0:01

Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production

0:04

of iHeartRadio.

0:11

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,

0:13

there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, and

0:16

this is stuff you should know. The

0:19

watershed moment in American

0:21

history edition.

0:23

That's right, in which we tackle not

0:26

literally take on no

0:30

cover.

0:31

Yeah.

0:31

Yes, the

0:35

Houston, Texas Conference, the National

0:37

Women's Conference in Houston, that

0:40

was from November eighteenth to twenty first,

0:42

nineteen seventy seven, which was

0:45

the only time that

0:48

the US government got together and

0:50

said here's some money, go

0:53

out and put together a conference

0:55

and a group of delegates that represent

0:57

the women in this country and come

0:59

back to us with ideas on

1:02

action we can take but

1:04

mostly won't.

1:05

Well, they left off the mostly won't part.

1:07

They didn't find that out until afterward.

1:09

Yeah.

1:11

Gloria Steinem, who is one of the co founders

1:13

of Now and like a quintessential second

1:15

wave feminist, she called

1:17

this the most important event nobody

1:19

knows about, and it really

1:21

was. This was a very specific

1:24

moment in time where

1:26

Olivia helped us with this, where she pointed out that

1:30

this is probably the last moment where

1:32

the federal government would be like, sure, we're going

1:35

to fund a conference

1:37

to find out how

1:40

to better womenkind

1:42

womenkind, and then

1:45

at the same time the last moment where those

1:48

women could go into that conference

1:50

assuming that the stuff they came up

1:52

with was going to actually have legs

1:55

and move forward in Congress.

1:56

Yeah. Did you see the FX mini series

2:00

This Is America?

2:01

I did not, which is surprising because

2:03

I've been chewing around the edges of it in

2:05

other research and I've still not seen

2:07

it.

2:08

It was really good.

2:10

Oh, I'm sure it looked like it's

2:12

just a murderer's row of great actors.

2:14

Great actors, and it's

2:17

I'm sure you can still watch it. But

2:20

a lot of the people in this story figure

2:22

in that mini series.

2:23

Well, that's the thing. This is a It was a huge,

2:26

huge deal. The historian named

2:28

Marjorie J. S. Spruell wrote

2:30

a book on this, and she called

2:32

it the crest of the second wave of US feminism.

2:35

It is also conceivably

2:39

the time the moment

2:42

where the Christian right became

2:44

a thing, where the religious

2:47

rite, i should say more specifically, and

2:49

that the religious right became came

2:51

to hold tremendous way over

2:53

the Republican Party. A lot of people point

2:55

to the election of Ronald Reagan. Some

2:58

people take it a little further back and point

3:01

to Jerry Folwell's organization

3:03

of the Moral Majority Political Action Committee.

3:06

Nope, Apparently it happened two years before

3:08

Fallwell in Houston, Texas, and

3:10

it was an rally that was designed

3:13

to oppose this women's conference

3:16

by women who were threatened by

3:18

the idea of women being stripped

3:21

of their traditional roles

3:23

of homemaker. There was a huge opposition

3:25

of women who believed

3:28

that the family was the basic

3:31

unit of society and

3:33

that that family was meant to have the mom

3:35

stay home with the kids and the dad go off

3:38

and be the wage journer. And that worked fine

3:40

in Dandy after the post war

3:43

World War two era, but that became

3:46

increasingly difficult as

3:48

this time war on wag's

3:50

real wages failed to keep up with inflation, and

3:52

all of a sudden, you actually kind of needed the mom

3:54

to go out and work. And so to these women, this

3:57

is like a literal breakdown in the fabric

3:59

of society, and they were very upset about this,

4:01

and they very much blamed feminists

4:04

who seemed to want to push things in that direction.

4:06

Not only weren't opposed to it, they wanted to

4:09

push things in that direction, and so this huge

4:11

opposition came up.

4:12

That's right. And it was also a time

4:15

specifically, you

4:17

know, you were talking about the opposition movement just

4:19

in general, but specifically to oppose

4:22

the Equal Rights Amendment, which

4:24

was proposed first in nineteen twenty three, technically

4:29

passed the House and Senate in nineteen seventy two,

4:31

still not written into the US Constitution.

4:36

We can't get into it now because it is a very

4:38

long and convoluted story.

4:40

Well, we did an episode on it, did we on.

4:43

The whole thing? How

4:45

when was that?

4:48

I know, man, I know, I would

4:50

say in the last three years.

4:52

Interesting because there's new stuff that's happened

4:54

in the last few years. So I wonder, yeah, if it was

4:56

before that, dish

4:58

well, I mean, just like lawsuits

5:01

like Virginia coming on board,

5:04

which meant which

5:06

means we had three quarters of the state approval

5:08

basically everything in place that is

5:10

required to make a constitutional amendment.

5:13

But then people are like, well wait a minute, other

5:15

people rescinded THEIRS and Virginia

5:18

came on late and there said previously

5:20

been rescinded. So then there were lawsuits

5:22

and here I said, we weren't getting

5:24

into it, and I'm kind of getting into it. But I think

5:27

the last lawsuit said

5:31

it's still not happening, man,

5:33

and that was in the last couple of years.

5:35

That's still just crazy to me.

5:37

Yeah it is. But anyway, Yeah, we did do an

5:40

episode on that. That's why it seems so familiar. But we

5:42

did.

5:42

And the reason why

5:44

it seems familiar is because Phillis Shaffley figured

5:46

Big into that, and she figures Big into this too.

5:49

Yeah. So Phillis Shafflee was an

5:51

attorney, a very much

5:54

conservative right wing activist,

5:56

and who was played by Cate Blanchette

5:59

wonderfully in Missus America.

6:02

Yeah, she did a great job. She

6:06

founded the Stop Era.

6:10

I was about you call it a club or

6:12

organization, and I just have

6:14

to shout out the fact that stop

6:17

is what's called a backronym. That's

6:19

when you have an acronym that's already

6:21

a word, So all

6:24

you really needed was an organization called

6:26

stop Era. It actually

6:28

stands for stop taking our privilege

6:31

privileges. And you

6:33

can't use a word from

6:35

the acronym or backronym in

6:37

your acronym or backronym, it's

6:40

no.

