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Explaining Movement and Countermovement Events in the
Contemporary U.S. Women's Movement
Lee Ann Banaszak (The Pennsylvania State University)
and
Heather Ondercin (Louisiana State University)
Presented at the American Political Science Association Meetings, September 2-5, 2010, Washington
D.C. The authors would like to thank Christina Wollbrecht, Debra Minkoff, Sarah Soule and the other
principal investigators of the Dynamics of Collective Action data for their willingness to share their data.
Naturally any errors are the responsibility of the authors.
1
Introduction
While feminist movements have been the subject of careful scholarly research, there has been less
attention to the study of countermovements – defined as those movements that arise in opposition to
feminist movements (but see Schreiber 2008; Staggenborg and Meyer; Staggenborg 1989, 1991).
Nonetheless, both pundits and scholars of the women’s movement have often talked about the role that
anti-feminist movements played in reducing the impact of the women’s movement1 starting in the
1980s (see for example Faludi 1991; Marshall 1984; Ryan 1992; Schreiber 2008). Such movements are
not just important in their own right but also because they engage in such interactive struggles with
feminist movements, affecting women’s movements’ mobilization and activity as well as the resulting
public policy (Staggenborg and Meyer; Staggenborg 1989, 1991). Women’s movements often end up
mobilizing to oppose the demands of countermovements and may even end up incorporating opposing
countermovement goals, such as the rollback of certain policy achievements, in their own goals as well.
Thus, where countermovements develop, movements and countermovements become entwined in a
careful dance with countermovements responding to the mobilization and success of existing social
movements (Zald and Useem; Staggenborg and Meyer; etc.), and social movements then responding to
the activities of counter movements (Freeman 1983; Gamson 1975; Staggenborg).
The interaction between movements and counterparts also likely influences public opinion and public
policy, especially given that some scholars have already found ties between movement activity on the
one hand and public opinion or legislation on the other(Banaszak 1996a; Banaszak and Ondercin 2009;
Soule et al. ;Burstein 1999). However, much of this literature finds only weak relationships between
movement mobilization and political outcomes (Burstein and Linton 2002). But if movement
mobilization is also a response to countermovement activity, the weak relationships may be a result of
countermovement influence. Thus, we need to understand the dynamic relationship between
movements and countermovements to clearly connect movement activity to policy and public opinion.
Specifically, policy change may not just the result of mobilization of a movement but rather the net of
movement and counter movement activities (Jasper and Poulsen 1993; Rosenfeld and Ward 1991; Zald
and Useem 1987). However, beyond theoretically discussions of the nature of this interaction (Lo 1982;
Meyer and Staggenborg 1996) or careful qualitative assessments of movement-countermovement
1 We utilize here the term women's movement as a synonym for feminist movement because this is the
language of feminists themselves. However, we acknowledge that the alternative definition of
women’s movements as those movements “whose definition, content, leadership, development or
issues are specific to women and their gender identity” would place both the movements and the
countermovements discussed here into the category of women’s movements (Banaszak, Beckwith and
Rucht 2003, p. 2; Beckwith 2000).
2
relations in particular cases (Dixon 2008; Jasper and Poulsen 1993; Staggenborg 1991), the endogenous
relationship between social movements and countermovements has gone largely unexplored. 2
This paper takes a step in the direction of separating out the effects of movements and
countermovements, as well as the relationship between the two, using quantitative event data and time
series analysis to examine the causes of feminist and anti-feminist mobilization (in the form of public
events). In addition to analyzing movement-countermovement interactions for the larger feminist
movement in the United States, we also examine two specific campaigns associated with these
movements: abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment. Both campaigns have historically been
associated with strong movement-countermovement interaction, and been important issues in the
contemporary feminist movement. We expect to find a strong endogenous relationship between
movement and counter movement activities, but also explore how other factors external to the
movements -- such as political opportunities, gender opportunities, and previous policy successes–
influence movement and countermovement events.
The paper proceeds as follows. We begin by discussing the role of countermovements against the U.S.
women’s movement, particularly the cases of the Equal Rights Amendment and abortion. We then put
this particular movement-countermovement relationship in a wider perspective by examining the
scholarship on countermovements more generally. These discussions provide the hypotheses which we
test using a data set on the U.S. women’s movement and its countermovement comprised of movement
and countermovement time series, combined with additional measures – all of which is described in our
section on data and methods. In the final two sections of the paper we analyze this data using
autoregressive distributed lag models and discuss the implications of this analysis for our understanding
of countermovements.
Battling for Control on Issues of Gender
Histories of the second wave of the U.S. women’s movement3 differ in the way they draw the timeline of
the mobilization of the second wave (cf. Ryan 1992 and Freeman 1975 with Roth 2004 and Thompson
2002), yet most indicate that the movement mobilized in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As women’s
movement scholars have suggested, that initial mobilization, chronicled by coverage of the events in
newspapers and magazines of the time, was initially divided into two somewhat different (albeit
overlapping) sectors (Freeman 1975; Ryan 1992; Marx Ferree and Hess). The first is often described as a
small group sector, which developed among college students and others who had been active in the civil
2 The few exceptions include Andrews (2002) analysis of reactions to the civil rights movement in Mississippi and
Werum and Winders (2001) on anti-gay activism; as well as a body of work on the interactions between
movements and countermovements in making claims and framing their positions (Fetner 2001; .McCright and
Dunlap 2000).
3 I utilize the term second wave here to acknowledge the historical continuities of the women’s movement in the
United States (see Banaszak 2010, Chapter 2; Rupp 1985; Rupp and Taylor 1987).
3
rights, anti-war or New Left movements of the early 1960s. The events staged by this wing of the
women’s movement were often smaller in size but dramatic in nature and employed such tactics as
guerrilla theater or dramatic protest. One example might be the 1968 and 1969 demonstrations against
the Atlantic City Miss America Pageant where feminists protested the objectification of women by
shouting protests in the event, tossing high heels and bras into a trash can and staging guerilla theater
on the boardwalk (Freeman n.d.). Despite the drama of these events, small group sector events often
do not garner media coverage, perhaps in part because they mobilize a relatively small number of
people, presenting a message that is provocative. For example, no contemporary coverage of the
Atlantic City events occurred in the New York Times although it was mentioned in later articles by
feminists and letters to the editor. The second sector – what Freeman (1975) labels the older, more
established sector of the contemporary women’s movement-- was more focused on policy change.
Much of the action of this sector occurred in the form of lobbying, testifying before Congress or behind
the scenes work on changing laws and policies. When this sector mobilized public events, it was often in
the form of larger demonstrations, pickets, and boycotts demanding the enforcement of existing laws or
seeking the creation of additional ones. One such example might be the series of pickets of EEOC offices
that the National Organization of Women and other groups engaged in to protest the Commission’s
ruling (eventually reversed) that separate help wanted ads were not a violation of Title VII law. These
protests often garnered more press coverage. For example, the EEOC pickets were covered in multiple
New York Times stories including a longer story in the Sunday Magazine section (see Bender 1968;
Weinman Lear 1968). 4
Taken together these two sectors led to an overall increase in the mobilization of women into the
women’s movement and an increase in the number of women’s movement events reported in the
newspaper. The later is illustrated by Figure 1, which reports the number of movement and
countermovement events in each year that were reported in the New York Times5. As Figure 1 shows
the number of women’s movement events reported in the New York Times rose steeply in the late
1960s and peaked around 1975. Despite a drop off in the number of events after 1981, the movement
continued to coordinate collective action events even into the 1990s at a level that far exceeded the last
years of the 1960s.
