally the movement's very public failure precipitated its loss of influence in national politics. The number of pro-woman pieces of legislation and court decisions continually declined throughout the Reagan administration. Whereas in the 1970s, 72.7 percent of judicial and legislative outcomes were favorable to the women's movement, during the Reagan administration, the percentage of favorable court decisions dropped to 50 percent, reaching a nadir of 14.3 percent during George H. Bush's presidency (Bashevkin 1994, 681–685). Activists saw the period of 1980–1992 as one that brought “racism and social division…fear of the new Right…and policy rollback(s)” (Bashevkin 1994, 692).
In retrospect, good things came out of this tumultuous time. “Feminist groups altered their focus and tried to build on changes in public consciousness that were beyond the control of presidential administrations,” which brought “more momentum and more public support…[awareness] of the obvious enemy…and a financial and mobilization bonanza for many women's organizations…” (Bashevkin 1994, 692; Taylor 1989).
More importantly for women and electoral politics, the liberal feminist movement blamed the failure of the ERA on sexist male legislators. Only thirty-four women held state-level elected