By an overwhelming margin, Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in early 1972 and submitted it to the states for ratification. Within a year thirty states had voted in support of adding the amendment to the Constitution. Then Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative lawyer from Illinois, who idolized Thomas Edison, Elias Howe, and Clarence Birdseye for their contributions to the comforts of domesticity, organized a "STOP ERA" coalition composed of fundamentalist and orthodox religious leaders, conservative businessmen, radical right groups, and a growing number of women who considered themselves anti- feminist. Believing that the women's movement had gone too far, these women saw feminism as an enemy responsible for fostering sexual permissiveness, homosexuality, abortion, moral relativism, and what they called "secular humanism." They feared that ERA would destroy the "special place" of women in the home, force them to fight in combat, and mandate unisex toilets. Because of their efforts, the deadline for ratifying ERA passed in June 1982, with the amendment still three states short of adoption. Rebecca Klatch describes the key components of this anti- feminist movement in the following selection.

In many ways the 1960s captured the social conservative vision of a society in decay, in chaos. The civil rights and anti-war movements, SDS and the Weathermen, the Yippies, hippies, and flower children, all symbolize the turbulence and social conflict that ripped apart the American dream during those tumultuous years. Signs of moral decay pervaded the 1960s--captured in the images of the bluejeaned, beaded and bearded, long-haired youth, Timothy Leary and the LSD cult, Woodstock and communes, skinny-dipping and braless women, head shops ,and rock concerts, and ultimately captured in the image of a burning American flag. Further, the uprooting of traditional forms of authority also indicated "the rott rotting of America," as evidenced in the generation gap and the slogan "Don't trust anyone over thirty," or by the embrace of Eastern religion, yoga, Hare Krishna, and even occultism, and perhaps most radically designated by buttons declaring & quot;God is dead" or "Question authority." Such images capture the spirit of the times and also reveal the reason behind social conservative dismay provoked by such an era. For these new images of the 1960s desecrated the sacred symbols of the social conservative world.

Yet there are two specific associations linked with the 1960s, and to feminism as well, two signs that further imply moral decay. First, the 1960s is seen as the era that initiated an attack the American family. While the pill and the sexual revolution ate away at the traditional moral norms governing the family unit, the New Left-- and later feminism-launched an ideological attack on the family. Looking back this era, one conservative critic notes: "The New Left revived the Marxist critique of the bourgeois family, viewing it as predicated property relations, male supremacy, and the boredom of domestic bliss." By espousing "free love," the collectivization of childcare, and the elimination of the e concept of illegitimacy, the New Left promoted the collapse of the nuclear family norm so that " 'Father Knows Best,' 'Leave It to Beaver,' and 'I Love Lucy' gave way to 'One Day at a Time,' 'Three's Company,' and 'Miss Winslow and Son.'"

In addition to this ideological attack on the family, erosion of family life was augmented during the 1960s by the increased number of wives and mothers entering the labor force. Pat Robertson, speaking at the Family Forum conference, explains the consequences of such a trend:

In short, the 1960s ushered in not only an attack on the American family by the New Left but also an internal erosion of the moral bases supporting family life, particularly with the rising divorce rate and increased number of working mothers.

The second corroding effect of the 1960s was a new emphasis on self, the ushering in of the Me Decade of the 1970s. Social conservatives attribute this elevation of the self to the predominant ethic of the 1960s, "Do your own thing." In addition , the 1960s brought with it a new emphasis on rights, as every conceivable group grabbed for its share of the pie in the name of "minority rights." This, too, culminated in a heightening of self-interest. Finally, the popularity of psychology du ring the 1960s, with stress on self-exploration, "I'm Okay, You're Okay," and the multitude of new therapies also added fuel to the fire of "Me-Firstism." The net result of these developments was the breeding of a culture of narcissism.