(Figure 1 about here)
Moreover, the events covered by the media in these later years increasingly focused on two issues:
abortion and reproductive rights generally, and the Equal Rights Amendment. While the movement
4 In fact, the New York Times had covered the issue of how the sex clause of Title VII would be implemented even
before it became a political issue, although much of that coverage focused on its implication for employers.
5 The data were taken from the Dynamics of Collective Action data set available at
http://www.stanford.edu/group/collectiveaction/cgi-bin/drupal/. The authors thank Doug McAdam, John
McCarthy, Susan Olzak and Sarah Soule for making these data available. Naturally all errors in the analysis are the
fault of the authors.
4
remained diverse in its organizational forms, purposes, and ideology, the public face of the movement
chronicled in the newspapers was dominated by these larger campaigns. The Equal Rights Amendment
campaign occurred in two phases: the first was a protracted battle, ending in 1972 but starting in the
1920s, to have Congress adopt the amendment (see Banaszak 1996; Rupp and Taylor). Even though the
Senate approved the amendment in 1946 by a bare majority, it would not be until the issue became the
focus of the re-mobilized women’s movement that it would pass Congress in 1972. As Figure 2 shows,
women’s movement mobilization around the Equal Rights Amendment rose sharply in 1971, just prior to
the debate in Congress. The second phase was the period that began with Congressional ratification
and ended in 1982, when the deadline given for states to ratify the amendment expired. That deadline
had already been extended once, when the original ratification deadline occurred and supporters were
only three states shy of ratification. Pro-ERA events show the attempts to influence the ratification
process. Local maxima in the number of events occur in 1978 – the year before the initial ratification
deadline – and then peaked in 1982, the year the time extension ended. Although a few scattered
events occurred after 1982 as feminists tried to revive the Equal Rights Amendment, by 1990 the issue
was clearly not in the public eye.
(Figure 2 about here)
The issue of abortion, on the other hand, has continued to inspire mobilization by both opponents and
the women’s movement. Indeed, while abortion initially constituted a very small proportion of feminist
events, as Figure 3 shows, the number of feminist events related to abortion has risen over the years. A
comparison of Figure1 and Figure 3 also suggests that increasingly the feminist agenda is dominated by
the issue of abortion; while abortion events constituted only about 15% of all feminist events reported
in the New York Times in the 1970s, by the 1990s abortion events were a half of all events. Mobilization
around the decriminalization of abortion laws or greater access to abortions began prior to the 1973 Roe
v. Wade decision, although these events were relatively few in number. Much of the early push for
abortion decriminalization came from doctors concerned about the lack of clarity in existing law and
lawyers and legal scholars seeking to rationalize state legal codes (Luker 1984; Staggenborg 1991). In
1962, for example, the American Law Institute (ALI) opened up a new wave of reform by calling for new
legislation. As the women’s movement mobilized, feminists increasingly took up the cause of abortion
(Luker 1984 Chapter 3; stateline.org n.d.).
(Figure 3 about here)
Many of the policy effects of the women’s movement occurred relatively early in its mobilization
process. The Equal Pay Act was adopted in 1963 and in 1964 Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex, and made sexual discrimination the purview of the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission. When Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 passed a
few years later, the National Organization for Women had just celebrated its fifth anniversary. Two
events were particularly important for the mobilization of a countermovement. First, in March 1972, the
Senate approved the Equal Rights Amendment, marking the beginning of a campaign for ratification
among the fifty states. Second, in January 1973, the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade
5
decision, which stated that a woman had a right to seek an abortion without state intervention during
the first trimester. Naturally both events were preceded by considerably activity among activists.
Before the decision on Roe v. Wade, 12 states had adopted the ALI model law and another four states
had adopted legislation which allowed a woman to have an abortion whenever she or her doctor
thought it necessary (stateline.org). Many of these policies were of course also engendered by feminist
activity and lobbying (see for example Banaszak 2010 Chap. 6).
Thus, feminist activity started in the late 1960s, peaked in the 1970s and early 1980s but never
totally disappeared. Indeed, the number of feminist events related to the issue of abortion continues to
rise over the entire time period although it is cyclical in nature. Events related to the ratification of an
Equal Rights Amendment were also an important part of women’s movement events in the 1970s and
early 1980s but then disappeared totally from the agenda. How then do the activities of those opposed
to the feminist agenda compare?
Countering the women’s movement.
Many scholars of the women’s movement acknowledge that the second wave’s periods of high
mobilization and policy change led to organized attempts to protest the movement or roll back its policy
achievements. As Figure 1 shows, anti-feminist actions began to rise in the mid-1970s (see also Ryan
1992: 56 and Marshall 1984). As was the case with the women’s movement itself, some of the
countermovement activity was localized activity by small group. For example, Ryan (1992:68) notes that
groups supporting traditional gender roles such as Protect our Women (POW) organized in the mid-
1970s. On the other hand national groups opposed to the women’s movement also developed in the
1970s. For example, Beverly LaHaye founded Concerned Women for America in 1979 after watching an
interview with Betty Friedan (Schreiber 2008: 30).
Two particular victories for the women’s movement served to mobilize the bulk of
countermovement activism. The first was the adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) by
Congress in 1972. Facing the push for ratification of the ERA, Phyllis Schafly’s Stop ERA was founded in
1972. By that year, thirty of the necessary 38 states had already ratified amendment . Stop ERA
organized anti-amendment ratification lobbies in several states including Illinois and Florida. The
organization was perhaps best known for its lobbying tactics including the distribution of homemade
bread and jam to legislators by women asking them to vote against ratification (Klemesrud 1975). After
the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment, Stop ERA demobilized although it continues to fight
attempts to revive the amendment.
The second important event was the increasing legalization of abortion, culminating in the Roe
v. Wade decision of January 1973. By the 1970s, over 2/3’s of the anti-feminist events in Figure 1 were
pro-Life events, with the proportion rising even more in subsequent decades. While the Roe v. Wade
decision mobilized many opponents to abortion, local anti-abortion organizations had already begun
forming in the late 1960s (Luker 1984; Staggenborg 1991). The National Right to Life Committee was
organized soon thereafter in 1971 (Staggenborg 1991: 35). Initial pro-Life reaction to Roe v. Wade
6
focused on reducing the availability of abortion through legislation like the Hyde Amendment, but soon
it also moved into the streets, and began engaging in confrontational and violent tactics. Much of the
violence including clinic bombings and arson attempts peaked in the 1980s and early 1990s
(Staggenborg 199: 132-133; National Abortion Federation n.d.) but picketing and clinic blockades
continued after 2000 (National Abortion Federation n.d.). Pro-Choice activists responded by mobilizing
clinic defense and securing additional legislation designed to limit the impact of these
countermovement tactics.
This brief description of the U.S. women’s movement and the anti-feminist movements that arose in
their wake helps to illustrate the way that both movements are intertwined. It also shows that much of
that interaction occurred within two issue areas of the women’s movement: equal rights and abortion.
Before we move to a statistical analysis of these two movements, we need to examine theories of
countermovement development and movement-countermovement interaction.
