to use phyllis schlafly. despite the prevailing gender norms, women have had a long history of political participation in conservative movement politics. we know her from stop era. she ran for congress and worked on barry goldwater's campaign and so on. conservative women's activism has included, for example, organizing against the women's suffrage amendment. they have been actively involved in challenging laws having to do with federally funded day care or family leave. they have been actively involved in the opposition for legal abortion, same-sex marriage. so despite the conservative gender roles, they are actively involved in politics. secondly, when republicans do vote for women, they prefer to vote for mothers than women who do not have children. third, there are an increasing number of republican women running to -- running for office. in the 2010 election, there were record numbers of republican women elected to office. the numbers are still pretty low. about 18% in congress, but only a quarter of the

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 feminist

another quote from phyllis schlafly. she has said in print encouraging wives and mothers to do their own thing has left children to bear burdens of loneliness, depression and d&d -- and the empty house. latchkey children are crying out for the love of mom who subordinate to their own career ambitions and desire for material things to the well-being of their children. so these do show there is some validity in positing that there another tension for conservatives is that come in terms of promoting mothers in elected office, republicans -- if you are looking at studies, they are less likely than democrats in promoting mothers of young children for running for office. in states where there is a higher number of social conservatives, the lower number of women are in the state houses in so there is an inverse correlation and political life. conservative women's organizations have chastised feminists for promoting the notion that women can have it all. that is that they can be super moms. you may remember the bring home the ba

what could phyllis schlafly have to say to sarah palin, since schlafly blames women's studies professorsng to teach mothers to prioritize staying home over working? me comment on this notion right away. not just let it escape as a sign of progress. it is in -- it is a mistaken stereotype of what feminism stands for, or ever has. from the very beginning, feminists saw that women were being swept into the modern workplace by the demands of a modern capitalist economy. but first, women were restricted to the pink collar ghetto -- saleswomen, secretaries, nurses. was feminists who insisted that women can do professional work and hold authority. they broke open the law schools, the employment ads, the medical to ignore theot journalism schools, and many other institutions. they clearly saw from the beginning that women would not , and they do it all asked society to provide for child care, family leave, flex time, and all services that other a dance capitalist countries do offer. askedother thing, they men to become more active in raising their children. today, cities show that women are bett