Hi, everyone. Please turn off your phone. Sign up for our email letter and follow us on twitter and instagram. We have a new website and would love for you to visit. On our website you can see all of the great events we have going on like tonights event with melissa dirksen. She is hear to talk about her new book about women in the tea party and talks about our understanding of politics and women and the future of women in politics. She is a professor of Public Affairs at wacs college and chairs the Political Science and she is an expert on gender, religion and american politics and the author and coauthor of four books. Please join me in welcoming melissa to kramer books. Thank you for kramer books for having me. Thank you for coming and i see a lot of familiar faces so i am happy to see my friends and supporters. And i want to say thank you to my husband whose support and criticism was critical to the project and i want it thank him for finding a parking spot in du pont village because it took over 30 minutes. I want to talk about why i decided to write a book about Tea Party Women. When the tea party bursted on to the political scene in 2009 i was struck by the role women were playing in visible leaders. Women like beth martin and amy kramer who were cofounders of the newest group to emergen, te party patriots. I was struck by a litany of conservative womens organizations like smart girl politics is a pretty big one for conservative women, as mom is another one, a sisterhood of mommy pat patriots. And i was reading in the paper about women starting organizations at the grass root level for the tea party. When the tea party emerged the largest supporters politically speaking of national known figures were women. Michelle bachmann started the Tea Party Caucus and the original mommy grisly herself, sarah palin is still often links with the tea party. Linked. I have studied right wing movements for a long time and in the early ones the women were part of them but behind the scenes rather than front and center. There has been notable exceptions to that rule. Phyllis is probably the best exception to that and she is best known for having stopped the era in the 1970s. One of the women i interviewed for the book said to me when we sat down for the interview is phyllis blackly was tea party before there was tea party. She is actually right. She really was if you look her writings earlier and still today. But generally speaking, while conservative women have been active in politics they have not been front and center in a way i saw them in the tea party. Why are so many women out in front of the movement prompted the book. I want to know the significance of this for politics. You are heard of the gender gap in american politics. Since 1980, roughly, women are significantly more likely than men to vote for Democratic Candidates and more lake likely to identify as democrats. I want to determine were we beginning to see a shift in american womens orientation and were they becoming more left leaning than right leaning . Tonight i thought what i would do is focus on maybe three major points from the books and then we will open it up to questions that you might have about the project. First i will discuss why women join the tea party and i will pay particular attention to the rhetoric a lot of these women use that is gendered in nature. One of the fascinating things about the project was the extent the Tea Party Women were arguing conservative policies were good for women and their families. Then i want to talk about why women emerged as leaders in the tea party in ways they had not earlier in active movements and in direct contrast to their leadership opportunities in the Republican Party. Last but not least i want to talk about the rise of Women Leaders and what it means for the gender gap in politics. I want to talk about the methods i used using qualitative and quanatative method to address the question. In 2012 and 2013 i had a sabbatical and i spent the year going to rallies and my former dissertation chair introduced me to a book that talked about hanging out and getting to know the people. I interviewed 29 activists women who were involved in different conservative organizations about why they decided to become involved in the tea party. I also from a quanatative perspective used data from a wonderful Organization Called tri and the cofounders are here today. It is a nonprofit nonpartisan Research Organization that is dedicated to understanding religion and values and culture in America Politics and life. They have wonderful data that asks about if people identify themselves as part of the tea party. I used that question and isolated women who consider themselves as part of the tea party and compare them to other american women. In terms of their politics. Why do women feel compeled to be part of the tea party compelled. The women became active initially for the same reasons as men. They were fed up with what palin calls crony capitalism. They felt government was getting too big and didnt like the response of government bailing out wall street and didnt like the stimulus package. Their vision of what American Government should look like is far more limited in scope and relies on pure taxes and it is grounded in a more conservative interpretation of the constitution. Many of the activist i spoke with talked about their anger at the establishment republicans. This is something we are hearing about a lot this election cycle but a few years ago they felt many republicans in washington starting with george w. Bush were rhinos republicans in name only. So that prompted them to get involved. A case in point, a millennial from seattle started a blog called liberty belle. She is credited with holding the First Tea Party in the United States in february of 