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THE NEW CONSERVATIVE FEMINISM
JUDITHSTACEY
NOTES
I am grateful to Donna Haraway for encouraging me to develop the ideas in this article
and to the following friends and colleagues for their challenging and helpful reactions
to my efforts to do so: Wini Breines, Barbara Epstein, Jane Flax, Arlie Hochschild,
Joyce Lindenbaum, Lyn Lofland, Claire Moses, David Plotke, Debbie Rosenfelt, Mary
Ryan, Barrie Thorne, and Kay Trimberger. Most of all I wish to thank Judith Newton
for her extraordinarily intelligent and thorough editorial work on this paper.
1. Midge Decter was one of the earliest neoconservatives to attack feminism in The
New Chastity and Other Arguments against Women's Liberation (New York: Coward Mc-
Cann, 1972). More recently, a neoconservative "profamily" literature has emerged
that identifies feminists as major villians in the breakdown of the family. See, for exam-
ple, Rita Kramer, In Defense of the Family: Raising Children in America Today (New
York: Basic Books, 1983); and Peter Berger and Brigitte Berger, The Warover the Fami-
ly: Capturing the Middle Ground (New York: Anchor, 1983). Similar themes have ap-
peared on the Left. See, for example, Christopher Lasch, Haven in a Heartless World:
The Family Besieged (New York: Basic Books, 1977); Ivan Illich, Gender (New York:
Pantheon, 1983); Michael Lerner, Laurie Zoloth, and Wilson Riles, Jr., "Bringing It All
Back Home" (Friends of Families, Institute for Labor and Mental Health, Oakland,
Calif.); and Michael Lerner, "Mass Psychology and Family Life: A Response to Epstein
and Philipson," Socialist Review 69 (May-June 1983): 103-10. For a witty response to
the Left literature, see the review of Jean Elshtain's books by Arlie Hochschild, "Is the
Left Sick of Feminism?" Mother Jones, June 1983, 56-58.
2. Susan Bolotin, "Voices from the Post-Feminist Generation," New York Times
Magazine, 17 October 1982, 28-31, 103ff.
3. Alice Rossi, "A Biosocial Perspective on Parenting," in a Special Issue on the family
in Daedalus 106 (Spring 1977). For a critical review of its place in the early stages of the
backlash, see Wini Breines, Margaret Cerullo, andJudith Stacey, "Social Biology, Fami-
Judith Stacey 579
44. Adam Clymer, "Poll Shows a Married-SingleGap in Last Election," New York
Times,6 January 1983, 10.
45. For an uncompromisingcritiqueof the family that rests on these grounds,see Bar-
rett and McIntosh. I review this book in "Should the Family Be Saved?" Socialist
Review,forthcoming.
46. Elshtain,"HomosexualPolitics," 265.
47. Friedan, 313. Friedanis unable to identify the source or nature of "economic-
political exploitation," however.
48. This seems incongruentwith her sympathyfor psychoanalyticthought. However,
Elshtainreserves analysis of the internal dynamics of the family for the family as a
passive structure.She appearsto recognize little human agency in the breakdownof
the traditionalfamily, nor does she appearto understandhumandesires to restructure
families or sexuality.
49. Note that McMillancollapses equality and identity. More troubling, she ignores
feministcriticismsof "male" rationalismand Westerndualismthat are quite similarto
her own. See, for example, SusanGriffin, Womanand Nature:TheRoaringInsideHer
(New York: Harper & Row, 1978); Nancy Hartsock, "The Feminist Standpoint:
Developing the Groundfor a SpecificallyFeministHistoricalMaterialism,"in Harding
and Hintikka,eds.,DiscoveringReality,283-310. Moreover,she ignores feminist work
that specificallyanalyzesthe rationalityand moralityof "female"epistemology such as
Ruddick's"MaternalThinking"and CarolGilligan'sIn a Different Voice:Psychological
Theoryand Women'sDevelopment(Cambridge:HarvardUniversity Press, 1982). In
fact, McMillan'sbook is shockingly ignorantof feminist work. ShulamithFirestoneis
made to serve as the principalrepresentativeof feminist thought.
50. To be sure, Mcmillanhas a more nuancedview of the concept "natural"than does
Elshtain.She views it not as a strictlybiological category, but as a culturallymediated
one that carriesequality imperativesocial consequences.
51. Feminists,she argues,are wrong to accept the social equationof money and value.
Economic dependence, McMillanclaims, is not the same as economic weakness. See
Woman,Reason,and Nature, 79.
52. This is a particularlyimportanttheme in such literatureas Griffin's Womanand
Natureand AdrienneRich's, Of WomanBorn:Motherhoodas ExperienceandInstitution
(New York: W.W. Norton, 1976). It was the impulse behind Rossi's "Biosocial
Perspective." It also characterizesa good deal of feminist art, such as Judy Chicago's
"The Dinner Party"and EmilyCulpepper'sfilm, PeriodPiece.
53. See, for example, BarbaraLeslie Epstein, The Politics of Domesticity: Women,
Evangelism, and Temperancein Nineteenth-CenturyAmerica (Middletown, Conn.:
Wesleyan UniversityPress, 1981); KathrynKish Sklar,CatharineBeecher:A Study in
AmericanDomesticity(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973); and Ellen Carol
DuBois, Feminismand Suffrage:TheEmergenceof an IndependentWomen'sMovement
in America,1848-1869(Ithaca:Cornell UniversityPress, 1978).
54. For an example of currently popular "second thoughts" literature about alter-
native family arrangementsby former experimenters,see Gwenda Blair, "WarmTies
Weren't Enough. .. I Found More," MotherJones, May 1983.
55. Joyce Lindenbaum,"The Shatteringof an Illusion: Toward the Development of
Competition in LesbianRelationships,"in CompetitionAmong Women:A Feminist
Taboo? ed. Helen Longino and Valerie Miner (in preparation),provides a sensitive
discussion of some problemswith commitmentin lesbianrelationships.For a defense
of more ephemeralrelationshipsfrom a gay male perspective, see White's "Paradise
Found."
Judith Stacey 583