6:40

Or else you're just saying it twice, right, Yeah.

6:42

It's just so clumsy, and we like to critique acronyms

6:45

as good or bad. I

6:47

give stop Era just an unnecessary.

6:50

Okay, yeah, we need a rubber

6:52

stamp for that, or no, a metal

6:55

clanging sound like you've embossed

6:57

it.

6:58

At any rate, philishafflete foun you

7:00

don't want to work this out? All

7:03

right? What are we doing?

7:04

The So you remember like the old

7:07

production company that created

7:09

Dragnet, It was like Mark seven or something

7:11

like that.

7:12

Don't remember that, but sure, well

7:14

we'll go.

7:15

Off and watch an episode of Dragnet and then at the end

7:17

I'll point it out to you, okay.

7:18

And it was like a set ubu set good

7:20

dog thing.

7:21

Kind of but yes, exactly it was the same premise,

7:23

but it was it was somebody like putting like a

7:26

metal stamp and they hit it with

7:28

like, ah, like a hammer.

7:31

Yeah. It made that that metal emboss

7:33

engraving sound. Okay, that I want

7:35

to rip off is what I'm saying.

7:38

All right, so we give stop e r a an

7:41

unnecessary Oh.

7:44

That sounds good. That was really good, Jerry.

7:49

The we should talk about the beginnings, the seed

7:51

of this conference It happened on

7:54

the heels of the UN saying nineteen

7:57

seventy five is the International

8:00

Woman's Year, and they had

8:02

a international conference in Mexico

8:04

City that year. And that's when

8:06

gerald Ford stood up and said, all right,

8:09

here's an Executive Order number one one eighty

8:11

three to two. We'll give you five million

8:13

bucks to about twenty nine

8:15

million dollars today to create

8:18

the National Commission on

8:20

the Observance of in an International

8:22

Women's Year, and like, go

8:24

have your big conference, work

8:26

out what you want to bring back to us, which is what

8:28

we're refer too earlier.

8:30

Yeah, and that five million sounds like a lot to fund

8:32

some conferences, and it is, but I've read

8:34

from somebody who was kind of sour on

8:36

the whole thing point out that that's less

8:38

than a nickel a woman for every woman

8:40

that was in America at the time.

8:43

Yeah, but twenty nine million comparatively,

8:46

you can't pull a conference off for that. I'm

8:48

with you, But okay, they'll do it for a million.

8:51

A very important point was

8:53

it was also a series of conferences. First.

8:55

They had state conferences first, Yeah,

8:58

figure out what they were going to bring the

9:00

national conference. So it was like this

9:02

year long of conference, and like

9:05

looking back now, you're like, wow, people

9:07

were talking about women and women's rights a

9:09

lot at the time, and it was

9:12

a huge like there was. It was just in

9:14

the zeitgeist, like women's rights was moving

9:16

forward at this incredible clip. Just two

9:19

things. Time declared the

9:21

nineteen seventy five Man of the Year to

9:23

be the American Woman. Yeah,

9:25

and I read that the nineteen seventy

9:27

one seventy two Congress, I think that

9:29

was the ninety second Congress, they passed

9:32

more women's rights legislation

9:34

than all previous legislative sessions

9:37

combined. So it was it was a

9:39

huge It seemed like a juggernaut. And of course

9:41

women were going to have all the rights that men

9:43

have. The Equal Rights Amendment was going to be

9:46

become a part of the Constitution. It was just in

9:48

the air. So this conference just made sense.

9:51

Yeah. Can I read that Time magazine quote

9:53

because it's pretty great. Yeah, this was in

9:55

the quote unquote Man of

9:57

the Year article said enough US

10:00

women have so deliberately taken possession

10:02

of their lives that the event

10:04

is spiritually equivalent to

10:06

the discovery of a new continent.

10:08

That's so awesome.

10:09

Man, whoever wrote that, nice work.

10:12

James time.

10:14

Oh, Jimmy time. So there's

10:17

a congress person named Bella Abzug

10:19

battling Bella Abzug from New

10:22

York who was a real

10:24

firebrand and was one

10:26

of the biggest advocates for this congress.

10:29

I'm sorry for this conference in Congress. And

10:32

she got together with some other organizers,

10:34

like you mentioned, there were state and regional

10:36

conferences. They were

10:38

gonna choose about two thousand delegates,

10:41

and they were really really smart because

10:45

and you know, maybe if we told Josh I

10:47

was putting together sort of a easily

10:50

two parter on just the history of feminism.

10:55

Oh, you weren't talking to me just that.

10:56

I see, No, let's talk to the listener.

10:58

You know. I got to people out

11:00

there in podcast land.

11:02

I'm psyched about that one. I've been wanting to do that

11:04

forever and we need to We

11:06

need to do that sooner than later, for sure, because I've

11:08

been wanting to do that one for years.

11:10

Yeah, for sure. But I think where

11:12

I was going was that they were

11:14

really smart in that. Uh oh, I nowhere

11:16

else head it is that in

11:19

certain ways of feminism, there was not

11:22

the most representation and as feminism

11:24

grew through the different movements

11:26

that expanded, and this was one of those moments

11:29

where they got really smart and they were like, you know,

11:31

we can't just make this about

11:35

white suburban women or white you know, I

11:37

guess urban women either. We need to

11:39

expand our pool

11:42

and talk to women who are farmers

11:44

and women who are basically

11:48

women who haven't been you know, minority

11:50

women who haven't been included as much in

11:52

this conversation. Will provide,

11:55

provide childcare. If

11:57

you can't afford to come, we'll pay your entrance fee.

12:00

Like it was just a really smart way to go about it, which

12:02

is like, let's bring everybody together finally

12:04

here in the nineteen seventies.