2009. This was before the tea party moniker came to define that movement. She was holding a protest in her native seattle to really protest the american recovery and reinvestment act which is commonly known as the stimulus package. She called the protest a pork fest and gained a lot of media attenti attention. A long time conservative colomnist reached out and told me the reason she got involved was the stimulus bill. She said i saw what candidate obama was saying and thought he was a total radical and i could not understand why everyone thought he was moderate. It spurred me into action and to do something. Soon after, she went to work full time for chief party patriots. I heard similar responses from the other women i interviewed as well including dianne reamer who is from pennsylvania and a tea Party Activist. She was hired by Tea Party Patriots later as well and she said my husband and i were annoyed with bush and the bailout and then mr. Obama comes along with more bailouts. I saw on the news about the First Tea Party on february 27th, 2009 and happening after rick san pely ran. If you recall, rick san telly is a reporter from cnbc and was on the floor of the Chicago Stock Exchange and protesting and angry with the Obama Administration proposals with the stimulus package to help homeowners who were behind on their mortgage payment. From the floor of the exchange he called for chicago citizens to hold their own tea party and here is what he said. He said basically that the obama quote promoted bad behavior among consumers and advocating government policy to reward people who carry the water instead of drinking the water. That was rebroadcast and other conservative media outlets. I wanted to mention it because an a lot of women i talk to mention that instance being vital why they wanted to become in the tea party. It wasnt just broad economic concerns. What i found interesting when talking to people was their gender was an important part of why they became part of the movement. Many talked about roles as a mother galvanized them. This is whitany neal who was the National Grassroots coordinator for Freedom Works which is a Koch Brothers organization that is primarily a libertarian organization. This is what she had to say she said for me personally, i think about my son, and i want him to be personally responsible, independent, i want him to challenge himself. I dont want him to live in a world where the government has told him what he can be or how to be it or the government says i can solve your problem. As a mom, i would think any mom wants their children to go out and make something of themselves whatever they want to be and not fall back saying the government has to help me unless it is necessary. When i was interviewing the Tea Party Women and reading blogs i began to see a motherhood frame develop and these women as mothers were saying they felt conservative policies with respect to the size and scope of government were jermaine to women and mothers. Let me talk about three of the frames. And i talk more about it in the book. One of the frames is the Kitchen Table frame. This is the idea that mothers should become involved in conservative economic politics because since they have to stay at home around the Kitchen Table the federal government should be doing the same thing. This is an idea of what i mean. Jenny beth martin told me quote we are the ones in the houses and families for balances the checkbooks, and buying groceries and seeing what sales make sense. When it comes to our personal family checkbooks women pay close attention and we want government to do the same thing. I think that message appeals to women because they are doing this anyway in their own home. Another theme i identified is what i call the generational theft framework. A lot of Tea Party Women call on mothers to pressure the leaders to reduce the federal debt so they can safeguard the next generation and insure children and grandchildren enjoy a higher standard of living. An example comes from sarah palin who was speaking at the speech and the first time mama grisly became introduced into the political hexagon. She was warning political leaders to be quote worry of moms rising up and the tea party to fight against Big Government and says quote these women are getting involved because they want a better life for all of our kids and these policies coming out of d. C. Right now, this fundamental transformation of america we were warned about in the campaign, a lot of women concerned about their kids future are saying we dont like this transformation of america and the road we are on toward national insolvancy. The last thing is the idea we should have limited government because a large government dissevdi disserves the role of the family. The conservative women i interviewed were good examples of this. I interviewed the eagle director and she told me quote i can see how Government Policies can be detrimental to the families. In order for government to grow families have to shrink. She said if you have mothers and fathers supporting each other and raising their own children not only does that limit welfare use, marriage is the solution to poverty and a great inticator of prosperity. That is one of the issues we fight. Liberals are not always fighting for equality. We believe everyone has equality and the greatest thing the government can to to provide the equality is keep us safe and give us economic freedom. The mother framework wasnt the only gender reference. Several Tea Party Women went so far saying policies like social welfare spending, requiring companies to provide family leave or increasing workplace regulations against workplace sex discrimination and they believe these are anti feminist because they believe liberal women groups are promoting policies that protray