we are actually talking about how to organize our civilization. who has children and how many, the way the sexes relate, whether or not heterosexuality should be the only norm, who will get an education, who will be a leader, whether talented people can rise in a meritocracy without being disqualified by gender, who will care for the sick and the elderly, who will be financially supported -- when and how? these are such fundamental issues that we are talking about, that they get to the core of the lace we live as americans and what the american dream really is. they are not really women's issues, but matters that touch on all of our lives. and men can and do care about these issues. in fact, i would venture to say that this is really not a split between conservative women versus feminist woman, but rather between conservatives than liberals generally.

after all, today more than ever, most liberal men agree with liberal women on these issues, and conservative men and women agree with each other. i think it is interesting to in the early feminist movement, many feminists did construct this battle as one of , womengainst men generally being oppressed by men generally. but perhaps, feminists have changed, much as you think that conservative women have changed in a way that we have not always noticed. because today, you will find much more that feminists see this not as a battle among women, or as between women and men, but really a battle between liberals, liberal men and women together, versus conservatives, men and women together. sense, it is really

a battle about holding onto the , as conservatives will also a new themselves, versus way in the future, which is how liberals will often say they are doing. i think you have raised the important question of common ground. shown that though defending conservative ideas, haveomen you have studied also been actively expanding roles for women. this is a huge paradox. it you have argued that leads them to some common ground with liberals. i think we can propose a superwoman of our own to enter that common ground.

i cannot think of a better one than nancy pelosi. she is a liberal feminist superwoman, who was a devout catholic, a long-term marriage, has raised a large family. she, like sarah palin, also enjoys showing off her children and grandkids on the public stage, as if to say woman can have it all, perhaps in different stages. yet ideologically, nancy pelosi does not expect a single working class woman to provide for all of her own needs. she supports a variety of life options for all women and trust them to make individual decisions without big daddy government telling them what they can and cannot do. in her hands is conceived of as a resource and a four women min -- and children, not a disciplinarian. if we expect women who do not

have money or perfectly enabling families to be in the workforce, we must do this, provide this for them, or we are sacrificing the welfare of their children. is, perhaps from the liberal side, an example of what you have described, feminine toughness. she is feminine. and sure, she is tough. you have to be to be in politics. ideologically conservative in her consumption of government. conservatives do not have a lock on those trades. one thing nancy pelosi would never do in contrast to those women you promote it is attacked janet reno, and others. she would never criticize a woman in public office for her looks. that is what conservatives propose, i will have to say, no thank you.

so let's continue, as you have about the to learn principles that conservative women stand for and how they are evolving. at howerhaps look more liberal or feminist ideas have also evolved and changed. and perhaps, we are letting some of that slip out of view. of let's expand the arena conversation, by all means. only if we talk to each other can we correct stereotypes and incorrect ideas we have about each other. misunderstandings only make matters worse. let's continue to eliminate them , and let's try to get to what the real issues are. thank you. [applause] >> now i'm sure people have many questions.

i would like to open the floor to those questions. let me begin by asking you a little bit about how conservative women felt -- you said that they felt they were by feminist women. what did they feel were the worst stereotypes that feminists had about them? >> essentially, that they only focused on being a stay-at-home nohers and that they had other goals or desires to be actively involved in politics. whereas feminists, basically, i think, ignore their contributions to politics. that was the biggest concern they had with feminists, in terms of how feminist perceive them. they had a lot of concerns about feminists, sort of broadly speaking. noted, they articulate that feminists have promoted ideologies that are kind of

premised on man hating and are anti-feminine, and so on so forth -- and so on. bet feminists have under -- that feminists have undervalued their contributions to politics. >> would you be able to comment at all about what you felt their stereotypes of feminists were? >> sure. this is where i thought it was wonderful to do this as a researcher. it is also very frustrating to do this as a researcher. he cut the stereotypes they come out -- i'm just recording and saying yes and so on, but i really want to engage in a dialogue. and say, well, i have to say that -- i want to push them on it and say, i'm a feminist and i know women who are feminists and they don't fit that stereotype. let's talk about why we have the stereotypes and so on. i will give an example. when i interviewed phyllis schlafly, she said to me, feminists are opposed to marriage and children. i am a married feminist with

children. i have heard her say this before. she has written this. i wanted to push her on this. i said, what would you say to a woman who is married, like in gandy, who runs the national organization for women who i also interviewed for my book. she has children. what would you say to her? was, what id meant to say was that feminist promote policies that are anti- family. basically, that feminists are anti-children, anti- marriage, and so on. isthe institute for study for liberal feminist women? i did a lot of research. i came to this project because -- actually, my original spark for this idea was in college. pennsylvania.