12:06

Yeah, and it is the conference encouraged

12:08

that they were trying to get the best representation

12:11

of women in America that they possibly could,

12:14

and so that conference kind of inadvertently

12:17

encouraged all these different types of feminists

12:20

to come together like they never had before. That

12:22

was a huge lasting

12:24

impact of it. Yeah, a lot of there

12:27

was a lot of infighting in

12:29

feminism at the time. There was the old

12:31

Guard, kind of personified by Betty Ferdan

12:34

who wrote The Feminine Mystique,

12:36

who was kind of opposed to

12:40

say, the gay contingent, which she called

12:42

the lavender menace, which she believed

12:45

prevented mainstream society from accepting

12:47

feminism and seeing it as credible. Like

12:51

you said, feminism was largely viewed

12:54

through the lens of white, middle class

12:56

women. This

12:59

was an expand scope

13:01

and it was it made some people nervous. They were like,

13:03

well, how are we going to get anything done with all these

13:05

opposing views? And it

13:08

was very fortunate that there was that small

13:10

contingent of conservatives who were

13:12

super mad about this, it still attended

13:14

this conference that allowed all

13:16

the other groups to come together to oppose

13:19

them and get these planks pushed

13:21

forward rather than fighting it amongst

13:23

one another. And it actually brought together different

13:26

branches of feminism that are still just

13:28

part of this coalition today.

13:30

Yeah, there was a lot of coalescing on both

13:32

sides because of this event. It's pretty incredible.

13:34

Yeah, because philis Shaffley

13:37

early on championed

13:39

to try and stop this from even happening,

13:42

like, hey, Congress, don't fund this thing. That

13:45

didn't work. And so a woman

13:47

named Lottie Beth Hobbes of Texas,

13:50

who features pretty prominently here, had

13:53

the idea to like to show up

13:55

and rabble rows and make their

13:57

voices heard on the other side. She

14:00

initially proposed it, and interestingly, Shaffley,

14:02

I think you found this wasn't immediately

14:05

on board because she was very

14:08

you know, she liked to play chess and not

14:10

checkers, and she was like, Hey,

14:13

if we show and there's a

14:15

low opposition turnout, we're going to look like

14:17

fools. But Lottie

14:20

Beth Hobbs said no, we're going

14:22

and you should get on board, and she did.

14:24

Yeah. That was Marjorie J. Sproule,

14:27

the historian turned that up, which

14:29

is fascinating as we'll see how that played out.

14:31

And the committee that was actually formed

14:35

by the anti era activist was

14:37

the IWY Citizens

14:39

Review Committee, and

14:42

again a coalescing, They're like, are you anti

14:44

gay, come and join us? Are you anti abortion?

14:47

Get over here? Do you not want the era

14:51

bill passed? Come along Catholics,

14:53

Mormons, evangelicals, And

14:56

this is what you were talking about earlier. That really

14:58

sort of galvanized the beginning of the

15:00

religious right.

15:01

Yeah. So the more inclusive the

15:03

feminists were in the conference, the

15:05

more targets it presented to

15:07

people opposed to it, the more likely

15:09

it made for those opponents to come together

15:12

in opposition and form like an

15:15

actual movement with real political clout,

15:17

and that became the religious

15:20

right. And apparently it was the inclusion

15:23

of a woman's right to abortion included

15:26

as part of the like the goals of this conference

15:29

that really kind of created

15:32

that what had not been a coalition

15:34

before where it was basically the Catholics

15:36

who were anti abortion up to that point and

15:39

the Evangelicals were saying, like anti gay.

15:41

Well, now they had something in

15:43

common feminism. Feminism is going

15:45

to ruin everything. There are other people who are anti era,

15:48

and it just brought all of them together. Like

15:50

you were saying, it's just nuts

15:54

how the fabric of our society today

15:57

formed over this weekend essentially in November.

16:00

Yeah, it's insane to me, Like

16:02

history so rarely tucked

16:05

into one little tiny corner three

16:08

days. Yeah, and this is a

16:10

really good example of that rare, rare

16:12

instance.

16:13

Yeah, because you know, you mentioned the

16:16

anti abortion like Roe v. Wade went

16:18

through in seventy three, but it didn't even

16:20

become officially part of the Republican platform

16:23

anti Roe v. Wade until nineteen seventy

16:25

six, And like you said,

16:28

it was something to coalesce

16:30

and bring people together. So like

16:32

both sides it's almost like they're going to war,

16:34

you know, both sides are bringing in

16:36

back up and they're mounting

16:39

the troops to sort of dig in on both sides.

16:41

At this one weekend in Houston, there

16:44

were conservative delegates

16:47

that did get elected. Utah,

16:49

Mississippi had delegates there. They

16:52

got elected because they had more you know, conservative

16:54

voters in those states.

16:55

Yeah, those state conferences that were held

16:58

before the nation conference. Yeah,

17:00

that's where they elected delegates. And if you're in a conservative

17:03

state, you were sending conservative delegates.

17:05

So much so Mississippi sent six men

17:08

to the women's conference, as I

17:10

guess a symbol as well of like

17:13

these are the men, these are this is who in charge.

17:15

Is in charge, they should be the ones who are the

17:17

delegates. There was actually seven

17:20

men. South Carolina sent

17:22

a male delegate too, but he apparently didn't

17:25

show up. So you will very frequently

17:27

see that out of the two thousand delegates, only

17:29

only six were men.

17:31

Yeah, and Mississippi also sent Dallas

17:33

Higgins, who was married to George

17:37

Higgins, who was the leader of

17:39

the Kukux Klan in Mississippi. So

17:42

do with that what you will.

17:43

Got a lot of ground to cover Mississippi.

17:46

So as far as the other

17:49

delegates on the you know, the non

17:51

conservative delegates, they were obviously

17:54

feminists there with their agenda.

17:57

A lot of them were political insiders

18:00

who had been around for a long time. They

18:03

brought out all the stars though, they're like, Gloria

18:05

Steinem, you get in here, Correta,

18:08

Scott King, come on down, Shirley

18:11

Chisholm, who Ruby

18:13

just did a project on Churley

18:15

Chislm for Black History Month, so I learned

18:17

all about her, which is amazing.

18:19

She was the first black woman elected to Congress.

18:21

Right, first black woman elected to Congress,

18:23

and first black woman to run for president of

18:25

the United States.

18:26

Oh, I didn't know that, nat.

18:27

Which is incredible. Barbara Jordan

18:29

of course was there. And if you want

18:31

a real showstopper, you

18:34

got to get my Angelou to write a

18:36

custom poem for the event.

