When I wonder who could have stopped the rise of fascism, Adolph Hitler's fame, or the Nazi movement before 1933 when Germany's far right took power, I feel certain that women could have accomplished it, ending the mass murders and second world war began they began. My initial reasoning is that women raise the sons and daughters whose radicalization empowered Hitler's regime. However, I acknowledge that women would have needed a special power to know at least a decade before the Nazi movement grew beyond its cultist core the kind of teaching and nurturing that could effectively counter fascism's propaganda. Impossible. Or is it? Did women -- mothers, aunts, sisters, wives, neighbors, professionals -- foresee their duty to stand against tyranny? Did women obey in advance or use their influence to resist?
Although I revel in historical accounts, both non-fiction books and documentaries, I am not a historian. So that I may with my readers' permission suggest comparisons between the German era prior to 1933 and recent decades in which the USA has turned politically to the far right, I claim no expertise. I will not attempt to sell this essay. These are my ideas, my opinions.
Women are the foci of many Republican policies since the 20th century feminist movements that began with women's suffrage, danced through the Roaring 20's leap in women's literature, arts, and journalism. Feminism found impetus in women's contributions outside their traditional roles during WWII. Once again, alongside anti-war protests and civil rights marches, feminists and women challenged the thinking in all political circles that they were second-class citizens with minimal rights. However, this 1960s era of protests and urban unrest and civil rights legislation fueled the anger and backlash that followed and is still alive today.
Southern white fundamentalist churches decried the arrogance of elitists, feminists, Black Americans, draft dodgers, and hippies. Jerry Falwell, middle aged and seeking national attention, seized the moment. Pastors in the evangelical movement allied with one another to grow their ranks and church attendance. After Nixon's public shame, members of the Republican leadership realized they could divert attention from the party's failures and seize the rage growing among southern Democrats who thumped their Bibles like they did their naughty children's ears. The southern white male supremacists switched political parties. A new alliance took shape that heralded and secured the Reagan era. Christian Nationalism was born. Today, Trump's incoming administration and both congressional chambers are flooded with Christian Nationalists. The war on women's rights began in earnest in the 1970s.
The Reagan era was the first real test for America's women. We were working outside the home, essentially holding down two or more jobs. We were earning university degrees at an historically unprecented rate among women. We saw the Democratic party honor women by nominating a woman for the office of Vice President. We unashamedly accepted the role of single parent and advocated to remove all stigma tied to unwed motherhood. We stole the music charts, sat as equals with male counterparts on boards and in governments, and we pioneered the age of transparency and internet access.
Underneath that mountain of achievments was another women's movement. Inside this movement, women accepted subservient roles and behaviors. For Christian Nationalism to grow and thrive, men -- the white male supremacists -- knew they needed women. They needed women to rage at The Other Women. Men needed women to fill the church pews and grow evangelicalism, thereby growing the ranks of Republican voters. Men needed women to embody a unique America First culture and fight for it. In their own homes, with their votes, in the churches, and by their men's sides.
The test I speak of was two-fold. 1) How would women respond to the HIV crisis and the government's handling of it? (a test because American women wholly supported every advance in medicine and rarely demeaned male homosexuality before this crisis) 2) How would women respond to the conservative party after the nation's religious fanatics and white supremacists swelled its numbers and power? (a test because women who traditionally voted for small government also advocated for public education to build their children's opportunities and welfare programs to help the community's most vulnerable). The Republican party had plans. Women's votes factored into that agenda.
You know what happened. The Republican party campaigned on traditional roles, safer streets, two-parent families, welfare queens, war on drugs, gay culture, school prayer, the communist threat...and most important, resentment. Women should resent the feminists. Women should resent women who are different: single parent, the boss, childless by choice, black or brown, educated or ambitious. The Republican party welcomed the Christian Nationalists and began to chip away at women's freedoms. First by convincing women that their way of life was threatened. Second by convincing women that the freedoms other women enjoyed were sinful. Petty jealousies were no longer an issue at women's bridge clubs or church conferences. Women now felt entitled to hate other women...for no other reason than those other women did not approve of the Republican agenda.
Half of all women in the USA were now on the side of white male supremacy -- even though no one in the 1980s framed their allegiances that way. Had women supported a vulnerable group, gay men, and used their votes to defy a Republican party's unjust first reponse to the HIV crisis -- the conservative party's push to the far right would have met a strong Wall of Resistance. Had women who witnessed the rise in power of white supremacists and Christian leaders in the Republican party used their voices and their own powers to defy it...What is my point? They did not. Few women, Democrat or Republican or Independent or nonpartisan, dared to be the target of religious hatred and Republican political muckraking. Perhaps women said, "This too shall pass." As we often do say. But it did not pass. And here we are in 2024.
Instead, half of our nation's women abetted the rise of Christian Nationalism, a movement that means to end our liberal democratic republic, end public education or at least diminish its impact, empower the oligarchs and white male supremacy, harm immigrants and refugees, harm people who are LGBTQ, criminalize women who seek safe abortions, promote women's traditional roles as homemakers over other ambitions, ...the list is heartbreaking to make.
If any of this resembles the era in Europe prior to the National Socialist Party's rise to power in Germany, I would not be surprised. History tends to repeat itself.
Part 2 will be a look at solutions. I am nobody. But at 71 years of age, I do have at least one ambition left over: write to learn and write to share.