Understanding Movement and Countermovement Events
Studies of movements and countermovements have generally seen two different types of effects that
influence the mobilization of these two groups. In the section below we focus first on how movements
influence countermovements and vice versa; we then focus on factors that affect both women’s
movements and their countermovements, specifically the resources, political opportunities and gender
opportunities available to the two movements. While much of the literature has focused on the
interactive claims or framing of movements and countermovements, we focus here on a specific
dependent variable: the mobilization of public events.
Interactive Influences between Movements and Countermovements
As is inherent in their name, countermovements arise in the first place to counter existing movements.
Hence, much of the theoretical literature on countermovements focuses on the influence of
movements on countermovements and the effect that countermovements can have on the movements
they are fighting (Zald and Useem 1987; Meyer and Staggenborg 1996; Lo 1982). This interactive
feature can take two forms: each type of movement can react to the actions of the other or each may
react to the success of the other.
Several scholars (Andrews 2002; Zald and Useem 1987: 247-248; Lo; Meyer and Staggenborg) argue
that it is largely movement events, particularly visible events that create the conditions that mobilize
countermovements. Movement events mobilize countermovements by creating grievances as an
existing population begins to realize that what they had considered widely accepted positions and
practices are being challenged. As movements begin to focus on specific issues they also make it easier
for countermovements to mobilize, around the same specific set of goals or issues. Finally, the actions
of movements demonstrate concretely that collective action can have an effect, if not specifically on
policy at least in capturing the public eye. Hence we expect that:
H1: An increase in movement events causes an increase in countermovement events.
7
Alternatively, we might expect that countermovements react less to movement mobilization than to a
movement’s ability to create changes in policy (Meyer and Staggonberg 1996; see also Zald and Useem
1987)6. In this case, opposition to the movement mobilizes as movements gain policy successes. This
theory suggests it is not mobilization of the movement but actual policy change that creates the
grievances and suggests opportunities for change. Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine final policy
successes easily. Here we utilize the passage of legislation in Congress to measure the degree of policy
success, but recognize that such a measure provides a limited view. 7 In particular, policies that are likely
to be implemented are more dangerous than those being considered (Andrews 2002). We anticipate
that as legislation is actually passed by Congress, this increases countermovement activity, because
Congressional legislation even once adopted can be repealed or modified. Thus we expect that,
H2: The more feminist legislation adopted by Congress, the more anti-feminist groups will
mobilize.
While we have focused on the effect of movements on countermovements, the literature on movement-countermovement relationships also notes that countermovements have strong effects on the movements that spawn them. In particular, countermovements are likely to mobilize the original movements as they realize that their positions and policy successes are being challenged. Thus, countermovements create new or revitalize existing grievances in movements which will likely lead to an increase in mobilization as well (Fetner 2001). Hence we expect:
H3: An increase in countermovement events will lead to an increase in movement events.
In some senses, this expectation directly contradicts another existing theory in the social movement
literature that success breeds demobilization. This idea, made explicit in Zald and Ash’s seminal 1966
piece on organizational growth and decay, argues that when movement organizations are successful
they must either take on new goals or demobilize. 8 Zald and Ash suggest that:
H4: the adoption of movement legislation leads to a decrease in movement events.
If we accept the previous three hypotheses as true however, we are faced with a serious contradiction.
If movement success breeds both countermovements and movement demobilization, then we are not
6 McCammon et al. (2001) places movement policy successes, like the passage of suffrage, into the category of
gender opportunities. While we agree that movements do affect both political and gender opportunities, we find
it more useful to separate out those opportunities directly and immediately influenced by the movement from
those that are more removed from movement influence in time and are less directly an outcome of movement
activity.
7 We are currently collecting information on Supreme court decisions and executive orders as well.
8 Indeed, Zald and Ash (1966: 333-334) hypothesize that movement organizations that are a result of coalitions of
different groups, and those which aim at changing society are more likely to dissipate after success.
8
likely to find that movements mobilize in reaction to the rise of countermovements. Staggenborg (1991)
addresses this dilemma directly in her analysis of the pro-Choice movement, arguing that feminist pro-
Choice activists were well aware of the rising pro-Life movement and that therefore Roe v. Wade did
create the same incentives to demobilize as it might otherwise. Below we examine her analysis directly
and explore it also in the case of the Equal Rights Amendment and the women’s movement more
generally.
Responding to Opportunities.
In addition to the hypotheses that suggest that movement events affect countermovement events and
vice versa, we also have expectations about how both of these types of events are affected by the
opportunities available in the wider political system. There are two types of time-varying political
context variables that we examine in this model. The first type is the access each type of movement has
to the political system and the second set of variables are gender opportunities that influence
specifically women’s movements (and women’s countermovements) ability to mobilize.
Political Opportunities. Political opportunities are openings in the political context that movements may
take advantage of to gain the outcomes they seek. When movements observe changes in the political
system that are to their advantage, they strategically utilize these openings by altering their activities. In
our particular case, we expect movements to increase the number of public events when they believe
that there are openings in the political system. Here we focus on one specific but important opportunity
for women’s movements – whether they have political allies in government. One well-established
opportunity for women’s movements has been the growing affinity between the Democratic party and
women’s movements (Freeman 1987; Wolbrecht 2000). This affinity developed as the women’s
movement arose in the late 1960s and early 1970s; prior to that time neither party had a stronger
connection to the women’s movement.
While there has been a lot of focus on the political opportunities of movements themselves, there have
been fewer pieces that focus particularly on the political opportunities affecting countermovements (but
see Meyer and Staggenborg 1996 and Staggenborg 1991). Since countermovements are simply a
specific type of movement, they are also affected by the existence of political allies in the federal
government. The growing affinity between the Democratic Party and the women’s movement was
matched by an increasing kinship between the Republican Party and traditional movements of all types,
including anti-feminist movements. This means that we expect anti-feminist movements to find
opportunities when Republicans are in power.
Even with a focus only on political allies, we should note that the American political system provides
multiple arenas where such allies can be found. In particular, the federal system provides multiple
opportunities for women’s movements (or anti-feminist movements) to develop political allies (Elman,
Banaszak 2003; Meyer and Staggenborg 1996). Local political opportunities provide a haven in periods
when political elites on the national scene oppose the movement. Hence, even if political allies are
lacking on the national scene we expect that increasing numbers of local allies provide opportunities for
9
either movements or countermovements to mobilize. A few authors have argued that this opportunity
is more likely to benefit countermovments because it prevents movements which have acquired policy
successes from permanently closing the window to changing policy (Meyer and Staggenborg 1996:
1637). For example, Hausmann (2005) has argued that federalism was particularly important in the anti-
abortion movements in the United States. This leads us to the following hypotheses:
H5: Periods where the Democrats are in power at the national level will have increases in the
number of movement events.
H6: Periods where the Republicans are in power at the national level will have increases in the
number of countermovement events.
H7: The higher the number of state legislatures that are democratic controlled the greater the
number of movement events.
H8: The lower the number of state legislatures that are democratic controlled the greater the
number of countermovement events.
Other social movements may also be part of the political opportunities available to movements.
Sympathetic social movements create openings in the political structure by making the existing political
alliances unstable. They also provide resources to sympathetic social movements that make it easier to
mobilize. On the other hand, opposition movements sway potentially sympathetic political allies from
supporting a social movement, and provide resources for countermovements. Here we look specifically
at the role of conservative movements in influencing the dynamics of feminist and anti-feminist
movements. Anti-feminist countermovements are part of a wider field of social movements that have
included the rise of religious fundamentalism, as well as anti-tax and anti-immigrant activism. We
expect that:
H9: The rise in the number of religious movement events increases the number of anti-feminist
events.
