2.1 A Circumscribed Female Identity

For Phyllis Schlafly, the female identity was to be deployed within a specific framework. In her 1977 book entitled The Power of the Positive Woman, she developed her argument regarding the origins of women’s power and its boundaries. It was based on the premise that “positive” women drew their power from their female nature. In the chapter “Understanding the Difference,” Schlafly reminds her readers that men and women are inherently different. The reaffirmation of sexual differences, a customary explanation for women’s alleged inferiority, emerged as the cornerstone of her gendered discourse and it delineated her view of the female identity. Sexual organs, quantity of water, fat tissues, tendency to color blindness, life expectancy, and other physical features as well as physical endurance, emotional state and psychology belonged to a long list of differences that could not be ignored.¹² The reassuring belief in the existence of feminine womanhood and masculine manliness lies at the core of a traditional vision of society.

This essentialism also translated into the idea that women could only be fulfilled if they yielded to their bodily drives. More specifically, happiness depended upon their ability to live according to what made them uniquely female: the ability to give birth. Schlafly then advised that a woman should “rejoice in the creative capability within her body.”¹³ She encouraged women to celebrate their distinctive characteristics and see maternity as a source of power. The narrative of the “positive woman,” whose tranquility and self-persuasion was asserted by Phyllis Schlafly, may have been an attempt to revive the spirit of Norman Vincent Peale’s work. A popular American minister and lecturer, he lauded God’s goodwill when linked to self-discipline and a positive attitude toward one’s life in a best-seller entitled, The Power of Positive Thinking (1952).¹⁴ Destabilized by the questioning of social norms by social movement activism in the 1960s, Schlafly offered a reassuring narrative about American society, which could only persist if people preserved traditional gender roles. She positioned herself as an expert in the issue of women’s happiness and produced her own spiritual guidebook, as she hoped to strengthen her leadership role by delivering guidance on how to regulate gender behavior.

Additionally, such a positive outlook on life worked in connection with religious gendered prescriptions. In the previously mentioned chapter of her book, Schlafly argues that “It was self-evident to the Positive Woman that the female body with its baby-producing organs was not designed by a conspiracy of men but by the Divine Architect of the human race.”¹⁵ Her essentialist argument, consisting in restricting women to their procreative potential, stemmed from the precepts of the Church, which underlined God’s intervention in the arrangement of gender roles. In her second book about women’s power, The Power of the Christian Woman (1981), Schlafly openly refers to the Bible to remind her followers of their religious duty. Echoing Genesis, which teaches Christians to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” (Genesis 1: 28), she concludes that “the Christian woman looks upon the ability to participate in the creation of new life as God’s greatest gift to women.”¹⁶ God’s design was interpreted as a generous gesture, as well as a superior truth that translated into an honorable mission bestowed upon women.

Phyllis Schlafly’s discourse on the purpose of womanhood contributed to granting women a dignified purpose, despite their circumscribed world. Conservative women were told to regard their familial status as the primary vector of their identity, even more so since this identity had socioeconomic implications.

2.2 The Partnership Between the Sexes

Conservative women’s adherence to traditional gender roles could also be explained in relation to their male counterparts. If a woman was to become a mother, this was expected to happen within the specific framework of heterosexual marriage. Maternity, indeed, proceeded with marriage. Schlafly professed early on that “most women want to be wife, mother and homemaker—and are happy in that role.”¹⁷ Therefore, the only legitimate social scenario for men and women was to get married and to have children.