it was one of the state that was going down. there was a big debate about it. for a women's studies class, i interviewed a woman from stop e.r.a.. and i was fascinated with the men who would oppose equal rights amendment. then when i was in graduate school, i had a major field of about women in politics. and it really was about feminists and feminism in politics, generally speaking. there were some exceptions. there was a lot of attention to diversity among women, but not a lot of attention to ideological diversity among women. there is a lot of scholarship on them liberal feminism, but not on conservative women. >> what about conservative woman in -- conservative women in terms of class. did you look at that? far.did not for this so there are surveys. i will eventually incorporate that into my research.

certainly, the woman that i interviewed and the organizations that i'm studying our women from upper income or higher class. i don't like that term. upper income families, generally speaking. discussiont a lot of about last diversity among these women. thingsk of support for like federally funded childcare speak to that as well. >> which might be to them equated with paying more taxes. >> absolutely. not believe that -- it is like we should ignore the problems. but they do believe that the best approach is to have flex time in the workplace, maybe provide tax incentives to businesses to offer these kinds of things. but it should never be government mandated. >> you offered to say a little bit more about the two different strains of conservativism and his two different organizations. and the two different organizations. the independent women's forum

represents one strain of conservativism and the conservative women of america is quite different. would you say a little bit more about the differences between conservative women? >> yes, absolutely. the independent women's forum was founded by a woman who originally founded a group called the woman for judge thomas. after they were successful, they decided to found an organization. they do not take a position on abortion or same-sex marriage. they really focus on what they consider to be economic policies, government regulation of businesses, and so on. they talk about how those policies either affect women or women's perspective on them. iscerned women for america what i would call a socially conservative group. they mostly deal with issues having to do with abortion and issues of "morality." same-sex marriage, pornography, and so on. there has been some great work on this by sarah dunn and others

, about the way the conservative politics have managed to fuse the two. do not always work together, but some of these groups managed to put out coherent messages, even though the independent women's forum does not deal with issues like abortion. >> what happens to a conservative woman who really believes an individual right and perhaps once very limited government, but also really believes in keeping -- it does believe in abortion rights? there are conservatives and republican woman who believe that. >> i interviewed several of them. >> are they without an organization? i think, without power, perhaps. you hear this now from some of the more moderate republican woman in office. >> i raise that question is a contradiction that i see. there is a contradiction between wanting less government, yet

more government restrictions on personal decisions. and on private life. that does seem like a big contradiction. a conservative woman who would make that decision to resolve that contradiction in favor of freedom, individual rights, and privacy. >> i think that is true, and i think they feel like for now the republican party is welcoming enough, in terms of economic policies and so on, and i'll be holding part, they are their nose. and there are pro-choice republican women in office. aree are the women who growing more frustrated with the emphasis on republican party antiabortion policy. not clean. it is there are certain contradictions, i agree, but they don't believe the democratic party represents the things they are most concerned with.

yes, they are as pro-choice and so on, but in terms of what the government should be doing economically, they still feel more comfortable in the republican party and that is what they choose to focus on. you one veryask fundamental question, which is, is there a really any benefit to finding more common ground? we have been talking as though there is. and on some level, there seems to be an idea that needs no defense, but would it make it a findrence clinically to more common ground? >> i think there are some places where it would. the one area that i think women should work together and cross ideological lines is in media sexism. there is no reason there needs to be a divide among women ideologically about how media, particularly media coverage of women running for office or in office, there is no reason there

needs to be an ideological divide in terms of assessing or evaluating that. there is a group that has formed recently called "name and they have come out, and they are calling it out on everyone. the national organization for eek," andite "newsw they were talking about michele bachmann, calling her the queen of rage, and it was a very unflattering photograph, so i think that is really an area that does not make any sense to me, why you cannot have women this istogether to say problematic. you are hindering women in politics because of that, so that would be one area. >> this is a subject for another i would love but to understand more how much the mainstream media is guilty of having promulgated some of these stereotypes in the first place.