Gender Opportunities. Equally important for women’s movements are opportunities related specifically
to the gendered nature of the political system. Changing gender relations influence the opportunities
available to women. As McCammon et al (2001: 53) points out men and women traditionally were
viewed as having separate spheres with men dominating the workplace and politics. Gender
opportunities for the women’s movement change as women increasingly enter these areas, blurring the
traditional gender division. Our expectation is that many of the same gender opportunities that
increase women’s movement activism in the form of events will also inspire the activism of opposition
movements as well. In particular, anti-feminist movements may be reacting less to the activity of
10
women’s movements or to their ability to alter concrete policies than to the changing relation between
the sexes more generally which increases the grievances that mobilize the movement.
In this paper we focus on three specific factors designed to capture the changing gender opportunity
structure. First and foremost, we examine explicitly how public opinion about gender roles, equal rights
for women, and abortion influences the mobilization of the movement and countermovement. One
gender opportunity is the changing social norms and beliefs that underlie the general public.
Movements may mobilize to capitalize on and as a result of changing attitudes toward women. Thus we
expect that :
H10: Increases in support for feminist values in the general public increases the number of
women’s movement events.
Countermovements may also react to these changes, mobilizing to oppose the status changes that come
with changing attitudes. As Lo (1982) points out, however, changing values also increase the status
discrepancy for many individuals. Rising feminist values may lead women in traditional positions to
experience a loss of status as the values that supported homemaking as women’s calling disappear (see
also Klatch 1987; Luker 1984). Hence we also expect that:
H11: Increases in support for feminist values in the general public increases the number of
countermovement events
However, even if attitudes are slow to change, the movement of women in the arenas traditionally held
by men may also prove to be gender opportunities. As women enter the workforce and politics, they
have more opportunities to change the political agenda, at the same time as they may experience
increased grievances regarding women’s status. In addition, women’s presence in business and politics
may increase the willingness of male political elites to consider feminist demands. Finally, women in
political offices may also act as insiders within the political system pushing change from within
(Banaszak 2010; Santoro and McGuire 1997). Alternatively, we expect countermovements to benefit
from traditional social arrangements since these not only reinforce the importance of traditional roles
among political elites but also increase the pool of traditional women who can be mobilized (Klatch
1987). Thus, we expect that
H12: Rising participation in the workforce of women increases the number of women’s
movement events.
H13: Rising participation in the workforce of women decreases the number of
countermovement events.
H14: Increasing numbers of women in Congress increases the number of women’s movement
events .
and
11
H15: Increasing numbers of women in Congress decreases the number of countermovement
events .
We examine each of these hypotheses in three different venues of the women’s movement. We begin
by looking at all of the events related to the U.S. women’s movement and the countermovement that
arose in reaction to it. In addition, we explore the specific campaigns surrounding the Equal Rights
Amendment and the issue of abortion. Each of these campaigns encompass important issues for the
women’s movement, yet as the discussion above suggests the history and dynamics of each is
considerably different. The Equal Rights Amendment campaign involved a relatively short campaign
that ended in a defeat for the women’s movement, while the abortion campaign has been a protracted
campaign that began with a significant victory for feminists with attempts by pro-Life activists to pick
away at the existing policy. However, before we discuss the results, we turn to a description of the data
used in this paper and discuss the time series methods we employed.
Data and Methods
Our analysis is conducted on quarterly data ranging from the first quarter of 1960 to fourth quarter of
1995.9 We use an autoregressive distributed lag (ADL) model to examine the relationship between
movement and counter-movement events. The basic feature of an ADL is the inclusion of lags of the
dependent variable on the right had side of the model. The lags of the dependent variables model the
persistence of a series or how long changes influence future values. Additionally, the lags control for
auto-correlation in the errors. The number of lags specified depends on the dynamics of the dependent
variable; we used the minimum lag specification that gives us well behaved errors.
We model six different dependent variables: all women’s movement events, all events that oppose the
women’s movement, pro-Choice events, anti-abortion movement events, pro-ERA movement events,
and anti-ERA movement events. The event data are taken from the Dynamics of Collective Action data
set which collected all collective action events from 1960 to 1995 the daily editions of the New York
Times.10 The event data used here was created by aggregating by quarter the 891 events which made
claims related to women’s movements or abortion; these events were then coded by whether they
supported or opposed feminist positions. We recognize that this data set does not represent an
unbiased collection of all movement events11, but nonetheless believe that it is important to examine
9 Data availability reduces the time frame for several of our models. Our measure for the passage of feminist
legislation ends in 1988, significantly reducing the series. The data used in the abortion events analysis range from
the first quarter of 1962 to the fourth quarter of 1995 and the ERA from the second quarter of 1972 to the fourth
quarter of 1995.
10 For a extensive description of the data collection process, see Walker, Martin, and McCarthy (2008) pp. 45-48 and Earl, Soule and McCarthy 2003.
12
separately the events that achieve this high level of visibility since they are more likely to inform the
public debate about these issues and to influence attitudes of the public and/or policy makers.
We are primarily interested the relationship between the women’s movement and its
countermovement. As a result we include the event measure for the corresponding movement in the
model. For example, when modeling the general women’s movement events we include the measure of
general women’s countermovement events in the model. Additionally, our models include controls for
political opportunities, gender opportunities, and women’s movement success .
We use three different measures of political opportunities: mobilization of the religious right, party
control of state legislatures, and party control of the president. Our measure of religious right
mobilization comes from the same Dynamics of Collective Action data set and represents the number of
events where religious claims were made aggregated by quarter. Party control of the state legislature is
the number of state legislatures under the control of the Democratic Party. Party control of the
presidency is a dummy variable series with 1 indicating that Democrat is in the White House.12
We measure gender opportunities using three different measures designed to capture both political and
social opportunities. First, we use a public opinion measure that is specific to the particular type of
events we use as a dependent measure. When modeling all women’s movement and countermovement
events we use a general measure of gender attitudes. When modeling the abortion and ERA
movements and counter-movements we use measures of public opinion on abortion and ERA
respectively. These measures were created using Stimson’s dyadic dimensional algorithm that allows us
to combine multiple survey questions into a single measure of public opinion over time (Stimson 1991,
Ondercin 2007). Second, we control for women’s increased workforce participation by using the ratio
of women’s workforce participation to men’s workforce participation.13 The third measure of gender
opportunities is a count of the number of women serving the U.S. Congress provided by Center for
American Women and Politics (CAWP 2010).
To examine the effect of movement success on movements and countermovements , we use the
number of pieces of feminist legislation which passed either the House or the Senate. We calculated
11
The extensive literature on the bias of event data gathered from newspapers suggests that our list of events are likely to represent large, dramatic events involving physical violence, formal organizations or elites involved in policy making (McCarthy, McPhail, and Smith 1996; Oliver and Myers 1999; Oliver and Maney 2000; Ortiz et al. 2005, p. 399).
12 We would have liked to include a measure indicating party control of the U.S. Congress. However the Democrats
control the Senate and Democrats control the House for all but three sessions during the time period of our study.