The 1970s were characterized by an obsession with consciousness expansion, self-awareness, and a type of narcissism. The supposed new narcissism of the seventies expounded the ideas that within each individual there is a glorious talented personality, that t each individual is possessed with an inner dignity that he alone can bring out in himself; each individual must think only of himself and do exactly what he or she feels like doing..

In short, the 1960s fostered conditions favorable to the advance of situation ethics and humanistic values. Increased materialism accompanied this obsession with self, as Americans sought immediate gratification and instant credit to satisfy their appetite e for consumption. Everyone sought something for nothing, as a plethora of' books advertising how to attain "The Joy of Sex" without guilt or how to lose weight without dieting hit the bestsellers list. Such self-gratifying trends symbolized humanism's materialistic appeal, tempting people away from the purity o f spiritual belief and religious devotion.

Like the 1960s, feminism also represents moral decay.. Like the 1960s, feminism is also perceived as a force attacking the American family. And, like the 1960s, feminism, too, is associated with the new narcissism, the Me Decade. In addition, feminism symbolizes a threat because it represents an attack on the status of the homemaker and the extension of Big Government.

From the early days of the women's movement feminism was perceived as force actively working against the family. Social conservatives charge feminists with renouncing the family as a source of repression and enslavement, a tool used by men to entrap and oppress women. As one local pro-family activist puts it:

The libbers watts to abolish the family.. That's what Gloria Frie-- I mean Steinem says. "Women will not be liberated until marriage is eliminated." Have you seen the "Declaration on Feminism"? They state quite clearly there that they want to eliminate the family.. 'That's why, when I hear people say they support ERA, I say to them, "Do you know what that means? Do you know what they want to do?" . . . The feminists want to abolish the family. But the family is the basis of everything. It is the foundation of our society; if that crumbles, everything else goes.

The national conference for International Women's Year (IWY) held in Houston in 1977 concretized the perception of feminism as an anti- family force. Sponsored by the United Nations, the conference brought together women from all over the country to consider "women's issues." Social conservatives were shocked by the delegates' overwhelming support for such things as ERA, gay rights, federal funding of abortion, government-sponsored childcare, and contraception for minors without parental consent , all advocated in the name of "women's rights." Angry that the taxpayer's dollar was being used to fund a convention of feminists, the meeting in fact provoked activism by many women previously uninvolved in the political arena....

IWY gave birth to a network of activists and organizations that called themselves the "pro-family movement." Rosemary Thompson, a leading figure of the movement, defines pro-family as a "person or group supporting legislation protecting traditional moral values, generally opposed to a range of' issues, including ERA, abortion, gay rights, federal childcare, forced busing, etc." If IWY gave birth to the pro-family movement, President Carter's 1980 White House Conference e on Families (WHCF) solidified the movement, deepening the wrath of pro-family activists and drawing in further supporters. Thomson, named national Eagle Forum coordinator for the WHCF by Phyllis Shlafly, declares: "IWY was our 'boot camp .' Now we're ready for the offensive in the battle for our families and our faith."...

This battle over the definition of family is a central focus of social conservative concern . The conflict centers on what constitutes a family, where the lines are drawn. On one side stand social conservatives, defining the family as persons related by blood, marriage, or adoption; this, they contend, is the traditional definition of the family. On the other side stand the feminists and humanists, who include more diverse forms in the definition of family. In fact, Phyllis Schlafly fly reports that Gloria Steinem worked for months to get the White House Conference changed from "Family" to "Families" in order to include alternative lifestyles. Social conservatives reject this acceptance of multiple f amily forms. In a debate held during the Family Forum conference between leftist Michael Lerner and New Right leader Paul Weyrich, Weyrich argued:

Where we disagree is in the effort to call a couple of' lesbians who are bringing up a child a family, calling a couple of roommates a family, calling a couple of fornicators a family. These are families . . . under your definition--garbage! !!! . .. It is ludicrous to call acquaintances, neighbors, live-in types, and so on families. The problem of not defining the family is that it leads to the kind of perversion of thinking which has resulted in people trying to pass off as legitimate families, illegitimate lifestyles.