The model of the married couple and their offspring living under the same roof, praised by Schlafly, was inscribed in a long tradition of regulations for gender relations. Some historians, such as Elaine Tyler May, explain that in the years after the Second World War a conformist discourse loomed over the American society.¹⁸ Despite a return to a more prosperous economy, the citizenry worried about tensions with the Soviet Union, in the context of the Cold War. The family appeared as a new emotional safeguard against darker times, forecast by the nuclear threat, and traditional gender roles were revived. May conjures a notion of “domestic containment” to describe this renewed trust in the power of the family and the pressure put on women to refocus on the home.¹⁹ This was transcribed into a new socioeconomic consensus called the “nuclear family,” conveniently reframed as the new American dream. Such an ideal implied a sexual division of labor and a co-dependence of spouses whereby the man would provide for the well-being of his family through his professional activity and the woman would take care of the home and the children. Men and women, in their complementary roles of breadwinner and homemaker, formed a functional socioeconomic unit, ready to participate in the new consumption frenzy.²⁰ Hence, there were practical reasons for the marital union since it offered a socioeconomic partnership.

The core of Phyllis Schlafly’s view on the family was this strict separation between male and female duties in an economic perspective. This was foundational to the “social relations of the sexes” (rapports sociaux de sexe), a concept developed by French sociologists. It highlights the primacy of the sexual division of work (both professional and domestic) in the consideration of women’s domination and emancipation, and allows understanding of “the antagonistic dimension in the relations between the class of men and the class of women.”²¹ What represents the main ideological tool for social conservatives such as Schlafly is a fundamental inequality between the sexes, who are thus split between two interdependent economic classes. Of course, the social relations connecting men and women were not presented as a hardship but as the result of a natural complementarity, beneficial to both parties.

Far from the ordeal often described by some feminists, the family unit sealed by marriage was viewed as socioeconomic leverage from which women drew enormous advantages. From their status as wife, they derived invaluable protection, as Schlafly argued:

In America, a man’s first significant purchase is a diamond for his bride, and the largest financial investment of his life is a home for her to live in. American husbands work hours of overtime to buy a fur piece or other finery to keep their wives in fashion, and to pay premiums on their life insurance policies to provide for her comfort when she is a widow […]. In the States which follow the English common law, a wife has a dower right in her husband’s real estate which he cannot take away from her during life or by his will […].²²

This allusion to a husband’s duty to support his wife refers to a legal doctrine of marital unity implemented in the early years of the American colonies and inherited from Christian doctrine and English common law. As historian Nancy Cott has explained, men and women were bound by a contract called coverture that implied that a woman’s earnings, property and labor were her husband’s, in exchange for which he was legally required to provide for the couple.²³ This economic bargain aimed to reinforce the marital bond through mutual responsibilities.²⁴

Phyllis Schlafly turned a blind eye on the potential constraints of traditional marriage and considered it solely beneficial for women as they financially profited from it. She argued that women should enjoy a home and the right to benefit from their husband’s life insurance, estate and social security because these were some of the guarantees afforded by law, depending on the legislation in each state. Hence, Phyllis Schlafly restored the idea of marital support and made it a woman’s right, more precisely, “a wife’s right to support.”²⁵ Framed as a lucrative benefit, it ensured women’s financial stability and protection through marriage.

And to give more credit to her discourse on gender roles, Phyllis Schlafly felt the need to show how well it had worked in her own life. Consequently, she undertook to personify the female ideal she defended by advertising her successes as a wife, a mother, and a homemaker.

2.3 Embodying the Perfect Wife and Mother

Phyllis Schlafly wanted to prove that she had respected traditional gender roles. Yet, from the 1950s, as she was settling into her marital life, she demonstrated that she was a busy activist. Revealing, although unwillingly, that she was as well no June Cleaver, Schlafly was involved in projects ranging from giving speeches across the state of Illinois, to getting elected as a delegate at the Republican National Convention, and she even attempted to obtain a seat in Congress (in 1952 and 1970).²⁶ Therefore, throughout her career, Phyllis Schlafly put on various masks in order to play different roles while posing as a role model for other women.