Thus we exclude the measure due to lack of variation.
13Men’s and Women’s workforce participation are the seasonal adjusted civilian labor force participation rates for
individuals over the age of 16 (women’s series id LNS11300002Q, men’s series id LNS11300001Q). Data can be
downloaded from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: http://www.bls.gov/data/#employment.
13
this measure from the Christina Wolbrecht’s (2000) roll call data on feminist legislation 14. Date is only
available until 1988, so inclusion of the variables reduces the length of our time series.
We standardize all of the variables in the model by calculating their z-scores. Standardizing each
variable also places all of the variables on the same metric allowing for easier comparison. Stimson, for
example, argues that “the virtue of standardization is that it forces measures to discriminate within
series over time rather than between series.” (Stimson 1991, 54). Additionally, standardizing each
variable’s time series transforms them so that they theoretically range from negative infinity to infinity,
thus adhering to the common assumptions in time series analysis. In the analyses reported below, we
also provide different lag specifications for each variable. We determine each variable’s lag specification
for each of the independent variable by testing alternative lag lengths. Significance tests and AIC
information criteria were used to select the lag specification.
In time series analysis each of the variables need to be stationary in order to complete a multivariate
analyses. If a variable or set of variables are not stationary then the analysis runs the risk of obtaining
spurious regression results. Moreover, tests of significance are no longer valid because one cannot
apply the usual assumptions about underlying probabilities in calculating estimates or standard errors
(Nathaniel 2003, Chatfeild 1996). We ran both the Augmented Dickey Fuller and KPSS tests to assess
the stationary of each of the variables in the model. The Augmented Dickey Fuller tests if a series has a
unit root or is non-stationary. Alternatively, the KPSS tests if the series is stationary. Both tests have
relatively low power resulting in us rejecting the null too often, thereby sometimes providing conflicting
results. In addition to using these tests we also examined the auto-correlation functions and partial
auto-correlation functions. The event series, general movement events, general counter-movement
events, pro-abortion events, anti-abortion events, pro-ERA events, anti-ERA events, and the pro-
religious right events all appear stationary. As a result we model these series in their levels form. The
public opinion series, party control of the state houses, party control of the presidency, women’s
workforce participation, women’s representation in Congress and the passage of feminist legislation
appear non-stationary. As a result we use the first difference of the series in all the models. The first
differences of these series are stationary. The drawback to modeling series in their first differences is
that we can only talk about short run effects.
Analysis
Theoretically we expect to find an endogenous relationship between movements and
countermovements. Time series analysis provides us with tools to test for endogeneity and then model
the series to account for an endogenous relationship. To test for endogeneity we use the Granger
Causality tests (Freeman 1983, Granger 1974). Granger causality ask the basic question: After
controlling for its own history, how does the history of another variable contribute to our ability to
predict the current (and future) values of itself? Granger Causality has two limitations. First, it cannot
test if two series are contemporaneously correlated. Second, it may not detect endogeneity between
14 We especially thank Christina Wollbrecht for providing these data from her book!
14
two variables if the two variables react to one another at a faster rate than we observe the data. The
results of the Granger Causality tests, not reported here, indicate a lack of endogentity for our
movement and countermovment variables. Because we do not find evidence of endogeneity between
movements and countermovements we proceed with a basic autoregressive distributed lag model and
test for a contemporaneous relations between the variables.
We begin by examining the dynamics of movement events. Table 1 through 3 presents a set of models
with dependent variables of general movement events, pro-ERA movement events and pro-abortion
movement events. Because of the reduced time period that our measure of social movement success,
passage of feminist legislation, is available we present two models for each of the dependent variables.
The first model contains controls for political and gendered opportunities. Then the second model adds
the control of feminist legislation to political and gendered opportunities.
(Tables 1, 2 and 3 about here)
Our first observation is that movements are indeed responding to countermovements and movements
are quick to respond. Looking at the model without the control for feminist legislation first we find a
positive and significant relationship between movement events and countermovement events. The
relationship is contemporaneous for both the general pro-women’s movement series and the pro-
abortion series. For the anti-ERA events we observe the relationship at one lag, meaning that anti-ERA
events in the previous quarter influence pro-ERA in the current time period. Most likely our finding of
the contemporaneous relationship for general women’s movement events and pro-abortion events is a
result of our unit of analysis not being fine enough to capture the speed at which these movements are
responding to countermovement activity.
The finding that movements are responding to countermovements holds even when we control for the
passage of feminist legislation for both the pro-ERA series and the pro-abortion. The general anti-
women’s rights events variable is no longer a significant predictor of general women’s rights movement
activity once we add in the control for the passage of feminist legislation. However, this appears to be a
result of losing information because of the shorter time period. In results not reported here, we ran the
base model, restricting the time period to the limited series we have for the passage of feminist
legislationtest to see if the relationship is still significant. We found that even without the control for
the passage of feminist legislation variable, the effect of countermovement events is not significant in
this model; however, the coefficients are similar.
We find mixed support for hypothesis 4 which states we expect a decrease in movement activity when
the movement experiences success. The coefficient for the passage of feminist legislation is negative
and significant only for the pro-abortion series. Thus in the case of the abortion movement success
does appear to cause demobilization. In the model of all women’s movement events there is also a
negative coefficient for the passage of feminist legislation; however, the coefficient does not reach
traditional levels of significance. We find contradictory evidence for the pro-ERA series, where we see a
positive coefficient. While the coefficient fails to reach traditional levels of significance we should not
15
immediately dismiss this relationship. The ERA model is estimated with only 51 time points meaning
there is not a lot of information going into the calculations and we fall just short of significance (.11).
However, it is actually not surprising that we might find a difference for the ERA campaign since the
passage of legislation is most likely passage of the ERA amendment and the extension of the deadline
for ratification. Thus we would expect these bills to mobilize the movement for ratification in the states.
Political opportunities appear to have little effect on movement activities. We expected that democratic
presidents would result in increased movement activity because the Democratic Party is often seen as
supporting movement goals (hypothesis 5). However, our results suggest that democratic presidents
may actually reduce the number of movement events. For the models of all women’s movement
events and of pro-ERA events, the coefficient for change in party control of the president is negative,
but is not significant. In the pro-abortion models the coefficient for changes in party of the president is
negative and significant; indicating that when we change to a Democrat in control of the White House
we actually see less pro-Choice movement events.
We expect that when more state legislatures are under democratic control we will also see greater
movement activity (hypothesis 7). In all but one of the models we find positive relationship between
democratic control of state legislatures and women’s movement events, however, none of these
relationships are significant. When we add the control of passage of feminist legislation to the pro-
abortion model the sign on party control of the state legislature flips and becomes negative, but is still
not significant.
We expected that the rise of increased activity in the religious right movement would decrease feminist
movement activity. We find support for this expectation in that all the signs for the coefficient on the
religious rights event series are negative across all the models. However, in none of the models does
the variable reach traditional levels of statistical significance.
While we found little support for political opportunities shaping movement activities, we do see gender
opportunities playing a role affecting the number of movement events. We expected to see increased in
feminist event activity when public opinion increasingly reflected support for feminist ideas (hypothesis
10). We find support for this hypothesis for the women’s movement in general, the pro-Choice
campaign, and the pro-ERA time series. In the models of all women’s movement events we see a
significant and positive relationship between changes in gender attitudes and women’s movement
events. This relationship is observed at the 3rd and 4th lags indicating that it takes a while for the
women’s movement to sense the changes gender attitudes. We also observe a positive and significant
relationship between changes in attitudes about abortion and pro-abortion events at the fourth lag.