This same opposition to diverse family forms, with particular animosity toward gay families, is echoed by Dr. Ronald Godwin, vice-president of the Mural Majority, who objects to the placement of "responsible, respectable kinds of families in with the homosexual families and the lesbian families and all the perverse pollutions of the definition." Yet Godwin also objects to what he calls the pseudo-historical " approach to the family::

You'll hear many, many feminists and anti-family spokesmen today talking about history........ They'll tell you that down on the Fiji Islands, somewhere down on an island of Uwunga-Bunga, there's a tribe of people who have never even en practiced family life as we know it But they also have bones in their nose and file their front teeth. And they eat rat meat for breakfast. They're some fairly strange, non- representative people. But they'll tell you about all the strange aberrations that have popped up in the human family over the centuries in various strange geographical locations. They'll tell you that in the nineteenth century in the backside of Europe such and such a thing went on. They'll deal in what is called pseudo-history. They'll'll try to build a historical case for the proposition that the traditional family never really was traditional and never really was a dominant force in all civilized societies.

Once again, in upholding "traditional values," in this case regarding the definition of the family, social conservatives reject the acceptance of diverse cultural forms as equally valid and acceptable moral standards by which to live. Instead , they assert one absolute stander d as the only legitimate code of behavior: Looking back on the White House Conference Thomson reflects:

In this stark black and white world, feminism is clearly intertwined with secular humanism. Both deny moral absolutes; both undermine the family.. Feminism, too, is intertwined with Big Government. Fur it was the government-sponsored International Women's Year and White House conferences that allowed feminists and humanists to promote anti-family policies. Hence, in the battle to defend America, feminism is a threat because, like the other forces of decay, it symbolizes an attack on the sa sacred unit of the social conservative world.

Inextricably bound to the association of feminism as anti-family is the perception of feminism as an extension of the new narcissism, a symbol of the Me Decade. For in condemning the family, social conservatives argue, the women's liberation movement advises women to pursue their own individual interest above all else. Onalee McGraw explains: "The feminist movement issued an appeal that rapidly spread through our culture urging women to liberate themselves from the chains of family life and affirm their own self-fulfillment as the primary good." McGraw argues that the ultimate effect of such an appeal is the redefinition of the family unit:

The humanist-feminist view of the family is that it is a biological, sociological unit in which the individual happens to reside; it has no meaning and purpose beyond that which each individual chooses to give it. Thus, the autonomous self, freely choosing and acting, must satisfy its needs. When, by its very nature, the family exercises moral authority over its members, it thereby restricts the self in its pursuit of self-fulfillment and becomes an instrument of oppression and denial of individual rights.

Schlafly illustrates the social destruction caused by women's liberation by quoting Albert Mattin, who wrote a book discussing his own devastation when his wife of eighteen years walked out on him and their four sons, in search of her identity:

An extraordinary emphasis on self is happening today across our nation, and this is why we continue to tear our marriages apart, splinter our families, and raise our divorce rates to new heights every year. The very core...is the enshrinement of individuality ality, the freedom of self, at the expense of marital union and social compromise.

Thus, in social conservative eyes, when individuality and freedom of self extend to women as well as to men, marriage, the family, and society itself are threatened. The ultimate result of such a development is what Connie Marshner labels "macho feminism":

Feminism replaced the saccharine sentimentalizations of women and home life and projected instead a new image of' women: a drab, macho feminism of hard-faced women who were bound and determined to serve their place in the world, no matter whose bodies th ey have to climb over to do it. This image provided the plot line for such cultural weathervanes as Kramer vs. Kramer. Macho feminism despises anything which seeks to interfere e with the desires of' Number One. A relationship which proves burdensome? Drop it! A husband whose needs cannot be conveniently met? Forget him! Children who may wake up in the middle of the night? No way! To this breed of thought, family interferes with self-fulfillment, and given the choice between family and self, the self is going to come out on top ill their world.... Macho feminism has deceived women in that it convinced them that they would be happy only if they were treated like men, and that included treating themselves like men.