She engineered her interviews with the media with the purpose of enhancing her reputation as a good wife. In January 1978, for instance, the Schlaflys were featured in the Alton Telegraph, a daily newspaper distributed in the city of Alton, Illinois.²⁷ The article focused on Phyllis Schlafly because she was then a rising figure in the conservative movement. Yet, the photograph that accompanied the text downplayed her career and focused instead on the couple in their traditional gender roles inside the home. In the foreground, Fred Schlafly is reading the newspaper, occupying most of the space and, in the background, Phyllis Schlafly, elegantly dressed and groomed, is taking apples out of the oven. The journalist observed that “like an eager actress, she was concerned that the light was adequate for photographers and that she was always wearing an affable smile,” which betrayed her preoccupation for the mise en scène. In this interview, the hierarchy of the sexes was staged, with both partners harmoniously assuming their respective roles of head of the family and homemaker. Phyllis Schlafly, shown as hospitable, nurturing, and humble, hoped to prove that she was fighting the battle against feminism from her kitchen, alongside her husband.

Moreover, the stakes of representation touched her duties as a mother. As though she felt the urge to justify herself, she took every opportunity to remind her followers about how efficiently she raised her children:

I’m a great believer that babies should be nursed by their mother. I nursed all my children for at least six months after they were born. Basically, after a birth, I kind of stayed on the second floor for about six weeks and devoted my attention to the baby.²⁸

Nursing babies was presented as the ultimate proof of good mothering and, in her case, it demonstrated her conformity to the sociocultural model for which she advocated. This self-promotion was used to arouse admiration regarding her domestic achievements, despite her reputation as a modern woman.

Phyllis Schlafly’s behavior was undoubtedly more transgressive than she was ready to admit. Her home was the embodiment of the traditional family but only on the surface. The reality behind the curtain was more complex since her domestic duties were alleviated by the presence of her housekeeper and her mother,²⁹ while her political activities invaded her private space as she had an office at home. She even competed with her husband on a professional level and this caused problems in her marriage. For instance, after she enrolled in law school in 1975, Fred Schlafly “had a tantrum” and their son, John, pointed out to his mother that she was “trying to take his law practice away from him.”³⁰ While she recommended to “positive” women not to overpower their husband, Phyllis Schlafly did not abide by that rule. Her conformity to traditional gender roles was, hence, constantly counterfeited by role playing to conceal her personal ambitions.

For conservative women, the roles of wife and mother were structuring social identities from which they benefited and that they were not willing to give up in exchange for equality. Schlafly posed as the epitome of that model in order to inspire her peers, and she alerted them that, “the women’s libbers […] were waging a total assault on the family, on marriage, and on children.”³¹ Antifeminist women were on her side in a social movement designed to preserve the social norms they cultivated.

3.1 The Feminist Challenge to the Traditional Family

The fight led by the conservative women of Eagle Forum erupted in the political arena in reaction to the outbreak of the feminist movement. In the early 1960s, some progress had been achieved on women’s rights as John F. Kennedy’s Presidential Commission on the Status of Women issued a report entitled American Women (1963) with the goal of identifying the mechanisms of gender inequalities. Although the document attempted to raise awareness into the specificities of women’s experiences, it did not go as far as expected. One must wait for the publication of The Feminine Mystique for a real turning point in the feminist mobilization. The author, journalist Betty Friedan, specifically focused on the “problem that had no name,” which was suburban, middle class women’s subjection to the myth of the perfect housewife:

In the fifteen years after World War II, this mystique of feminine fulfillment became the cherished and self-perpetuating core of contemporary American culture. […] Their only dream was to be perfect wives and mothers; their highest ambition to have five children and a beautiful house, their only fight to get and keep their husbands.³³

In the wake of Friedan’s book, and because of political apathy,³⁴ numerous middle class women, often professionals, founded the National Organization for Women in 1966. Later in the decade, younger, more radical women, often marginalized in other social movements, such as the civil rights movement, developed their own feminist structures, the consciousness raising groups, where sharing one’s experience led to “collective self-education.”³⁵ Gender relations were studied in a new light and the personal issues in women’s lives, such as sexuality, abortion, violence—to name but a few—became political.³⁶