portray the Womens Movement which is they believe women are equal to men. I interviewed two women who hoshost chicks on the right. We were talking about Government Social welfare programs and she said Many Americans support the programs out of empathy what women dont here is really how these programs keep women down. They keep them down and poor and dependented on these programs. They dont see show non empowering these programs are. She went on to draw a contrast between liberal groups who want the policy and what her group advocate for. She said we say we are the real feminist and liberals high jacked the term. I think feminism is when you are accountable and able to take care of yourself. Some women extended this to guns. I wasnt going to write about guns in the book. But i was an a sabbatical and the tragic shooting in connecticut happened. When i was reading the website of the chief i saw comments on gun rights. I was struck with the gender arguments about what the women were making and why it was important to safe guard rights. Some had a feminist bench. They made the argument that trying to take away womens rights to own guns is really not empowering. This is a good example of that. One of the women i profiled in the book mia glim took issue with Vice President joe biden. If you recall joe biden was tasked to spear head efforts to get gun control in the senate. Biden told a group of women activists who were progun control that shotguns were just as effective at semiautomatic guns at stopping intruders. And this is what mia had to say i am getting sick of joe biden and these people telling me i cannot carry a certain round or have this many rounds in my magazine. It sounds like honey, that is too much vehicle for you or that horse is too loud for you. I am tired of it. I think a lot of women who dont agree with us would say where is the outcry and the women saying stop talking to me like that. I can make these decisions for myself. I was struck by this sort of feminist rhetoric around gun rights. I think the first thing that distinguishes Tea Party Women from earlier generations of conservative women activist is they are simply bringing more resources to the political arena. They have higher levels of education, they have a lot of work experience, they have lots of manager experience. This is very different than the source of women, for example, that phyllis was organizing in the 1970s who were stay at home moms and didnt have college educations. So political scientist have found there is a link between social economic status and political participation rates. So i think that is one way that Tea Party Women leaders are different. Secondly, social media has been critical for Tea Party Women. Party politics is time consuming and labor intensive and social media reduced the barrier of entry for these women. And i think that compared to the Republican Party the tea party is a lot more appealing because these women are very conservative and dubious on the Republican Party. I interviewed the person from the tea party in dallas texas who is now Donald Trumps national spokeswomen so you see her on tv these days. She started a tea party in texas, that was her first entry. She felt the decentralized nation held a greater appeal for conservative women than the Republican Party. She said social media was crucial to this as well saying quote women cant be overlooked with this platform. It used to be male leaders could take an idea of their own but with social media women can be attributed and define themselves and have their ideas heard. You dont have to go through the club any longer. Other tea party who were critical of the Republican Party point to the negative treatments that sarah palin and bachman as evidence the gop hasnt been very welcoming of women becoming leaders in the party. Others complain the planned parenthood Republican Party is too slow moving. I was told you dont have to cut through all of the layers compared to the Republican Party. So they say the republicans are too unwilling to compromise. The last point is what all of this means. We have tees these leaders in the tea party, they are outspoken. Do we see the tea party is Holding Greater appeal for the american women nationally . To answer this, i turn to data from pri, and i am moving from examining Tea Party Leaders and activist to what a pollster at cato calls the other party. Those people in the general public who sympathize with the tea party but are not as active. Who are Tea Party Women nationally speaking . Here i am going to rely on data from the 2012 American Value survey. At that point in time, nine percent of american women said they consider them self to be part of the tea party. They are a minority. Twice as many women in 2012 identified as republican not not affiliated with the republican. 72 of women are independents or democrats. Tea party women are a small minority of the population. They are overwhelmly white and most likely to identify as republicans although significant chungs are independent. Three percent are democrats. I am not sure why the democrats say they are part of the tea party. In terms of economic status of these women i would describe as comfortable and middle class. Slightly less likely to be college educated. Work they are more religious than other american women and socially conservative. Pri found two thirds of Tea Party Women identify as born again christians. You will not be surprised to find themselves identifying as conservative and 30 say they are very conservative. Last two points here, they hold the most negative attitudes about barack obama by far compared to other women. Even more negative than republican women who are not part of the tea party. One area where they differ from other republican women is their criticism of the gop. Women