Marshner concludes: "Feminists praise self-centeredness and call it liberation."

Feminism is a threat, shell, because, when women pursue self-interest, not only is the family neglected but also ultimately women become like men. Hence, "macho feminism" is destructive because if everyone pursues their own interest, no one is left to look out for the larger good, that is, to be altruistic, to be the nurturer, the caretaker, the motile!. In short the underlying feat- expressed in this critique of' feminism is the fear of a total masculinization of the world.

Further, as "the most outrageous creation of the 'me-decade'" the women's movement is seen as one of the many groups ignited by the 1960s, greedily grabbing for their rights. Feminist claims of exploitation and oppression are perceived as illegitimate, as the overreaction to common problems by another self-pitying group jumping on the bandwagon of "minority rights." As part of this "craze for equal opportunity," according to one critic, feminism is the "fight- for-your-right-to-do-anything-you-please-and-reject-all-obligations philosophy."

Carried to the extreme, this equation of feminism with total self interprets abortion as the ultimate selfish act, the placement of the mother's desires above a baby's life. Ron Godwin, speaking at the Family Forum conference, portrays abortion in these terms:

He predicts the next step will be infanticide, in which a small group of people will decide which child shall live and which shall die.. Hence, at the extreme feminism represents callous self-interest, women's fulfillment at the price of human life....

Besides feminism as an anti-family symbol and as a symbol of the Me Decade, there is a third association linked with feminism. In social conservative eyes, the feminist demand for self-fulfillment not only negates the traditional family but implicitly negates the role of the homemaker as well. By encouraging women to realize their full potential, feminism assumes that women are not fulfilled through meeting the needs of husband and children.

Thus, feminism represents not only a battle between a traditional and a nontraditional definition of the family but also a conflict over the very status of the homemaker. One woman interviewed, a national organizer for the Eagle Forum, explains how feminism devalues homemakers:

The women's liberation movement really resents homemakers. There's a Chicago magazine out that gives great quotes about how they think it's an illegitimate profession being a homemaker Now when they get a lot of media coverage saying things like that and they portray that they're working for women and they scorn the homemaker. . ., that it's not intellectually satisfying. . .and you're just a glorified babysitter, et. cetera, et cetera, they really caused the split to occur. They caused a resentment to grow between homemakers and working women.... The women who used to say, "I'm a homemaker" with pride now say, "I'm just a housewife." That's a terrible change in attitude. I don't think that's good at all. .

Feminism implicitly degrades homemakers by calling for women To seek fulfillment outside the home, which discredits those women who are fulfilled by being wives and mottlers. Feminism explicitly belittles homemakers by labeling their work as drudgery, as mundane, as ungratifying, and as glorified babysitting. Feminism's call for women to go beyond the housewife role, to step into the male world of paid labor, denies the importance and the satisfaction derived by those content with their homemaker status. As one local pro-family activist explains:

'The feminists want all women to work. But all women don't want to work. I talk to women all the time around here who really want to stay home with their children It's not because they're misled or not liberated. 'They honestly want to stay home with their children. I've seen women who have to work SO torn up by having to leave their none-month-old babies..

The women's liberation movement looks down on the housewife. She should be the most respected person as she is bringing up future generations. But women's liberation puts her down and says, "All she says is stay home all city and wash dirty diapers." ERA won't do anything for these women.

In this way, the conflict between feminists and homemakers is a tug-of-war between two lifestyles. There is not peaceful coexistence between those women following traditional ways and those women seeking new paths, new careers.. Rather than the lifestyle of each being accepted and valued, social conservatives view feminists as promoting new roles for women at the expense of' tile old, thereby devaluing the homemaker's status....