18:38

Yeah. What was it called? Like toward to More Perfect.

18:40

Union, to form a more Perfect

18:42

Union that was written for this conference.

18:44

Yeah, pretty cool. So

18:48

we keep talking about Houston and Texas and if

18:50

you're like, well, why would they hold a women's rights

18:52

conference in Houston? Or in Texas.

18:55

There are a couple of reasons why Texas was actually

18:57

one of the states that had already ratified

18:59

the ER, and Houston

19:02

was a well. Also, Barbara Jordan was

19:04

a congress person from Texas from

19:06

Houston, so they had even more feminist

19:08

cred And then Houston actually had a

19:12

an agency

19:15

basically a Woman's Advocate agency

19:17

in the city office.

19:20

And so like all of these things put together, mete

19:22

Houston seemed like, hey, this is a city on the rise

19:24

as far as feminism goes in.

19:27

In reaction and response to finding

19:29

out that Houston was where the national conference

19:31

was going to be, the Governor of Texas declared

19:33

that week national Family Week. Very

19:36

clearly through his lot or Texas's

19:38

lot in with the anti era people,

19:42

the Houston

19:44

City Council had diminished the

19:46

funding for that Woman's Advocate office

19:48

to one dollar a year and

19:51

essentially just eliminated it. They

19:53

took a lot of steps to kind of go backwards when

19:56

they found out this is this is going to be in Houston,

19:58

like most of Houston's establishment

20:01

was not happy that this was going to happen here.

20:04

I thought you were going to say it happened in Houston, because

20:06

that meant that I'm one day closer to you. M

20:09

Mmm, No, No, you

20:14

ever heard that song?

20:15

No? Is that a tron D song?

20:17

No, it's uh, he's a Gallon Brothers

20:19

or Larry Gatlin.

20:20

Maybe what's the song?

20:22

Houston? Parentheses means

20:24

I'm one day closer to you. It's

20:27

a good song.

20:28

Okay, I've not heard it.

20:29

Stun means that I'm one day closer

20:32

to you.

20:33

Nope, still have not heard that.

20:35

Yeah, I guess maybe she lived in Dallas

20:37

or something. Anyway, that

20:39

joke didn't work. So let's take a break.

20:42

Is this our first break?

20:44

It's got to be Yauza. All right,

20:46

we'll be right back. All

21:14

right. So this conference began with a very symbolic

21:18

event or gesture, I guess, or a series of gestures.

21:21

They modeled it on the Seneca Falls Convention

21:23

of eighteen forty eight, which was the

21:25

big sort of bedrock event

21:28

of the beginnings of the woman's suffrage

21:30

movement. And so they

21:32

got a torch Olympic style,

21:35

got all these athletes, all these women to go,

21:38

I mean all across the board, like high school girls,

21:41

all the way to Olympians

21:43

themselves, and they passed that torch

21:45

quite symbolically from Seneca

21:47

Falls all the way to Houston. Maya

21:50

Angelou comes in with that poem, brings

21:53

the house down. All the heavy hitters

21:55

are there. That national

21:57

news coverage is just going bonkers.

22:00

There were morning TV shows that literally set up

22:02

camp. There was in all the magazines.

22:05

The first Ladies got together. I

22:07

think Roslynd Carter was the active

22:10

first Lady at the time, but Lady brig Johnson,

22:12

Betty Ford, they all came and got on stage

22:15

together and in the end, including

22:19

the delegates, anywhere between

22:22

seventeen and mid thirty thousand people,

22:25

it depends on who's counting.

22:27

Yeah, that's a significant number of people

22:29

who came to show up. And

22:31

so they were talking about a

22:33

ton of different stuff. Remember all each

22:36

state sent delegates. In each delegate

22:38

or group of delegates had their own

22:41

pet project that they wanted to pass

22:43

their own The point was

22:45

to put together a bunch of planks to form a platform

22:48

to send to Congress and the President and say this

22:50

is what you start passing this and women

22:52

will be much more equal in the United States.

22:55

Right. So Olivia pointed

22:58

out, some of the planks are all of the planks

23:00

in The final plan covered

23:03

arts and humanities. May I do this one

23:05

sure? Battered women, business,

23:07

child abuse, childcare, credit, disabled

23:10

women, education, elective and appointed

23:12

office, employment, equal Rights Amendment,

23:14

health, homemakers, insurance, international

23:17

affairs, media, minority women,

23:19

offenders, older women, rape,

23:21

reproductive freedom, rural women,

23:24

sexual preference statistics, and

23:26

women welfare and poverty. Those

23:28

are the planks that ended up in this final

23:31

platform. It covered everything, and that was a

23:33

direct result of bringing so many

23:36

different women from so many different walks

23:38

of life together and say like, what do you need

23:40

to be to thrive in the United

23:42

States?

23:43

Yeah, they've tried foot rubs here, Like

23:46

can we just get like one a week from

23:48

our partner? Is that too much to ask without

23:50

some without grousing?

23:51

Is that okay? Can you imagine if the federal

23:53

government mandated that you have to do that would

23:56

be hilarious.

23:56

Well at the time they probably said, all right, you get your foot rub,

23:59

but we get two in return.

24:00

Oh yeah, So.

24:03

There was You know, I mentioned that the

24:05

news was covering it big time, and

24:09

I don't think this is any accident that it was a woman's

24:11

conference. There was a lot of talk of like of

24:14

in fighting and even fighting or

24:17

not even fighting, but obviously fighting

24:19

between the two sides, and

24:21

they may even physically confront one another

24:24

and get in fistfights, and it's

24:26

just that sort of old, you know, cat

24:28

fight trope that's so worn out, and

24:30

it was I'm sure worn out in the

24:32

mid seventies as well. Of

24:34

course that did not happen. One

24:37

of the reasons is because there were only about three

24:40

hundred Conservatives there and

24:42

they were just far out numbered. They

24:45

did have ribbons, they had lapel

24:48

ribbons that said majority, which

24:50

is kind of where this whole idea of hey

24:54

with a moral majority, like we

24:57

are the majority, Like most American women

25:00

don't want what you're suggesting, so

25:02

here's our little pin to suggest.

