Evangelical leaders framed feminism as a conspiratorial threat to family and national sovereignty

Evidence

As Schlafly explained, the VAWA was just one more example of “the federal government’s insatiable demand for more power.” Schlafly also accused feminists of inflating rates of harassment and abuse, and she suggested that most of the exceedingly rare instances of actual harassment could be blamed on feminists themselves. Before the feminists burst on the scene in the 1970s, there had been all sorts of laws protecting and advantaging women, Schlafly contended, but feminists had dismantled these protections in their quest for equality. Now, playing the victim, they busied themselves with inventing new infractions. Adding to the absurdity, feminists wanted to criminalize “all heterosexual sex” as rape “unless an affirmative, sober, explicit verbal consent can be proved.” Apparently jokes, too, were no longer allowed, because feminists didn’t have a sense of humor. … Finally, concerns about domestic violence could be linked to a global feminist agenda; when Hillary Clinton represented the United States at the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing, giving her highly lauded speech “Women’s Rights Are Human Rights,” it only confirmed the nefarious link between globalism, feminism, and the Clinton administration. All the pieces fit together in an intricate plot to undermine the sovereignty of the United States, and the authority of the family patriarch. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 339

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the book’s thesis about how the evangelical cultural apparatus framed feminism as an enemy; echoes the ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ pattern of moral panics mapped onto class/identity politics. — connects to: Calls for a more Christian nation function as calls for greater patriarchy — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 103
• SEED: Angle: the Beijing ‘Women’s Rights Are Human Rights’ speech as a condensation point where anti-globalism, anti-feminism, and patriarchal authority fused into one conspiracy narrative.