In social conservative eyes, it is not men who are to blame for degrading women, but feminists themselves at-e at fault for denying the worth of women's work in the home, for discrediting the housewife role, and for disregarding the contributions women make in rearing future generations. Accordingly, Phyllis Schlafly responds to the feminist charge that women are treated as chattel by saying, "It is too bad that some women believe such falsehoods. This is the way the women's liberation movement deliberately degrades the homemaker and hacks away at her sense of self-worth and pride and pleasure in being female."

Feminists also devalue women by measuring their worth purely in economic terms. For instance, social conservatives are appalled by feminist assessments of the monetary value of housework, believing such efforts reduce a relationship based on love to purely quantitative value Similarly, Phyllis Schafly argues that feminists are contemptuous of volunteer services performed by women because, "in their inverted scale of values, they judge every service by money, never by love." Whereas feminists view men as taking women's voluntarism for granted, not giving it proper value, social conservatives blame feminists for judging women's volunteer activities solely in terms of the economic rewards such work yields.

This perception of feminism is evident in testimony Phyllis Schlafly gave to the U.S. House Social Security Subcommittee regarding the elimination of dependent wives' benefits. Claiming that feminists complain "it isn't fair" for a dependent wife to receive as large a Social Security benefit as a working woman, Schlafly argues that feminists reduce women's work in the home purely to cash value, without recognizing the contribution homemakers make to society.. She concludes:

Feminists are viewed not only as denigrating homemakers for their lack of cash value but also as hostile toward homemakers, actively seeking to eliminate their very way of life.

Further, Schlafly argues that the homemaker role is superior to paid labor. No amount of career success compares to that joy and satisfaction of motherhood. She advises homemakers to cherish their work for the amount of control and the rewards it allows them, more than most men are allowed at their jobs.

Yet while feminists--and not men--are blamed for attaching the status of homemakers and for degrading the traditional female role, beneath this blame is also an underlying distrust of men. This distrust is particularly evident in discussion of ERA. One reason for opposition to ERA, for example, is that ERA will abolish the requirement that a husband support his wife, thereby eliminating in one stroke women's right to> be full-time homemakers. One of the most valuable property rights a woman now has is the right to be provided for by her husband: ERA will eliminate this right. Whereas now a wife has certain remedies if her husband neglects his responsibilities, such as purchasing goods on her husband's credit and letting the store handle collection of payment, ERA will destroy such options. As one anti-ERA activist put it: "Marriage as a full equal partnership is discrimination against women because the man is no longer responsible for his wife. Under Judeo-Christian tradition, men are responsible. I did not get married as an equal partner."

Worst of all is fear that men who stop loving their wives, or who find a new woman, will be freed of all responsibility to support their spouses. Phyllis Schafly warns:

The underlying fear beneath such claims rests on it distrust of men, on the expectation that a man will pick up and leave his wife and children if no legal ties restrict him. As Mrs. Billy Graham puts it, the women's liberation movement is "turning into a men's lib because we are freeing them from their responsibilities. I think we are being taken for a ride." It is not just social conservative women who express skepticism regarding men. George Gilder speaks forcefully about the inherent unreliability of the male gender:

-This is essentially what sexual liberation is all about.. It allows powerful men to leave their- wives as they grow older and pursue single women, run off with their secretaries, and it allows single women open season on married men. That's that's the essential meaning of sexual liberation and the central meaning of' the women's movement. It's a sort of alliance between powerful men who've already made it with single women on the make....

The underlying image of men is of creatures with uncontrollable passions and little sense of commitment or loyalty. Only moral and legal authority can restrain the savagery of male nature. Thus, when feminists remove the safety valves that currently exist to protect women, they leave homemakers particularly vulnerable to men.