These feminist mobilizations, which gained political ground throughout the 1970s, triggered the rise of a countermovement, a social movement whose raison d’être is to react to specific social change or a movement defending such a cause.³⁷ The antifeminist movement founded by Phyllis Schlafly was named “the pro-family movement.” The specific conflict regarding the family dynamic took shape because many feminists identified family as a primary vector of women’s subjugation. For instance, in Kate Millett’s writings, it was denounced as “patriarchy’s chief institution” and a “financial unit, whereby it is committed to the idea of property in persons and in goods.”³⁸ For Schlafly, it was as if feminists associated the family with prison, prostitution and slavery:

They view the home as a prison, and the wife and mother as a slave. […] The women’s libbers don’t understand that most women want to be wife, mother and homemaker—and are happy in that role.³⁹

Antifeminists resented feminist views of a woman’s place within the family and they voiced their fears of losing their precious economic advantages, as the name of Schlafly’s campaign testifies, since “STOP” in STOP ERA stood for “Stop Taking Our Privileges.” The promise for equality was presented as a rollback of rights: “We do not want to trade our birthright of the special privileges of American women—for the mess of pottage called the Equal Rights Amendment.”⁴⁰

The feminist movement indeed posed a challenge to conservatives as it contested the established dynamics of power in the society. Looking to upgrade women’s status, feminists questioned the instrument of conservative women’s social base, the traditional family. This disruption caused these women to experience a devaluation of their socioeconomic and cultural influence.

3.2 Conservatives’ Feeling of “Power Devaluation”⁴¹

This conservative women’s movement was informed by a socioeconomic logic that consisted in preserving class hierarchy whose main cog was the traditional family. For French anthropologist Rémi Lenoir, the family is a “symbolic privilege: to be what is appropriate, to be in conformity with the official norm.”⁴² Therefore, what mattered in terms of social standards and influence was the familial structure, as entrenched in the social framework.

This conservative attitude towards one’s socioeconomic status has already been addressed by historians. At one time, the consensual historiographic paradigm in the study of right-wing mobilizations was “status discontent.” For example, in their well-known book The Politics Of Unreason (1970), Earl Raab and Seymour Martin Lipset envisioned the political mobilization of right-wing activists as the result of a fear of social decline and, therefore, a delusional concern of maintaining their social status within the American society. However, this theory has since been rejected by scholars on the grounds that it was psychologically-oriented and that it associated conservative protest with irrational behavior. Distancing themselves from this historiographic heritage, French sociologists Eric Agrikoliansky and Annie Collovald, nevertheless, encouraged researchers of right-wing movements to explore the protest strategies of the “dominant” classes in order to unravel the construction of social domination.⁴³ In their view, powerful individuals constitute a “mobilized class” and have a constant need to be reassured about their social position.

One finds traces of class preoccupation in Phyllis Schlafly’s discourse and the fear of socioeconomic decline appears as a recurrent pattern. For example, in the issue of The Phyllis Schlafly Report of October 1974, which was Schlafly’s newsletter, she circulated a series of vignettes displaying the financial consequences of the Equal Rights Amendment for the nuclear family.⁴⁴ Insisting on the vulnerability of the homemaker, one vignette shows a woman carrying a baby and a broom—symbolizing her domestic duties—and a new burden has been added on her back, the “50% financial burden,” making her look miserable. Phyllis Schlafly argued that gender equality would impact the purchasing power of traditional couples and, as a consequence, women would be required to enter the job market to support their family, stripping from them their right not to work and to be financially supported. This symbolic marker of class, as well as the diamond, fur piece, finery and premiums on life insurance mentioned in her 1972 manifesto, not necessarily accessible to the average American couple, appeared as a privilege to fight for in the eyes of conservative women. They defended the lifestyle and the cultural characteristics that differentiated the classes.

Behind the battle for the nuclear family laid a preoccupation for class membership.⁴⁵ In order to thwart this alleged devaluation of power of traditional individuals, especially women, Phyllis Schlafly turned the status of housewife into the bedrock of conservative women’s collective identity.

