Beverly LaHaye Defies Feminism

In 1979, Beverly LaHaye founded Concerned Women for America (CWA), which would quickly become the nation’s largest lobbying group for conservative women. With chapters across the country, CWA has been responsible for mobilizing hundreds of thousands of conservative women to become active for conservative causes at the local, state, and federal levels. LaHaye began her career as a megachurch pastor’s wife and the author of marital and spiritual advice for evangelical women. When she turned her attention to politics, she used the language and networks of evangelical women’s culture to mobilize others. Her story demonstrates how even women who took on definitive political leadership roles had to negotiate persistent ambivalence within conservative evangelical communities, both about politics in general and about women’s roles within it. LaHaye’s relationship with Catholic activist Phyllis Schlafly also highlights the limits of ecumenical cooperation within the New Christian Right, even as that movement was defined by new alliances between conservative Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, and Jews.

Is Feminism Still Another Dirty “F” Word?

The concept of “code-switching” is often used to designate the communicative transgression of some sort of symbolic boundary of identity, often for various social purposes. Progressive activists and scholars alike have used the concept to point out the contradictions and idiosyncracies of groups like Concerned Women for America (CWA), a longstanding member of the Christian Right, as it portrays itself as both anti-feminist and pro-feminist simultaneously. Using CWA’s various positions on feminism as a case study, this essay considers not just how this instance of code-switching rhetorically operates, but also examines how the concept is used in the critiques lodged by progressive voices against conservative Christian groups.