25:04

That, right, And so that

25:06

was kind of how the media portrayed the

25:09

people who were what the feminists

25:12

the other delegates called antis. The

25:15

conservative delegates were called antis

25:17

by everybody else because they were anti everything. When

25:19

they passed passed the platform,

25:22

you could vote on individual planks, they just

25:24

voted against the whole thing. So it was viewed

25:26

as this kind of single coalition and

25:29

step with philis Shaffley. And

25:31

it turns out that there was a reporter for the Nation

25:34

named Lucy Kamasar, who did

25:36

more digging than the rest of the media and

25:38

found that actually, no,

25:41

like a lot of the women walking around with

25:43

majority pins on are

25:46

like, yes, they're anti federal government, but

25:48

they're pro federally

25:50

funded healthcare or childcare.

25:53

They oppose rape like they weren't.

25:55

It wasn't just like complete locksteps

25:57

she showed, but that wasn't the story that got

26:00

told about the opposition at

26:02

the conference by the rest of the media.

26:05

I'm loath to make another music

26:08

joke, now, let's hear it. I

26:11

just wonder if every time she walked into the room they

26:13

said, hey, don't turn around.

26:17

Is that a Ace of bass joke?

26:19

You get this one?

26:20

Ace of bass?

26:21

No Falco, don't

26:24

turn around? They're commisars in town.

26:27

Oh yeah, okay.

26:29

That's got better or worse than the other one?

26:31

Uh, much better because i've heard that song.

26:33

Yeah, different spelling.

26:34

Plus it's a good song. I'm not convinced that

26:37

the Houston one day closer to the song

26:39

is good.

26:40

Oh you probably like it. Larry Gatlin, Sure

26:42

you remember the Gatlin Brothers.

26:44

What was their big hit?

26:47

Houston? Was it?

26:48

Really? Because I've heard them before, but I've never

26:51

heard a big hit of that song.

26:53

They were big. That was that whole seventies thing when country

26:56

just had a big sort of movement country

26:59

music with a Mandres Sisters and all that.

27:00

But there was another song of theirs that I would

27:02

have heard of.

27:04

Well, how about this. You look that up and

27:08

I'll bring us forward. I haven't set it back

27:10

like I keep doing. So

27:12

the platform itself passed,

27:16

you know, and with flying colors, like most people

27:18

expected it would, with all the progressive

27:20

delegates there. One of the biggest

27:22

exceptions of that, though, was how

27:26

they were dealing with racial inequality, because

27:28

they had put together a brief

27:31

addressing this that basically just said, hey,

27:35

no double discrimination here, Like,

27:38

it's already bad enough that women

27:41

of color are being discriminated against because of

27:43

their skin tone, but you can't

27:45

double up because they're women as well. And

27:47

maybe let's get some bilingual programs

27:49

going. So they trot this out

27:51

to their delegation and

27:54

a lot of women of color stood up,

27:56

and I was like, this isn't enough. This is very

27:58

vague. So we

28:01

actually have a plan that we put together beforehand.

28:04

It's called the Black Women's Plan of

28:06

Action, the b w p A and

28:08

we would like to swap that in for this minority

28:11

resolution that you've crafted.

28:14

Right, And that was a that

28:16

was a big deal that it actually got

28:18

that far, and even better than that, it

28:21

actually was voted on enthusiastically.

28:23

It was like a six page plank that

28:26

really covered everything that the

28:29

that women of color generally

28:31

were interested in seeing resolved,

28:35

and it got added to this to this platform.

28:37

Kreta Scott King presented it on

28:39

the last night to the delegation

28:42

and it received it

28:45

passed by an overwhelming majority. And

28:48

this was really kind of part

28:50

of the spirit of this conference.

28:54

The women broke into singing,

28:56

we shall overcome together after

28:59

they voted in favor of adding that

29:01

plank, rather than just the hey,

29:03

let's all be you know, let's be considerate

29:06

of women of color, like that was the original

29:08

plank.

29:09

Yeah. And it's also notable because

29:11

once the Black Women's Plan

29:13

of Action was presented and they came

29:16

forward, then Asian women

29:18

and Puerto Rican women and Chicana

29:21

Native American women they were delegates.

29:24

There were delegates there as well representing them and they were

29:26

like, well, hey, like we

29:28

should all have our voice. And I

29:31

think it was just one of those big moments like

29:33

we've been talking about of coalescing, where

29:36

a lot of these white feminists

29:39

were like, hey, you know, I don't know if we've

29:41

done right by our sisters

29:43

of color, So like, we

29:46

we're all about inclusion, yet we're not

29:48

being as inclusive as we should be,

29:51

right, And this was that moment when it happened.

29:53

Yeah, a very similar thing happened with the

29:55

gay contingent of the feminist

29:58

second Wave, which again Betty

30:00

Fredaine called the lavender Menace,

30:03

not because she necessarily had a personal

30:05

problem with lesbians,

30:07

but because she saw

30:10

that as a huge obstacle to mainstream

30:12

America taking feminism

30:14

seriously. And one of the reasons why

30:16

is because at the

30:18

time, you've heard of man

30:21

haters, right, it was just kind of like a trope

30:23

that was funny, and it was usually assigned

30:25

to all feminists. That was what they used

30:27

to describe lesbians before. That's

30:29

what they were characterized as in

30:32

the media and in the popular culture. Man

30:34

haters. That's the only reason anybody could

30:36

ever be a lesbian. You'd have to hate men. And

30:39

that also kind of dovetailed with

30:41

an actual thread of like real

30:44

disdain for the patriarchy

30:46

and male dominance that was alive

30:49

and well in some sections of second

30:51

wave feminism at the time. And

30:53

although they represented a minority

30:56

of feminists in general, including

30:58

the feminists at this convention, those

31:00

are the ones who get the microphone stuck in their face

31:02

because they made the great the best press, So

31:04

they had a disproportionately large

31:07

voice, and they seemed like

31:09

they were hobbling feminism as a result,

31:11

because who wants to

31:13

get in league with man haters?