who are republicans, not part of the tea party, seem to be very happy with the Republican Party. That is not really so with Tea Party Women. They are very critical of the Republican Party. So my book has a lot of analysis on Tea Party Women and the upshot is not surprisingly they are more conservative but on Economic Issues they are conservative to republican women but look very different than other american women. There is one question i did want to share the response to because i think it is revealing. Pri asks this question on surveys that i call the American Dream question. So this is a question. To what extent do you agree children from all income groups have opportunities for success. Most american women 70 or so independents and democrats just 38 agree that children from all income group have opportunities for success. When you go to republican women who dont identify as Tea Party Members half agree, 52 . But 75 of Tea Party Women say they believe every child as a chance to get out of poverty or become successful. I think it fundamentally shows you their world view in that one question. Many liberals will argue the reason people are stuck in their income bracket is because of structural barriers. We need more Government Programs to help the poor get vouchers for daycare and need more government involvement here. For the Tea Party Women i spoke with believe people can do it on their own and americans can pull themselves up by their boot straps. They believe part of the problem is why people are dependent on programs. At this time, i dont see that Many American women are going to be receptive to what the tea party is selling even though many of these Tea Party Women have clear rational regarding why they think these policies are good for american families. Another surprising thing is another women in the mass public who identify as tea party dont march in step with the Tea Party Leaders and activists. Two examples, the right wing leaders i interviewed in my book are against raising the minimum wage or establishing a government mandated leave or sick policy because they believe the free market is best left to handle the issues and government regulations leads to stifled job creation and always the policies hurt women more than help them is their idea. This view isnt shared by tea party view in the mass public. 52 of Tea Party Women nationally support increasing the minimum wage. They are more conservative than other american women but half said maybe we should increase the minimum wage. 70 of Tea Party Women favor mandating paid and family leave. The writer of harvard wrote the first study on tea party and they found despite the tea Party Activist take issue with Big Government and decry socialism they support medicare and other programs. They said Tea Party People judge entightment programs not in term of free market orthdoxy. They go on the difference for them is not state versus individual but the workers verse people that dont work. Another reason i think the tea party faces an up hill battle is the few of the movement has soured. Since 2010, 11 of americans so it is down to 6 . Fewer americans really feel sympathy with or are inclined to support the tea party. I dont think it is hard to see why. I think most americans view the tea party as obstructionist and look at the republican allies who shutdown the government over the debate of funding obamacare and wouldnt raise the debt ceiling and the impact that had. Political scientist studies show women especially are turned off by attack oriented rhetoric in politics and that is also why maybe women are less likely to find the Tea Party Message appealing. Lastly i will say this and then turn and close to question. I think the initial focus of the movement in 2009 was one of economics and frustration with wall street and the bailout. Many tea Party Activists were trying to promote conservative Economic Policy and avoid social issues. But i think as the tea party progressed, we see the tea party moniker has been attached to more controversial social and cultural issues such as Immigration Reform. So i think those very cultural concerns are more polarizing to the general public and that hasnt helped in getting all women to support tea party values ask and policies. I hear there is an election going on. You might want to talk about that. So, iachytually so much surprisingly donald trump is just as polarizing in the tea party as he is among the general public. Obviously i wrote the book before donald trump was a candidate. But for some Tea Party Women they are flocking to him. Catrina pierson is the spokesperson for trump. The appeal for these women is he is antiestablishment and willing to break the rules. He is willing to shake it up in a way the Republican Party fears they will never do. With trumps emergence in the political debate he brought Immigration Reform to the forefront and renewed the base of immigration. I have found that going back and checking websites there is lots of antiimmigration and antimuslim and they find appeal in the message trump wants to make America Great again. Earlier tea Party Activists would say we need it take america back so there is sympathy for some Tea Party Women toward donald trump. However, having said that, some Tea Party Women believe he is essentially not trust worthy or au t authentically conservative. Some feel he is not a true conservative and supports a bigger government. They dont support trump but they dont support hillary so they will not vote for him. I think lot of tea Party Activist favor ted cruz. So they are mad and angry cruz wasnt able to become the partys nominee. He does have supporters even in the tea party but they are not keen overall on donald trump. What do you think the future holds for the tea party . If you look how far the