However this relationship is no longer significant once we control for the passage of feminist legislation.
There is, however, a positive and significant contemporaneous relationship between changes in
attitudes about the Equal Rights Amendment and pro-ERA events. An additional effect with a lag at
quarter 3 in the model suggests that there may be an additional slower effect of ERA attitudes on
movement events as well.
16
We also expected to see increased workforce participation among women to increase the number of
events in the women’s movement (hypothesis 12). Overall we find strong support for this hypothesis.
In the models of general women’s movement activity we find a positive and significant relationship
between changes in women’s workforce participation and women’s movement events at the second lag,
indicating the impact of the changes in workforce participation is only felt after two quarters. However,
the relationship is no longer significant when we include controls for the passage of feminist legislation.
The relationship between women’s workforce participation and pro-Choice events is slightly more
complicated. We observe a negative but insignificant relationship between contemporaneous changes
in women’s workforce participation in the model without the control for the passage of feminist
legislation. When we include the control for the passage of feminist legislation the sign on this
coefficient flips signs but remains insignificant. However, there is a positive and significant relationship
between changes in women’s workforce participation lagged one quarter and pro-Choice events that
remains significant with the inclusion of the policy success measure. There is also a positive
relationship between changes in women’s workforce participation at the second lag and pro-ERA
movement events. The relationship is insignificant without the passage of feminist legislation control,
but becomes significant when we control for passage of feminist legislation.
Finally, we expect increases in women’s representation will result in increases women’s events
(hypotheses 14). We find mixed and weak results for this hypothesis. For both the model of all
women’s movement events and the pro-ERA series we find a positive relationship between changes in
women’s representation and movement activity. However, these relationships fail to reach traditional
levels of significance. With the pro-abortion movement models we find a positive and significant
relationship at the first lag of changes in women’s representation. We also find a negative and
significant relationship between the second lag of changes in women’s representation and the pro-
abortion movement. The sign on the second lag flips and both the changes at the first and second lag
are no longer significant when we include the passage of feminist legislation measure.
We now turn our attention to examining the influence movements have on countermovement activity.
Models of countermovement activity are presented in Tables 4-6, with anti-women’s movement events
in Table 4, anti-ERA events in Table 5, and Table 6 contains the models for anti-abortion events series.
Once again we present two models for each of the dependent variables; one without a control for the
movement success, passage of feminist legislation, and one with the measure of movement success.
(Tables 4, 5, and 6 about here)
As we discussed above we expected and found that movements respond to countermovements, we also
expect that countermovements will respond to movements. However, the results suggest that
countermovement activity has a larger influence on movement behavior than movement behavior has
on countermovements. Looking at the models without the control for movement success we see some
evidence that countermovements are responding to movement activity. The model of all anti-women’s
rights events is positively and contemporaneously related to the general women’s rights movement
series. Additionally, the anti-ERA movement responds to movement events albeit at a slightly slower
17
speed; anti-ERA events are positively and significantly related to pro-ERA events which occurred one
quarter earlier. While the sign on the coefficient is in the predicted direction, our model of anti-
abortion events shows that pro-Choice events had little effect. Thus we find only some preliminary
support for hypothesis 3, that countermovements respond to movement activity.
An alternative hypothesis however was that countermovements may not be responding to the
movement activity, but to the success of women’s movements (hypothesis 2). We find strong support
that countermovements are mobilizing in response to movement success. Across all three of the
dependent variables, all anti-women’s movement events, anti-abortion events, and anti-ERA events, we
find a positive and significant relationship between the passage of feminist legislation and
countermovement events. Interestingly the relationships between countermovement events and
movement events are no longer significant after controlling for movement success. Thus, it appears
that movement success is more important in determining countermovement activity than the actual
activities associated with the movement.
We also examine the influence of political opportunities on countermovement activity by exploring the
relationship between party control of the presidency, party control of the state legislatures and religious
right movement events. In hypothesis 6 we state that a greater number of countermovement activities
should take place under republican presidents than under democratic presidents. For two of our
dependent variables, all anti-women’s movement events and anti-abortion events, the coefficients are
signed in the opposite direction of what we predicted, suggesting that there were more events under
democratic presidents. However, these coefficients do not reach statistical significance. The coefficient
in the models of anti-ERA events is signed in the predicted direction, but is not statistically significant.
The second political opportunity we examined is party control of the state legislature. We expect that
countermovements would increase their activity the fewer state legislatures were under democratic
control (hypothesis 8). The results of the general model of all anti-women’s movement events fits with
our expectation, larger numbers of democratic state legislatures decrease countermovement activity.
Conversely, lower numbers of democratic state legislatures increase countermovement activity. We
observe a similar relationship between party control of the state legislature and anti-abortion
movement events; however, this coefficient does not reach traditional levels of statistical significance.
The results are mixed when we look at the anti-ERA models. The coefficient for party control of the
state legislature is positive and insignificant in the model without the control for women’s movement
success. When we control for women’s movement success the coefficient for party control of state
legislature in the anti-ERA model is now signed in the expected direction but is still insignificant.
The final aspect of political opportunity we examine is the influence of the religious right movement on
countermovement activity. We expect the rise of the religious right will increase anti-feminist events
(hypothesis 9). We find a positive but insignificant relationship between the religious right movement
and our model of all anti-women’s movement events. Surprisingly our strongest relationship is found
for the anti-ERA movement series, where we find a positive and significant relationship. The rise in the
religious right appears to coincide with a rise in the number of anti-ERA events. The relationship
18
between religious right events and anti-abortion movement events, however, is the opposite direction
of what we predicted. The relationship is insignificant, but reaches close to traditional levels of
significance in the model without controls for movement success.
We also look at how gender opportunities shape countermovement activity. We begin by looking at the
influence of public opinion about women’s roles, the ERA, and abortion on their respective
countermovement variables. We expect that as gender attitudes grow more feminist there should be
an increasing number of countermovement events (hypothesis 11). Across the three different
dependent variables we find moderate support for the hypothesis. For all the dependent variables
there is a positive relationship between public opinion and countermovement events. For the model of
all anti-women’s movement events the relationship is significant at both the 3rd and 4th lag when we do
not control for movement success. When we control for movement success only the 4th lag remains
significant. Public opinion about the Equal Rights Amendment is significantly related to anti-ERA
countermovement events at the 2nd lag when we don’t control for movement success. The relationship
no longer reaches levels of statistical significance when the controls for women’s movement success are
added; however, a p-value of .134 suggests there may be some relationship, especially given the smaller
sample size of the model. While we observe a positive but insignificant relationship between attitudes
on abortion and the anti-abortion event, when we add the controls for success of the women’s
movement the relationship flips signs but remains insignificant.
The next gender opportunity we look at is women’s workforce participation, where we expect to find
that women’s increased workforce participation decreases countermovement events (hypothesis 13).
We find some support for this expectation. Women’s workforce participation is negatively related to
both all anti-women’s rights events and anti-abortion events. In the models without a control for
movement success, these relationships are in the correct direction but not statistically significant.