31:15

You know, Yeah, for sure, And I

31:17

think that was a real It seems like at least there was

31:19

a realization within this conference

31:22

and within the delegation that they were like,

31:24

this is really our moment to bring everybody

31:27

together because there's obviously

31:29

going to be you know, it's going to be a stronger

31:31

movement if we're representing everyone

31:33

and everyone's on board. So Betty

31:35

for Dan during the debate,

31:38

very publicly endorsed the resolution, completely

31:41

reversed her previous position, and that

31:43

was, you know, people within the movement,

31:46

Betty for Dan was a very sort

31:49

of a founding member and a voice that was important.

31:51

So it was a big deal.

31:53

Yeah. And so when they voted overwhelmingly

31:55

again in favor of including

31:59

the gay and less being contingent

32:01

as part of that. I don't remember exactly what

32:03

the plank was, but it was essentially

32:06

saying like, guess we're your

32:08

legit human beings and we recognize

32:10

that, and everybody should. They broke out

32:13

into song again and they sang, Houston, I'm

32:15

one day closer than to you.

32:18

I thought you were going to say, like an Indigo Girl song.

32:20

No, but I did look up Larry Gatlin.

32:23

Still no clue. I have no idea how I've ever

32:25

heard of him, because I've not heard of any of his songs.

32:28

That the Gatlin Brothers nothing.

32:29

Nope, all right, there's a song

32:31

called Broken Lady, which sounds awful,

32:33

but that's their biggest hit, and I

32:36

don't think i've heard that one.

32:38

H Was it Broken

32:40

Lady? Parentheses? Get

32:42

me some glue?

32:44

What is going on with you today?

32:46

I don't know. I'm a big lover of the parenthetical

32:50

song title. You don't see those anymore.

32:51

It's true, It's true, you really

32:53

don't who What was it?

32:56

Oh? That Cutting Crew song? I Just

32:58

Died in your Arms tonight song? Great

33:01

song?

33:01

Is that a parenthetical?

33:02

Yes? I just is in

33:04

parentheses? Is need?

33:06

Yes?

33:07

The title of the song is in parentheses. I just in

33:09

parentheses died in your arms tonight,

33:11

Like it couldn't just be died in your arms tonight.

33:14

Wow, a frontloaded parenthetical. That's unique.

33:16

But also I say we brand this one unnecessary

33:19

too, shall we? Okay, very

33:23

nice. I did not see that coming up

33:25

again, frankly.

33:28

So they did not sing that song. But after

33:30

that vote, there was also obviously

33:33

a reproductive Freedom resolution.

33:36

This supported government funding for

33:38

abortion and sex said that

33:41

passed very easily as well, like

33:43

everything else, But the Conservatives

33:45

were really upset about this one obviously, And

33:47

say they got up on stage

33:50

with a huge blown up picture of an

33:53

aborted fetus and they

33:55

sang everyone's getting up and singing, I

33:58

imagine, much to John and Yoko's may

34:01

they saying. All we were saying is give life a

34:03

chance. And in

34:05

the meantime, the other side

34:07

is out there chanting choice, choice,

34:10

choice, and it's just a you

34:13

know, it's quite a scene happening there.

34:15

Like the energy in that conference

34:18

center must have been incredible for sure.

34:20

And then everybody got brought down when

34:22

the plank, the proposal to create

34:25

a cabinet level Department

34:27

of Women's Affairs was voted

34:29

down, and they had good reason too.

34:31

Actually, there were a lot of women who are like, sure,

34:34

that sounds good. There are a lot of other

34:36

women at the conference who are like, no, we do not

34:38

want to pigeonhole all of

34:40

women's problems into one agency.

34:43

Like our problems and the thing are our goals

34:45

and our hopes. They spread over

34:47

everything else, Like we're humans,

34:50

like we should we have all the same interests

34:52

that men do. Why should we just have one cabinet

34:55

position that all of our stuff is shoveled

34:57

into. It doesn't make any sense. So they actually

34:59

combine their votes with the anties, who again, we're voting

35:01

against literally everything that

35:04

everybody else was voting yes on,

35:07

and they actually managed to scuttle that one. I

35:09

think that was a good move.

35:11

I think so too, because I wonder if all

35:14

the eggs had been in that one basket, if you

35:16

know, four years later, they're like, you know what we're gonna We're

35:18

gonna acts that position and all together,

35:21

yeah, or that cabinet.

35:23

Yeah, like they did with the Woman's Advocate Agency

35:26

in Houston.

35:27

Yeah, And then all of a sudden, you're nowhere again.

35:30

Right. All we're

35:32

saying is give life a chance, you

35:34

want to take our second break and then come back

35:36

and talk a little bit more about the counter mobilization

35:39

and what came of that.

35:40

Let's do it all,

36:08

right, So we mentioned at the beginning in

36:10

sort of pepper throughout some of these counter

36:12

protests. These

36:14

aren't the actual conservative

36:17

conservative delegates that are there at the

36:19

conference. This is the group

36:21

headed by Texan

36:24

Lottiebeth Hobbes, who was

36:27

the president of an anti era group

36:29

called Women who Want

36:31

to Be Women, the w W w

36:34

W. This was happening across

36:36

town. There was also a woman named Nellie

36:39

Gray. She was the president of March

36:41

for Life. They had their own big

36:43

rally, and this is where they really

36:45

brought together. Like we mentioned

36:47

earlier, like hey, if you're if

36:49

you lead a group, a

36:52

Catholic group or a conservative group

36:54

or any sort of this

36:57

is where they started sort of

36:59

dubbing themselves the

37:02

I don't know about traditional family, but just the family

37:05

movement, the pro family movement, right,

37:08

which is a bit of a

37:10

thumb in the eye to the other side, saying you

37:12

don't care about families.

37:14

Exactly, you must be anti family standard

37:16

grade school tactics, and you still see it today

37:18

oh.

37:19

You absolutely do. But this was the moment where

37:21

they got together on the other side

37:23

of town and said, everyone who

37:26

is against this stuff come together

37:29

and will will

37:32

at least try to put our differences aside

37:34

and coalesce as well.