>> which ones? >> what feminists have about conservatives and what conservatives have about feminists. in terms of who the media chooses to speak and whether or not -- there certainly is more, if you look at major news networks and the one, i think it is changing slightly, but conservative women have been doing a good job getting themselves on television and representing conservatives, because it is a novelty at this point. just in terms of saying, we need more women in elected office, and this becomes more challenging, because like i said earlier, there are women, and then there are ideological divide. they do run into some challenges, where they are promoting women, where if they are conservative, the women may be feminists or vice versa, so some challenges

about substantive representation, as political scientists may want to do with, and that you may be a woman, but you may not be acting in my interest. >> thank you very much. let's open it up to questions that people are here to ask. in the conservative view, feminist women not supporting feminist candidates, did you ask them if they support liberal women candidates, because they are women? >> absolutely. >> and what was their response? this is changing, and this is one of the things i have talked about, but it has never been an explicit goal of conservative women's group to get women in elected positions of power until recently, which really started with sarah palin, but it has been a goal of feminist organizations, and i know you were saying that they would not support palin, and i think that is true, but it does require

them to be more specific in terms of what they care about in promoting women and electing women in office, so they do not see it as contradictory. it has been a stated goal for them to get more women in elected office, and so it really was not a problem for them. it is just a question. >> what about ethnic diversity? >> right. again, i will not -- to state that organizations and the women that i work with and study, you do not get a ton of diversity. there is some diversity among my interviewees, more age diversity, and i have one who is 89, and i have also interviewed some college women activist to get some perspective, so it was interesting for me to get some perspective there. there is some ethnic and racial diversity, but not a lot. what i am calling the elite

level, in terms of surveys, people who identify as conservative, or so on, there is a bit more difference there. >> so the feminine toughness frame that you're talking about is not, the feminine part of it is not new at all, because we go back into the 1900s, and people were using their femininity or their roles as mothers to support their political stances, because we have this view that men do not have, and that is held in politics. we are for peace, because we know about the men and children, and when women for peace was an act in congress, they brought their children and, and they are very interested to show that they were traditionally feminine, so it is not new. it is like these women are 100 years behind the times, and they are not offering something that is strikingly new to politics, so that rings me to my question, and your claiming that this has

cultural significance and is conservative values. i do not see how they are contributing to the conservative or transforming, really, the conservative agenda in the way that some people may point you in the democratic party, so i am actually interested in the in theof these women party at large. >> briefly, i do not know that these women, that it is new or they are necessarily behind the times, per se. you are right about the internalists strategies, and that was both sides. fors not really you conservative women either. it is just the way they have been doing it for women in an office. in terms of shifting or having an impact on the republican party, i think that just the --e women who are -- studies

currently, republican women do not fare well when they do in primaries, in part because people think they are too liberal, though there is an idea that some may be more feminist, so from the perspective of the republican party, the more conservative women you have out there running for office and making these claims, you may help republican women run for office, because it was shipped the idea that you do not have to be a man to be a conservative, which helps republican party. i think that is incredibly important for them, and the other thing is there is a gender gap, and the gender gap i am talking about is that women as a whole, and it is not just gender, racism is a factor, preferred democrat candidates, particularly in the elections, and to the extent you can get more women running for office and more conservative women out there and being lyrically active, i think you may have some impact on that, a little bit, and, again, this is from the perspective of the party.

the final piece of this is part of the reason it is a relatively low number of republican women in office is the republican party has not done a particularly good job of recruiting and training and promoting republican women for office, so the more the leaders say this is a problem, i think that would have impact on the way the republican party deals with candidates. >> well, thank you. professor especially, schreiber, for your comments. >> winky. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] in prime time,k we are "q&a bringing encore presentations of c-span's "q&a," and tonight, talking about a to activism and antiwar

efforts. watch our entire conversation tonight on c-span. after that, the nsa data collection programs and the privacy and security issues implicated. .e will bring you highlights that is tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern, and at 9:00, the c-span first lady series takes a look at the life and legacy of bess truman. taking charge of her family as a teenager following the suicide of her father. despite her reputation as a silent partner to president truman, harry nicknamed her the boss. join us tonight for a look at best truman tonight on c-span. uman tonight on c- span. first, a look at the republican party with the author of the gop

civil war, and then the future of the democratic party with the former founder and ceo of the democrat leadership council. " live on c-journal span. secular norms as opposed to theological norms which govern our acceptance or rejection in the ways of which a god or goddess can't speak to what impact that has, so, for example, the branch davidians, so you had david who said he had a special inside, and these help other members of the community understand the relation better, and they are living in the end times. well, that, by itself, does not seem to be a problem, but when thatads to other elements

trigger both law enforcement concerns as well as the popular press is concerned, then, suddenly, this idea of somebody listening to god and having his followers do something seems to be aberrant to national norms. >> the wesleyan university professor on the use of religious restitution in america which has been prevalent since the 1800's, even committed by the same government that is supposed to protect us from persecution. that is part of book tv this weekend on c-span two. >> cnn political reporter peter talked about the impact of twitter. he cover the 2008 and 2012 campaigns. he