Republican Party has come on issues, the rational of reducing the deficit and lower taxes is Republican Party orthodox. I dont think americas like the message but it has been successful. Very conservative activists believe they will not be happy until the federal government is a libertarian mission. I dont think that will happen. But i think they will be involved in politics. I think there will be groups making arguments for conservative policies to deal with those issues whether they maintain tea Party Framework or the name i am not sure. Michelle bachmannman is no longer in congress and started the tea party talks. Many conservatives in congress rebranded as the liberty caucus. I think you see a dropping away from the tea party name but right wing activism will be involved in some capacity. The question is he talked about me mentioning the divide among tea party athlete and the mass public, women at least, with respect to paid family and medical leave and if there would be a similar divide for programs geared at children like tanf. I would suspect yes. My haunch is there would be a divide. The reality is entitlement programs are poplar with the general public. I would say Tea Party Women is not supportive of social welfare in general. But i would suspect there would be a divide. [inaudible question] this is a question about Leaders Within the teep tea party and how they interact with leaders. Part of this is it is a fluid movement so some groups existing a couple years ago dont exist and newer groups pop up. I mentioned Tea Party Patriots that was cofounded by two women and another man but he is no longer with the organization. At the time i did the interview five of the six National Coordinators were women. This wasnt a gender tea party group. Just Tea Party Patriots. A very straightforward tea party organization. My sense of talking to people in the tea party was there are lots of Women Leaders and they encourage more women to get involved in the tea party. Many thought it was a far more open place to become a leader than say the Republican Party. In the book, i talk about women having negative experiences trying to get involved in the local gop. They were rebuffed and had sexist treatments. They are willing to recognize sexism exists among conservative outlets. For them, the tea party allows with social media to form groups in way they want to reach out to people. It is a very welcoming space in lots of ways. The irony for many liberal feminist would be that you are rejecting policies that allowed you to arise as leaders. But many Tea Party Women find it to be a welcoming space. Does that answer your question . [inaudible question] that is a good question. The focus of my own research i intervieweded women activist. I cannot speak to gender dynamics per se. We should bear in mind a lot of women i interviewed didnt put gender rational as the primary reason they became involved. But to reach out to more women they embraced feminist or mother rhetoric as a way to juxtapose other womens groups. I think about the gun control debate and women talking about why they need gun control for protections. Some argued it was more important for women have to guns because they are physically less strong. It is not they would primarily think they would hold the views because they are women but extend our ideas of what gender identity mean in lots of ways. The system is designed to be a tea party system. Even if they formed a fourth party i dont think there is enough support to be successful. This might be the year the Libertarian Party get to debate. They will not win but maybe debate this year. I am dubious they will form a tea party. The tea Party Activist i spoke with have a lovehate relationship with the Republican Party. They are not happy with the direction and dont think it is conservative enough. They realize they cannot get policies achieved and passed unless they go with the Republican Party. They work closely to try to make the rebrand the gop into a more conservative party. I think realistically they will not be forming their own third party. I would argue at the state level the tea party has been more successful because if you look at 2010 there was a wave of republicans taking over state legislatures especially in the south. So the policies the state legislatures are passing in the deep south especially and midwest that are republican controlled are close to what the tea party was initially arguing for. So at the state level, there is definitely a little bit more successful, i think. [inaudible question] in the sense of women or people becoming more conservative . [inaudible question] it could happen. We will have to see. I am interested to see what happens after trump and what the Republican Party looks like after this election. You know, we will have to see. [inaudible question] this a question about libertarian and Tea Party Women. Some of the women i interviewed definitely identified as libertarian. But the tea party is drawing in socially conservative women. Two 3rds of the Tea Party Women in the general public are born again christians and they will never be libertarian because libertarian support abortion right and gay marriage and freedom for everyone and that would not jive with a lot of activist i interview. There are definitely libertarian in the movement who are women. A lot of them dont do gender policies and they think are good for every individual but doesnt stop them from arguing why their policies better for women ultimately. I know robbie and dan did a study in 2013 called in search of libertarians and i think only 8 of americans are truly libertarian in terms of rejecting Government Relations in all areas of life. It is not a poplar position for most people in this country
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