37:36

Yes, they also got huge support

37:38

from No Ma'am, the National Organization

37:40

for Men against Amazonian Masterhood,

37:45

and I think something

37:47

like fifteen thousand people

37:49

came out for this antier,

37:52

anti feminist rally that

37:54

they held in opposition to the Women's Conference.

37:57

Remember the high end

37:59

of Women's Conference was thirty two thousand

38:02

the lower and that the number

38:04

ICEE bandied about most often is around twenty

38:07

thousand, So this is a significant

38:09

number of people in opposition coming to Houston

38:12

for this. And remember Philis

38:14

Shaffley was like, I don't think we should do this,

38:16

and had Lottie Beth Hobbs not been like,

38:18

we're doing it anyway,

38:21

this probably never would have happened. And

38:23

Philis Shafflee gets all like

38:25

across the board the credit for

38:28

founding this rally. It was almost all Lotti

38:30

Beth Hobb But once Lotti Beth

38:32

Hobb was like, we're doing it anyway, Phylis Shaffley was like, Okay,

38:34

can't beat them, join them, And so she came

38:36

and spoke and

38:39

in establishing a lot of like that, like

38:41

you said, thumb and the eye kind of tactics

38:44

that we still see today. The first

38:46

thing she said when when Philis

38:48

Shafflee gave her remarks

38:50

on stage, she thanked her husband

38:52

for allowing her to be there, and

38:54

apparently the crowd just went wild for that

38:56

one. And one of the other things

38:59

that I saw is that a lot of the people

39:01

there had signs or boasted to

39:03

the press about how they had paid their own

39:05

way to make it there, which was a shot at

39:07

the women who needed help

39:10

or government funding to attend the Houston

39:12

conference. It's not very nice stuff.

39:14

So it was a really very

39:17

targeted, very specific, very

39:20

effective anti er

39:22

anti women's conference rally, the

39:25

pro family rally, and it got a lot

39:27

of press attention as well, Like people

39:29

would report from the women's conference then they go over

39:31

to the proe pro family rally and

39:34

it was just crazy amazing press.

39:37

Yeah, totally, And it was the moment where they

39:39

were like, not only did the press

39:41

notice, but and this was one of the bigger

39:43

reasons why they did this is they wanted and

39:45

got the attention of the Republican Party. So

39:49

it's like all of this stuff wasn't

39:51

officially platformed yet, and

39:53

or some of it wasn't, and so this

39:56

was when the Republican Party was like, all right, listen,

39:58

we need to platform all this stuff officially.

40:01

And it was just again,

40:03

just this this three days. It's really incredible how

40:06

much it shaped things. I know, you found an

40:09

interview where Lottie Beth Hobbs,

40:12

you know, because she was from Houston

40:14

and a Texan, like, had

40:16

this big rally, and like, what would have happened

40:19

had this not even been in Texas? And

40:21

who knows? You can only speculate of what

40:24

would have happened. I imagine, you know, Jerry

40:26

Folwell came around not too long afterward

40:28

anyway, So I'm sure this movement would

40:30

have taken hold, but maybe not as soon.

40:32

Here's the thing. Maybe not as soon, maybe

40:34

not as tenaciously. Because that

40:37

rally, the pro Family rally that

40:40

was in opposition of the Women's Conference, it

40:42

attracted fifteen thousand attendees,

40:46

that got the attention of a lot of different people,

40:48

including the Republican Party. But

40:50

also it showed those people

40:53

the attendees, like hey, you're

40:55

an orthodox Jew. Hey you're Catholic.

40:58

Hey you're an evangelical Christian. Hey,

41:00

you just hate the idea of the federal government

41:02

overstepping its bounds. All of us,

41:05

we have all sorts of stuff that we disagree on.

41:07

Doesn't matter because we all hate this other

41:09

stuff more and want it to not happen.

41:12

So if we just hang in together, if we just

41:14

stay together, like

41:16

we can actually have a lot of political

41:18

clout as a coalition. That

41:21

rally showed them that. So

41:23

had that rally not happened, it's entirely

41:26

possible that coalition might not have formed

41:28

or not have formed in the way that it did form,

41:31

and it certainly wouldn't have formed in time

41:33

to basically take over the Republican

41:36

Party and support the Reagan presidency

41:38

for the vast majority of the eighties.

41:41

Like it's sounding to think for

41:43

good and bad, what how

41:46

different the United States

41:49

would be? Like this is a turning point

41:51

in American modern American history

41:53

this weekend.

41:54

Yeah, for sure, it's crazy.

41:56

That was by the way, that was Marjorie's sprule again

41:59

that historian who was being interviewed in Houstonia

42:01

magazine sisod

42:04

interview.

42:04

Yeah, so the

42:07

outcome of all this was obviously

42:09

you know, they passed all these planks. They

42:12

ride up their report,

42:14

I guess called the Spirit of Houston, and

42:17

they handed it over to President

42:19

Carter and Congress. So

42:21

Carter says, you know, I support all this stuff.

42:24

Of course, your goals look pretty

42:26

great to me. But then, like

42:28

I said at the very very beginning, not a lot

42:30

actually happened. As far

42:32

as real practical moves there

42:35

was. They extended the and

42:39

we talked about this in my freshly

42:41

remembered era episode

42:44

where there are a lot of different cutoff dates, like

42:46

you got to get it done by this year or else it's

42:48

off the table. He extended the time

42:51

for ratification to nineteen eighty two. There

42:54

was some protections against

42:57

discrimination based on pregnancy. They

43:00

said, hey, you can get

43:02

some Social Security benefits if

43:04

you have been a homemaker your whole life and you got divorced,

43:06

Like we're recognizing that as a job

43:09

for the first time. And a

43:12

lot of feminists that were there were like pretty

43:14

upset by inaction and by

43:17

the fact that Carter supported the High Amendment, which

43:20

totally took down the reproductive

43:22

Funding Plank, basically

43:24

banning the use of federal funding

43:26

for abortion.

