The Right Women: A Journey Through the Heart of Conservative America

by Elinor Burkett

Despite feminist predictions that women's liberation would forge a national sisterhood steeped in common values and goals, today's most outspoken voices come from women who ironically embody the ideal of independence even as they denounce the principles of "old" feminism. Drawing on more than one hundred interviews, Elinor Burkett takes readers into the lives, minds, and hearts of conservative women, from prominent politicians like Elizabeth Dole to gun-toting militiawomen. Neither an attack on feminism nor a defense of antifeminism, The Right Women is an evenhanded and lively exploration of a movement that is rewriting the rules, not only for women, but for American society as a whole.

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Elinor Burkett is an American journalist, author, film producer, and documentary director known for her incisive reporting, scholarly work, and filmmaking. A film she produced, Music by Prudence, won the 2009 Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject). Burkett earned a doctorate in Latin American History from the University of Pittsburgh and a master’s in journalism from Columbia University. She taught history at Frostburg State University for thirteen years before transitioning to journalism, contributing to The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Harper's Bazaar, and serving as chair of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks Department of Journalism. She has held Fulbright professorships in Kyrgyzstan and Zimbabwe, where she continues to train journalists. Burkett is the author of numerous books, including A Gospel of Shame, The Gravest Show on Earth, and Golda Meir: A Biography. She has also directed documentaries, including Is It True What They Say About Ann. Burkett divides her time between New York and Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, pursuing journalism, filmmaking, and writing.

Reviews

[Callie]

I picked up this book because I'm a huge fan of Elinor Burkett's book "An American Woman In All the Wrong Places," which tells about her brief stint living and traveling throughout Central Asia. This book attempts to describe the women of the Republican party and other more conservative groups circa 1995. I learned a lot in this book about the way other people think, about the reasons behind certain conservative ideas, and also about feminist theory. What I like about this book is that Burkett, a self-described secular Jew, doesn't patronize the women she's writing about. She doesn't mock the beliefs presented even though clearly they couldn't be more different from her own. Some of the most interesting chapters were the ones devoted to conservative Christians and another to abortion. As a Christian myself, I'm used to and expect a liberal bias of Christians as judgemental, dumb, banging-people-over-the-head-with-the-Bible, etc. It was entertaining to read her description and impression of these Christian women because they were like a different species for her, but she managed to show respect for differences nonetheless, for the most part. Anyway, I definitely learned a lot from this book, but I limit it to 3 stars because it did drag in parts and was a bit repetetive, especially regarding feminism's decline and how all these women who claim not to be feminists are not being grateful, not realizing that they can only say that b/c of the freedoms they take for granted, granted them through feminism's struggles.

[Karen]

After 3 years with liberal history professors (hard to believe at BYU, I know), this was the first conservative viewpoint I was assigned to read. I really like it! I was definitely more "moderate-left" at the time of reading this book, and since then would consider myself moderate to conservative. (It wasn't just the book, but the book got me thinking...)

[CJ]

This felt very of its time (especially the part about abortion) but I still greatly enjoyed the experience of reading it. Also, it was a real mindfuck to get a window into the 90s-era versions of Kellyanne Conway, Laura Ingraham, etc.

[Kate]

Fascinating dissection of women in America, the rest of America - the stuff between the coasts. You may have seen us....