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