However, when we control for the passage of feminist legislation, the relationships remain in the
expected direction and becomes statistically significant. However, the coefficient on women’s
workforce participation is in the opposite direction than what we expected in the analysis of anti-ERA
events. Without controls for women’s movement success the relationship between women’s workforce
participation and the anti-ERA movement falls just short of traditional levels of statistical significance.
Once we add in the controls for movement success the relationship becomes significant.
Our final measure of gender opportunity is the representation of women in Congress. Hypothesis 16
states that we expect to see an increase in women’s representation decreasing countermovement
activity. We find little to support this hypothesis; in fact the majority of the models suggest the opposite
relationship. The coefficients in the models of all anti-women’s rights events and anti-abortion events
are positive and fall just short of reaching statistically significance when we do not control for the
passage of feminist. When we add in the control for policy success, the coefficients are still signed
opposite of what we expected but are now highly insignificant. Similarly when we do not control for
the success of the women’s movement, we observe a positive but insignificant relationship with anti-
ERA events. When we add in the control for women’s movement success the coefficient for women’s
representation flips signs but remains statistically insignificant.
19
Conclusions
The above analyses provide insight into our understanding of movement-countermovement
interactions, the influences on countermovement mobilization, and the nature of different issues within
the women’s movement. In the conclusion we discuss each of these in turn.
The literature on movements and countermovements – both theoretical and (largely qualitative)
empirical-- suggests that movements and countermovements are tied together in an endogenous
interaction where movement events inspire the creation of countermovements, and then they
themselves react to countermovement events. Our analysis, which controls for other possible effects,
suggests two things about this relationship. First, in our analysis we saw clear effects of
countermovement events on movement events particularly in the campaigns for the Equal Rights
Amendment and to protect abortion rights. In these cases, across the entire time period of the
campaigns movement events were influenced by countermovement events. However, movements had
less influence on countermovements. Although inherent in the name of countermovements is the sense
that they react to movement events and mobilization, countermovement mobilization was driven by
other factors than movement events. Thus, if the movements are engaged in an intricate dance, it
appears that countermovements take the lead even if they arrive late to the dance. Thus, once a
countermovement arises, it appears to somehow be able to lead the issue, at least in the specific
campaigns of the ERA and abortion rights.
Second, while most time series analysis examines endogenous effects of variables by looking at how
previous time periods of one variable influence current levels of the other variable, there is a great
degree of simultaneity in the interaction of movements and countermovements. Although we tested
different lag structures and are looking at quarterly data which is already highly refined compared to
most social movement data, we found that where movements react to countermovements and vice
versa that reaction occurs in the same time period. Thus, we suspect that the reactions of movements
to countermovements and vice versa are very quick – occurring on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
Particularly in the abortion campaign, this quick reaction is not surprising given that feminist activists are
often reacting to clinic violence and protest. One unanswered question, however, is whether the quick
reactions we find in the case of the women’s movement are mirrored in other movements. The timing
of such reactions deserve more investigation particularly as movement scholars collect more event data:
one possibility is that timing varies depending on the movement and its relationship with the
countermovement. Some countermovements – perhaps those that are acting in highly confrontational
ways or endanger activists in personal ways – may be more likely to inspire immediate response, while
other interactions may be more slow. All of this suggests the need to collect more finely grained event
data.
The results above also provide additional evidence about the factors that influence countermovement
mobilization. The passage of legislation appears more important than the events staged by women’s
movement. This suggests that it is not the movements themselves that inspire countermovements but
the practical effects that they have. It is important to remember that our event data consists only of
20
those highly visible events of movements – those that registered in a major national newspaper.
Hence, we have already selected those events that reach the public sphere. However,
countermovements appear less concerned with the effect that movement events have than on the
effects that concrete policies will have. Given that women’s movements have occasionally been
identified as differentiated from other movements because they focus on change throughout society
and not only on policy changes within the state (see van Dyke, Soule and Taylor 2004), the policy
changes they acquire nonetheless are important enough aspects to inspire opposition.
The results also suggest that local opportunities are important to anti-feminist movements in ways that
are not true for the women’s movement itself. In particular, anti-feminist movement events increased
when there were more state legislatures controlled by Republicans but feminist movement mobilization
was not affected by Democratic control of state legislatures. This supports the idea that
countermovements may have a different set of political opportunities than movements. Because they
arise when movements are already better established, they may require pockets of resistance to gain a
foothold.
For both movements and countermovements, though, measures of partisan control of the national and
state governments were less important than the gender opportunities reflected in public opinion and
women’s place in the workforce. Indeed, having a democratic in the White House reduced women’s
movement events, suggesting that movements demobilize when there is an ally in office. Of the gender
opportunity variables, only the number of women in Congress was insignificant across all six models, a
result that surprised us. The lack of significance may reflect that our measure was poor; entrée into
Congress is very difficult and the number of women in the institution has changed only slowly over time.
Alternatively, it may signal that of the gender opportunities available to the women’s movement,
positions in politics are less important than those in the workplace or family. Nonetheless, the overall
importance of gender opportunities especially in comparison with our measure of political opportunities
suggests that these movement specific opportunities are more significant than those available to all
social movements. Changing public opinion and women’s position is vital to the mobilization of
women’s movements even as they seek to alter these same factors.
Finally, while we found some similarities among movement and countermovement mobilization for all
feminist events, the Equal Rights Amendment events and events related to abortion, there were
significant differences as well. We see the effects of countermovement mobilization on movement
events most clearly when we focus on specific campaigns, although the analysis of abortion and ERA
campaigns both had shorter time-series. In addition, there were significant differences in the lag
structures of the independent variables and the sign and significance of variables’ coefficients across the
three dependent variables. This suggests that in looking at movement events, particularly those that are
highly visible, there may be campaign level factors that are important. In particular, the dynamics of the
battle around abortion and the battle around the Equal Rights Amendment differed in a number of
respects. Perhaps foremost is that while opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment centered around
the ratification campaign in state legislatures, pro-Life proponents have fought their battles in a number
of different venues from state legislatures to local clinics. Moreover, because of the ratification
21
deadline, both sides in the ERA battle had a limited timeline in which to fight, while such limitations do
not exist in the case of abortion. This suggests that social movement scholars should be considering the
role that campaign characteristics play in determining how the battle between movements and
countermovements is fought.
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27
Table 1. Analysis of All Feminist Events
Variables
Coef. s.e. Sig. Coef. s.e. Sig.
Movement eventst-1 0.14 0.08 0.083 0.20 0.10 0.041
Movement eventst-2 0.29 0.08 0.000 0.32 0.09 0.001
Movement eventst-3 0.35 0.08 0.000 0.29 0.09 0.002
Countermovement eventst 0.13 0.06 0.033 0.04 0.10 0.678
Religious Rightt -0.06 0.06 0.275 -0.09 0.09 0.315
Δ Public Opiniont-3 0.49 0.28 0.086 0.45 0.33 0.175
Δ Public Opiniont-4 0.77 0.29 0.008 0.75 0.33 0.027
Δ Dem. Presidentt -0.48 0.35 0.174 -0.28 0.42 0.496
Δ # of dem. statest 0.16 0.14 0.246 0.17 0.15 0.260
Δ women's workforce participationt-2 36.23 20.07 0.073 22.02 24.00 0.361
Δ # of women in Congresst-1 0.02 0.03 0.497 0.04 0.07 0.527
Δ # of feminist bills passedt -------- -------- -------- -0.07 0.07 0.305
Constant -0.09 0.07 0.220 -0.08 0.09 0.396
N= 139 111
pseudo R-squared= 0.54 0.61
Alternative Durbin's statistic= 1.549 5.776 *
(* significant at p=.05)
Base Model With Feminist Legislation
28
Table 2. Analysis of Pro-ERA events
Variables
Coef. s.e. Sig. Coef. s.e. Sig.