43:27

Yeah. They were also really mad at Carter for cutting

43:30

social programs to pay for increased defense

43:32

spending as well, which is

43:34

not what you think of when you think of Jimmy Carter. But

43:37

apparently he got a little more conservative later

43:39

in his presidency. And

43:42

so it just essentially

43:44

went nowhere. Like if you read like

43:47

assessments of what came out

43:49

of the Women's Conference of nineteen seventy seven

43:52

in Houston, most of

43:54

the most of the positive

43:56

silver lining parts are

43:58

that it

44:01

helped women come together

44:04

who otherwise would not have ever met and

44:06

basically swap strategies, stop

44:08

swap organizing methods,

44:11

saying like, hey, we're organizing

44:13

like domestic abuse shelters

44:15

and rape crisis centers, and this is how we're doing it.

44:17

And basically it helped on the grassroots.

44:20

It took a bunch of different germs

44:22

and put them together and they spread beneath

44:26

the federal level and the state and local level,

44:28

and it really helped women advance

44:30

in that sense. But federally

44:32

it went nowhere almost

44:35

at all. It went almost nowhere.

44:38

Yeah, And you know, we talked

44:41

a lot in this episode about the fact that you

44:44

know, galvanizing different kinds of women

44:46

together, but one that we haven't mentioned yet that

44:49

Lucy Kammas are don't turn around.

44:52

She was a nation reporter said to her,

44:55

the most remarkable aspect was not

44:57

bringing together like necessarily bringing

45:00

lesbians under their wing and women

45:02

of color, but bringing women who might

45:04

typically vote Republican in

45:07

their past, bringing them in because

45:09

they cared about some of this stuff as well, and

45:12

you don't have to care about all of it to support

45:15

this thing. And she was just like, that

45:17

was the most remarkable part to her.

45:19

Yeah, which makes a lot of sense. But

45:21

unfortunately, one of the other outcomes

45:23

of that weekend was you do have to

45:25

choose, Like these groups,

45:28

these coalitions solidified

45:31

and in opposition to one another,

45:33

so and both of the political

45:35

parties were essentially forced to choose. There

45:38

was no like, oh, actually,

45:40

I kind of agree with this point over here, So

45:42

I guess I'm independent. I don't know

45:45

the state of the country that we live in today, that polarized

45:47

country. You can actually date

45:49

it back to this. This is the cradle of it. It's

45:53

I just can't stop being in awe

45:55

of the effect that it had.

45:57

Yeah, totally, I'm always very

46:00

fascinated by the independent voter. It's

46:02

really interesting. To be clear, I'm not knocking independent

46:04

voters. I just i'd find it fascinating.

46:06

Sure, I wasn't knocking them either. It just made

46:08

me think of something else.

46:10

I was just trying to cut off the emails or like Chuck didn't,

46:13

Chuck thinks you should vote all one way. That's not what I'm

46:15

saying.

46:16

No, no, no, no, no no, I don't think that came

46:18

across like that at all. No. So ok yeah, if anybody

46:20

was sending in that email, they would have been wrong, wrong,

46:23

wrong, Have you got anything else?

46:25

All right? No, I'm done, done, done.

46:26

Okay, Well, Chuck said done three times in a

46:29

row, which of course automatically unlocks listener

46:31

mail.

46:34

I thought that meant the candy man appeared.

46:36

The candy man reads listener mail.

46:39

But the candy man I'm talking about, you.

46:41

Know, you mean the kind that brings you eminems

46:43

and stuff, right.

46:44

No, the kind that smoked

46:47

with a glass eye.

46:49

No, okay, all

46:51

right, this is that's

46:53

fromer, an eighth grader. We love reading these kinds of things.

46:56

Hey, Josh, Chuck and Jerry. My

46:59

name is Beatrix, great name. Yeah,

47:01

I'm an eighth grader in mckinville, Oregon.

47:03

I listen to your episodes constantly all

47:06

caps, and I really wanted to make it

47:08

to your Portland show, but unfortunately I missed it.

47:10

My mom and I live almost an hour away from where I

47:12

go to school and where she works, so we

47:14

often listen to your stuff on the way. I recently

47:17

listened to the Rock, Paper Scissors app

47:19

and you mentioned that no one plays just refined, but without

47:22

needing to make a decision. But

47:24

my class does and it really annoys

47:26

me because there's no point. Also,

47:29

I would love an episode on ADHD, specifically

47:32

what causes it Beatrix.

47:34

That's coming sort of soon. I

47:37

do have a small convention though, Guys, though I've been listening

47:40

for over a year, I still can't tell

47:42

which one of you is which That's okay. I

47:44

can tell your voices apart, but if I was asked, I wouldn't

47:46

be able to say which one of you is Josh

47:48

and which one is.

47:49

Chuck if we switched from time

47:51

to time.

47:52

That's right, And if you go to that live show in Portland

47:55

next year, then you.

47:56

Can tell yeah, there you go. That's the way

47:58

they talk about cognitive DISMCE.

48:00

That's yeah, And how about this, Beatrix,

48:03

send us an email from that same thread when

48:06

we go to Portland next year and you and

48:08

someone else can get on the guest list.

48:10

Very nice.

48:11

How about that you'll get to that's freebe tickets.

48:14

So Beatrix finishes

48:16

up by saying, I'd love if you gave

48:18

a shout out to tech stuff and stuff they don't

48:20

want you to know.

48:21

Nice. Oh,

48:24

we're gonna shout them out. Hey, way to go tech

48:26

stuff and stuff they don't want you to know too. Excellent

48:28

podcasts, you have great take.

48:30

Coourse tricks, our longtime

48:32

friends and colleagues sit to those shows. And

48:35

finally, I would love it if you would read

48:37

this on the air so me and my mom get

48:39

hear it on the way to school and wish

48:41

me good luck in high school next year.

48:43

Good luck Beatrix, high school kids.

48:45

Fun.

48:46

You're gonna do great. Don't you worry about

48:49

it. From the sounds of this email, You're

48:51

just gonna tear it apart. I love it.

48:53

Knock it out of the park.

48:55

Knock it out of the park.

48:56

Well, if you want to be like Beatrix and send us

48:58

a just patently awesome email,

49:01

you can send it to Stuff podcast

49:03

at iHeartRadio dot com.

49:16

Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

49:19

For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit

49:21

the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

49:23

or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.