Paper Sample on Marjorie Spruill's Divided We Stand: A Battle Over Women's Rights & Polarized Politics

Introduction

This presentation is over Marjorie Spruill’s Divided We Stand We Stand: The Battle Over Women’s Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics.

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About Marjorie Spruill

Spruill was born on July 26, 1951. She completed an extensive education having obtained her B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, M.A.T. from Duke, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. Presently, she is a Professor Emerita of History at the University of South Carolina. Previously she taught at Vanderbilt and the University of Southern Mississippi. Spruill’s specialty is United States history with a focus on the American South and women, politics, and gender.

Spruill is also recognized for her efforts on women’s movements in the United States from the female suffrage movement all through to the contemporary feminist and anti-feminist associations.
A few of her works on woman suffrage entail the following:

• The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States (1993)
• The Woman Suffrage Movement in Tennessee, the South, and the Nation (1995)

Conferring to Spruill’s most recent book, Divided We Stand: The Battle over Women's Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics (2017), the main depiction is the intensification of the modern women's rights movement in the late 1960s and 1970s, the enlistment of social conformists as the "Pro-Family Movement," and the battles involving these movements hence contributing to the alteration of American radical values.

Beggining

The divided we stand book speak conspicuously of the weekend of November 18–21, 1977, in Houston which came to be appreciated as the most decisive revolving point in the battle involving Women’s Lib and those who were Pro-Family. For instance, the Houston conference and the initial state meetings leading up to it demonstrated to be meticulously polarizing proceedings. Also, during the four-day weekend, feminist leaders pursued to bond these representatives of American womanhood behind an agenda replicating their miscellaneous interests but one they could entirely back.

However, despite the significant barricades, they were able to consider proposed National Plan of Action which comprises of many women’s rights factions put aside their dissimilarities and amalgamated behind an extensive set of feminist goals, conservative women who opposed any of those goals joined forces to challenge them—with enduring consequences for the nation.

Female Establishment

The book presents some of the radical feminists' strategies they employed to get the public and government attention. For instance: Radical feminists employed different strategies in search of attention on social media by overemphasis on attractiveness and conformism, which acted as the best platform for the women’s meetings and gatherings of the demonstrations. Also staged a melodramatic protest outside the Miss America pageant whereby they threw sashes, hair curlers, among other things which they were anticipating to burn them.

President Gerald Ford

By then, President Gerald R. Ford happens to have not gone down into account as a critical enthusiast of feminism by making sure he participates in various projects concerned with the women’s rights.

President Gerald Ford, unlike the other American president, decided to participate in women’s rights activities by even appointing a United States National Commission on the Observance of International Women’s Year (IWY), which aimed at coordinating any events in the United States soil which are related to the United Nations World Plan of Action on women’s concerns.

Within weeks of taking office, Gerald Ford held several meetings with top women appointees, women members of Congress, members of state directives on the position of females, and representatives of major women’s organizations on how to bring changes about women's perception in the United States society.

“Equal Rights” for Women

The equal rights for women are among the concerns or significant issues that have been facing most women around the world, and that is why the book “Divided We Stand” came into popularity among American women. Moreover, the ascendance of the women’s rights movement within the state leading formation kindled a conflagration among women intensely invested in traditional women’s roles.

Also In the event, the majority of feminists grew their backing and recorded voluminous victories, these particular women prearranged to voice themselves clear that “women’s libbers” did not speak for them and they needed to have their members of the movement to represent them when it comes to the women issues. Indeed, the women’s rights movement was, to a great extent, a result in comparison to the cause of these vicissitudes.

Women’s Liberation Alternative

Through the formation of the women’s liberation movement, they still faced some obstacles form other fellow women in different aspects of a person’s lifestyle or living. The women’s liberation movement was located in North America and was part of the feminist movement around the year 1960s and 1980s with few diverse traits from the other feminist groups. For instance, in the event the women organized, there was also the alternative that entailed copious women battling the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment through their churches, public and political organizations. The lavish women who were fighting or advocating for other women’s rights thought that women’s liberation was only concentrated in different regions and did not have strong women’s issues according to their arguments.

Assembly Storm

In the year during spring 1977, feminists and conservative women planned the unrestrained conferences set to commence by the year’s end. The plans were to make sure that the assembly storm brings back some women's movements from all over the world on how to fight for their rights. For instance, On the other hand, hard-fought fights over the abortion, and a quick-tempered fresh political concern intensified the hostility involving the two sides and elevated the dangers. Some women's movements advocated for many series demonstrations, which their main focus was on abortion. Apparently, regarding abortion, the majority of feminists felt self-assured that the new president was on their back at a minimum, not against them, and they would accomplish their intended goals within a short time.

State by State

Most of the states were expected to provide both men and ladies with discussing the strategies to be employed. For instance, an estimated 130,000 ladies and several hundred gentlemen were anticipated to participate in the state and national meetings. The number of both the ladies and the gentlemen had to be equal from each state to have a strong push or influence in the society. The rationale for this was mainly to reveal women’s achievements and plot an imperative route regarding an enhanced prospect. The reasons as to why the women's movements concentrated on the state to state representation are to have broad mass support from some political leaders who are in governance and the opposition.

However, as the meetings transpired, feminists with lofty expectations of conveying women together to discover a mutual ground were astonished to find out themselves confronted by mounting numbers of angry conformists. The latter turned out to protect God, country, and family.

Counterrevolution

Throughout the process of women's movement, some counterrevolutions made it hard for the women's liberation movement to accomplish their objectives. For instance, In the event the feminists and conservatives attacked each other at state meetings, feminists approximately emerged ahead continuously. The fact that the feminists always emerged the winners made the conservatives to file for some unfair practices in the justice system whenever the laws were passed supporting the women’s rights.

However, the feminists were surprised by the bitterness and disenchanted that in most states, it made the evocative exchange of notions unbearable. The feminists began to experience some of the difficulties when the battles continued to become easy every day since they had a lot of support from almost all the states in North America. Therefore, as the temporary battles terminated, feminists were whirling, tingled by what had transpired to the sessions for which they had acquired such great hopes.

Pro-Family Movement

Throughout the meeting durations in the 1970s their emerged some revolutionists or other movements that advocated for different rights other than those solely belonging to women. The pro-family movement consisted of various allies from different states, and that is why in the drop of 1977, Phyllis Schlafly and Citizens’ Review Committee (CRC) influential premeditated their retort to the conference consequentially, having attempted and miserably ruined to avert it, they swore to convert the conquest into triumph. The feminists saw this as a great hindrance and challenge towards achieving their targets. The Citizens Review Committee (CRC) and Phyllis Schlafly also envisioned conveying a specific message to the country that this was not a transient uprising, which had transformed into a “pro-family movement” with a significant intention of becoming more, not petite, involved in politics.

Conclusion

In conclusion, International Women’s Year leaders returned from the National Women’s Conference positive. They commenced the New Year 1978 with great expectations and enormous plans. The national women’s conference had a lot of challenges, but from various support and employment of different strategies, they hoped for many changes in the coming year. From corner to corner of the nation, the majority of the National Plan of Action supporters were firm at exertion to endorse its execution, inaugurating speakers’ agencies and task forces, holding inquiries, and town conferences. Therefore, from the above strategies and measures that were employed by the early women movement is a real definition that modern feminists are fast learners in that can learn new skills and put them into practice within a short time.

Bibliography

Spruill, Marjorie J. Divided we stand: The battle over women's rights and family values that polarized American politics. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2017.