Movement eventst-1 0.50 0.10 0.000 0.47 0.13 0.001
Movement eventst-2 -0.12 0.11 0.283 -0.18 0.14 0.202
Movement eventst-3 0.17 0.10 0.098 0.20 0.13 0.132
Countermovement eventst-1 0.44 0.12 0.000 0.51 0.16 0.003
Religious Rightt -0.02 0.12 0.885 -0.39 0.33 0.246
Δ Public Opiniont 1.27 0.53 0.019 1.14 0.67 0.097
Δ Public Opiniont-3 0.78 0.49 0.119 0.99 0.62 0.118
Δ Dem. Presidentt -0.44 0.64 0.492 -0.74 1.08 0.498
Δ # of dem. statest 0.09 0.08 0.260 0.15 0.10 0.163
Δ women's workforce participationt-1 42.64 40.06 0.291 138.81 69.65 0.053
Δ # of women in Congresst-1 0.04 0.05 0.448 0.08 0.20 0.68
Δ # of feminist bills passedt -------- -------- -------- 0.23 0.14 0.112
Constant -0.08 0.16 0.625 -0.23 0.27 0.399
N= 79 51
pseudo R-squared= 0.45 0.38
Alternative Durbin's statistic= 0.74 0.59
(* significant at p=.05)
Base Model With Feminist Legislation
29
Table 3. Analysis of Pro-Choice Events
Variables
Coef. s.e. Sig. Coef. s.e. Sig.
Movement eventst-1 0.10 0.08 0.207 0.15 0.10 0.130
Movement eventst-2 0.11 0.07 0.139 0.19 0.10 0.062
Movement eventst-3 0.14 0.07 0.071 0.07 0.10 0.498
Countermovement eventst 0.50 0.07 0.000 0.27 0.09 0.003
Religious Rightt -0.11 0.07 0.106 -0.07 0.08 0.366
Δ Public Opiniont 0.03 0.03 0.185 0.01 0.02 0.807
Δ Public Opiniont-4 0.17 0.08 0.043 0.12 0.08 0.119
Δ Dem. Presidentt -1.03 0.39 0.009 -0.62 0.33 0.067
Δ # of dem. statest 0.00 0.03 0.919 -0.01 0.03 0.806
Δ women's workforce participationt -34.33 23.69 0.150 6.28 21.73 0.773
Δ women's workforce participationt-1 52.32 23.80 0.030 74.25 21.53 0.001
Δ # of women in Congresst-1 0.07 0.03 0.026 0.04 0.07 0.566
Δ # of women in Congresst-2 -0.08 0.03 0.016 0.06 0.07 0.343
Δ # of feminist bills passedt -------- -------- -------- -0.10 0.05 0.085
Constant -1.96 1.44 0.176 -0.58 1.20 0.628
N= 129 101
pseudo R-squared= 0.49 0.28
Alternative Durbin's statistic= 0.861 0.000
(* significant at p=.05)
With Feminist LegislationBase Model
30
Table 4. Analysis of All Anti-Feminist Events
Variables All Anti-Feminist Events
Coef. s.e. Sig. Coef. s.e. Sig.
Countermovement eventst-1 0.18 0.08 0.022 0.41 0.09 0.000
Countermovement eventst-2 0.13 0.08 0.136 0.05 0.15 0.728
Countermovement eventst-3 0.26 0.09 0.003 0.24 0.13 0.074
Movement eventst 0.17 0.08 0.028 0.10 0.07 0.136
Religious Rightt-1 0.06 0.07 0.389 0.08 0.08 0.331
Δ Public Opiniont 0.48 0.35 0.183 0.30 0.27 0.280
Δ Dem. Presidentt 0.44 0.40 0.271 0.17 0.30 0.585
Δ # of dem. statest -0.29 0.17 0.095 -0.24 0.13 0.057
Δ women's workforce participationt-1 -29.67 24.58 0.230 -58.03 20.82 0.006
Δ # of women in Congresst 0.06 0.04 0.109 0.01 0.06 0.904
Δ # of feminist bills passedt -------- -------- -------- 0.18 0.05 0.001
Constant 0.05 0.09 0.602 0.11 0.09 0.206
N= 141 113
pseudo R-squared= 0.35 0.34
Alternative Durbin's statistic= 0.00 1.068
(* significant at p=.05)
Base Model With Women's Rep.
31
Table 5. Analysis of Anti-Equal Rights Amendment Events
Variables
Coef. s.e. Sig. Coef. s.e. Sig.
Countermovement eventst-1 0.05 0.12 0.674 0.06 0.12 0.625
Movement eventst-1 0.17 0.09 0.065 0.10 0.09 0.293
Religious Rightt-1 0.24 0.12 0.053 1.10 0.25 0.000
Δ Public Opiniont-2 0.88 0.49 0.078 0.71 0.47 0.134
Δ Public Opiniont-3 1.16 0.50 0.024 0.60 0.49 0.227
Δ Dem. Presidentt -0.15 0.64 0.821 -0.51 0.82 0.536
Δ # of dem. statest 0.13 0.08 0.087 0.08 0.08 0.322
Δ women's workforce participationt-3 67.10 41.93 0.114 174.90 57.29 0.004
Δ # of women in Congresst 0.02 0.05 0.672 -0.14 0.16 0.376
Δ # of feminist bills passedt -------- -------- -------- -0.31 0.10 0.005
Constant -0.30 0.16 0.061 -0.60 0.22 0.010
N= 79 51
pseudo R-squared= 0.15 0.47
Alternative Durbin's statistic= 0.00 0.001
(* significant at p=.05)
Base Model With Women's Rep.
32
Table 6. Analysis of Anti-Abortion Events
Variables
Coef. s.e. Sig. Coef. s.e. Sig.
Countermovement eventst-1 0.13 0.09 0.165 0.30 0.10 0.002
Countermovement eventst-2 0.19 0.09 0.034 0.17 0.16 0.308
Countermovement eventst-3 0.27 0.09 0.003 0.20 0.17 0.239
Movement eventst-1 0.07 0.10 0.475 0.02 0.12 0.844
Religious Rightt-4 -0.10 0.07 0.167 -0.13 0.08 0.130
Δ Public Opiniont-1 0.09 0.10 0.333 -0.04 0.08 0.629
Δ Dem. Presidentt 0.46 0.46 0.323 0.35 0.37 0.339
Δ # of dem. statest -0.05 0.04 0.228 -0.04 0.03 0.148
Δ women's workforce participationt-1 -34.45 27.90 0.219 -66.11 23.41 0.006
Δ # of women in Congresst 0.07 0.04 0.106 0.06 0.06 0.290
Δ # of feminist bills passedt -------- -------- -------- 0.18 0.06 0.003
Constant 0.08 0.10 0.419 0.13 0.10 0.206
N= 132 104
pseudo R-squared= 0.31 0.24
Alternative Durbin's statistic= 0.535 0.131
(* significant at p=.05)
With Women's Rep.Base Model
33
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