No-fault divorce laws....have liberated many men from the obligation to support their wives and children. Women placed in these unfortunate circumstances are touted by the feminist movement as its most valiant "heroines." However it is the feminist movement's strident insistence on eradication of all sex-related distinctions that has contributed so greatly to the present predicament of divorced women with children who must support the family unit alone.
Besides the vulnerability of homemakers to men, one pro-family activist voiced distrust as well about the position career women face in regards to men:
All I can see is is women with careers who then have to come home and clean their house so all day Saturday or Sunday they are doing housework. All I see is women taking on men 's roles but not men helping. On one side of the feminist's mouth they call for universal daycare and on the other they say,"Don't worry. Men will help. I don't l see men helping." Again, while feminists view this double workday as evidence of women's oppression social conservatives blame career women for bringing on these worsened conditions through their own demands to enter the labor force. Opposition to ERA expressed in such concerns speaks to the tear that homemakers will be left most vulnerable it legal bonds on men are e lifted.. With men free to do their- own thing, go their- own way, with no obligations to support the family the homemaker, will be abandoned, with nothing left to hold on to.

Ironically, this same fear is voiced by feminists in recognizing that all women are just one man removed from welfare. Yet while feminists see this as the economic dependence of women and therefore seek security through encouraging women to be independent to be able to earn their own livelihood social conservative women seek the same security through trying to ensure women's rights and entitlement within marriage thereby binding men to a stable family unit. It is not, then that social conservative women suffer from "false consciousness in not recognizing their own self-interest as women, as some feminists charge. In fact, social conservative women are well aware of their interests as women and act in defense of these interests. The difference between social conservative women and feminists rattler; is rooted in the fundamentally different meanings each attaches to being female. Because social conservative women define femininity in terms of traditional roles of male breadwinner/female caretaker, they seek to extend and secure female rights within the context of marriage and the family. In this way, social conservative women are women for themselves; they act for themselves as traditional women.

Besides viewing feminism as anti-family, as narcissistic, and as attacking the status of' homemakers, social conservatives see feminism as a force of moral decay because it implies Big Government. Feminism represents the extension of Big Government at the expense of the traditional authority of the church, the neighborhood, and the family. As one critic of feminism comments: "The real effect of this collective delusion of women's rights is only to reduce the once sovereign family to a support system for various governmental agencies." Similarly, Phyllis Schlafly refers to ERA as a "Blank check " by which federal politicians and judges take the authority out of local hands.

Opposition to this transfer of' authority is tied to a fear of the levelling effect of Big Government. The fear is that once the feminist agenda is in federal hands, the essential differences between the sexes will he eliminated, replacing diversity with uniformity. The ultimate fear in equating feminism with levelling is the fear of communism....

The question inevitably arises concerning the seeming paradox of the social conservative woman. Given her adherence to traditional gender roles in which men are breadwinners and protectors and women are helpmates and caretakers, how does the social conservative woman understand her own position as a political activist involved in the public arena? How does she justify her own participation, given this ideological commitment to men's and women's separate spheres? Does her activism contradict her beliefs?

The conflict between the traditional female passive role and the vocal political leader is personified by Phyllis Schlafly. Educated at Harvard, a lawyer, an author of nine books, and twice a candidate for Congress, Schlafly is anything but passive or submissive. As past NOW president Karen DeCrow comments: "I admire her.... I just can't think of anyone who's so together and tough. I mean, everything you should raise your daughter to be.... She's an extremely liberated woman. She sets out to do something and she does it. To me, that's liberation." In fact, Schlafly serves as a role model of female leadership for hundreds of women every year. She holds an annual conference in order to pass on her political organizing skills to other women in the pro-family movement. One national organizer explains the importance of these efforts:

Phyllis has done a lot to encourage and inspire and train women, give them a lot of self-confidence. I had never given a speech, written a speech, testified, never been on radio, never been on television, never really done a lot of political nitty-gritty campaign management until I met Phyllis.

I think the reason she was so successful was because she encouraged her women to go for it, that there was nothing they couldn't do. You know, she has a meeting every fall where she really revs up the troops, She literally took women who were bright and talented but who had been very traditional women. I hey had gone to school; maybe some

Our women learned. Phyllis encouraged them to debate. She'd say, "No, I can't come to Virginia. You debate. They want somebody to debate, you do it." And then you start getting some self-confidence. You defeat a lawyer in a debate a couple of times and you start thinking, "Well, gee, that's pretty good. I didn't know I could do that."

