Family values politics linked domestic patriarchy to national militarism after Vietnam

Evidence

In the home, fathers disciplined children and husbands exercised authority over wives; in the case of husbands and wives, this authority could be administered in the most intimate of ways. Beyond the home, the power of the patriarch ensured the security of the nation. In the aftermath of Vietnam, this required a renewed commitment to militarism. Family values politics, then, involved the enforcement of women’s sexual and social subordination in the domestic realm and the promotion of American militarism on the national stage. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 202

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Du Mez’s stated key idea that militant masculinity became the organizing center of a religious identity — here we see the causal pairing of patriarchy in the home with militarism on the national stage.
• ADDENDUM: The ‘sex and power’ framing resonates with how my immodesty article treats dress codes as class/identity signaling — both reduce a ‘family values’ surface to underlying power relations.