When female political activism is conceptualized as the power behind the throne, women altruistically working for the benefit of a larger cause, the seeming paradox disappears. For social conservative women recognize no tension between their political activism and the traditional female role. In fact, these "new" political roles arc defined within the boundaries of traditional gender ideology. Social conservative ideology expands to incorporate these "new" female roles. Schlafly, for example, includes an assertive political role in her ideal of womanhood, what she terms "'Fine Positive Woman." Because of her positive mental attitude, the Positive Woman is not crushed by life's disappointments: "To the Positive Woman, her particular set of problems is not a conspiracy against her, but a challenge to her character and her capabilities." Clearly an attack against feminists who, in Schlafly's eyes, think the world is against them, the Positive Woman looks affirmatively upon the world.. She continues: "The Positive Woman accepts her responsibility to spin the fabric. of civilization, to mend its tears, and to reinforce its scams....God has a mission for every Positive Woman. It is up to her to find out what it is and to meet the challenge."

Pro-family leader Connie Marshner has another name for this expanded female role. In a speech to the Family forum conference, Marshner introduces the "New Traditional Woman":

She is the mother of the citizens of the twenty-first century. It is she who will more than anyone else transmit civilization and humanity to future generations and by her response to the challenges of life, determine whether America will be a strong, virtuous nation....She is new because she is of the current era, with all its pressures and fast pace and rapid change. She is traditional because, in the face of unremitting cultural change, she is oriented around the eternal truths of faith and family. Her values are timeless and true to human nature.

In explaining the New Traditional Woman, Marshner distinguishes between conventions arid traditional values. (Conventions, she says, are mutable, changing with the times. For instance, the idea that women should not be educated was a convention derived from the days when survival and the maintenance of the home took all of a woman's time. As the burden of housework lightened, this convention changed, allowing women to obtain an education. On the other hand.. traditional values are eternal. Traditional values are moral norms that must be followed without exception. For example, fidelity is a moral norm;; adultery is always wrong. In short, Marshner argues, traditional values are non-consequentialist ethics..

The distinction between conventions and traditional values is the framework by which Marshner understands women's "new traditional role." Certain changes in gender roles must be seen as a mere change of conventions. For example, the fact that more women today feel that boys should he as responsible as girls for doing the laundry does not challenge traditional values; this merely indicates a change in convention because doing laundry is a morally neutral act. Marshner articulates the difference between conventions and values in this way:

I think people make the mistake, if you're talking about a traditional value, you're talking about mother at home with the kids which is a fallacy. You're talking about what they believe, what they're taught and what their values are. You're not talking about who cooks the breakfast. That's a different question....It's the values that they're given, it's what they think is important, the policies of the family, if you will, more than who wipes the nose. That kind of stuff is fairly neutral.

It is moral values which root our experiences in the day-to-day world, acting as guideposts by which to live. Women may adopt new roles, as long as these moral values remain firmly in place. Hence, Marshner urges women whose God-given talent is to rear children not to be judgmental of women whose talents lie elsewhere. As long as the husband is still the head of the household and the greater good of the family is being served, then moral norms will be preserved.

Neither Marshner nor Schlafly sees a contradiction in the politically active social conservative woman; both interpret such involvement within the bounds of traditional gender ideology. It is, in fact, woman's role as moral gatekeeper, as protector of the moral realm, that allows her to adopt these new positions, to be a voice of righteousness in the political world. For, through such action, the social conservative woman hopes, to bring moral purity to a world filled with sin. As Betsy Barber Bancroft puts it: "The concerned Christian woman who would pull on her boots and grab her mop to clean up the filth from overtaxed plumbing, can, when she has the necessary tools, rise to stem the flow of the amoral filth in which our society is awash."