3.3 Traditional Woman: A Powerful Mobilizing Identity

At Eagle Forum, Phyllis Schlafly established a community organized around common characteristics and interests. The category “housewife” worked as a mobilizing identity at a time when women who devoted themselves to the home could have felt delegitimized by the feminist discourse.

The president of Eagle Forum engaged in a process of “identity deployment,” which consists in “expressing an identity such that the terrain of conflict becomes the individual person, so that the values, categories, and practices of individuals become subject.”⁴⁶ Phyllis Schlafly crafted a resonant narrative of empowerment with the aim of encouraging right-wing women to become involved in her movement. Her approach was notably to present homemaking as a career path and she defended the idea that “marriage and motherhood had always been the number-one career choice of the large majority of women.”⁴⁷ Domesticity was then equated with a professional activity, without, of course, being linked to any remuneration, as that would have devalued the provider’s role. Phyllis Schlafly transposed the gratifying feminist discourse which valued women’s work outside the home to the activities performed inside it.

For that matter, homemakers were complimented for playing their role. Every year, from 1985 onwards, the organization delivered the “Fulltime Homemaker Award” to ordinary women from the fifty states who dedicated their life to the home. As the introductory advertisement for the ceremony claimed, the social incentives to leave the home were so important that homemakers deserved to be applauded for their commitment:

The Fulltime Homemaker Awards are not intended to be judgmental about those choices, but are intended to honor those women who have chosen the traditional role of women despite the social pressures of the media and the feminist movement, and despite the economic injustice of the federal income tax law.⁴⁸

While the prize awarded more visibility and recognition to average American women who were truly traditional, it was also granted to women who hardly fit the definition of the fulltime homemaker. The list of winners includes the wives of numerous politicians like Mrs. Rick Santorum, Mrs. Todd Akin or Mrs. Gary Bauer.⁴⁹ According to their biographical descriptions, they were all busy women, active in areas out of step with the traditional homemaker.

Thus, there was a fundamental contradiction in the political engagement of conservative women. While Phyllis Schlafly’s plan was to make the traditional identity a force to maintain a socioeconomic and cultural advantage, Eagle Forum also celebrated women’s participation in politics and social movements.

4.1 “Homemakers as Policy Makers”

Phyllis Schlafly developed a dual discourse, encouraging women to cherish their place at home and to engage in politics at the same time. The social movement practices developed within her organization testified to this contradiction. On one hand, gendered modes of action such as coffee breaks, fashion shows, or “bread days” were organized to raise awareness—and money—on conservative issues and to lobby legislators.⁵⁰ These types of events exploited alleged female qualities of socialization and stewardship, which became tools for their political activism. Emphasis was also put on physical appearance and appropriate behavior because femininity and manners were seen as assets that could be instrumental when lobbying.⁵¹ During the annual conference of the organization, called Eagle Council, Phyllis Schlafly taught her followers to smile, to wear the right amount of makeup, and to use their maternal instinct to lobby the legislators.⁵² Part of her rationale was to present women’s political activities as an extension of their natural calling, domesticity and motherhood. Activities that displayed their allegedly natural nurturing side were favored at Eagle Forum over other activist formats, such as picketing, for example, although these too were occasionally used by the organization.

On the other hand, Phyllis Schlafly also expected that her peers become real “policy makers.”⁵³ Even if conservative women acted from the vantage point of the homemaker, they claimed a voice for themselves in the political arena and they took a step back from their domestic duties to become political women. Many of them were no longer just housewives and had expanded their area of action. Thanks to Phyllis Schlafly, who acted as an “agent of politicization,”⁵⁴ they were offered possibilities of self-fulfillment outside of the home. One member of Eagle Forum, Elaine Donnelly, spoke eloquently about the projects she decided to conduct:

Now some of the women who were inspired by Phyllis Schlafly went on to do other things, I’m one of them. Some ran for Congress, some ran for state legislature offices, some were appointed to Republican positions under Republican presidents, to administrative positions, some started their own organizations, and I’m one of those. I formed CMR [Center for Military Readiness] in 1993, next year is our 25^th anniversary.⁵⁵

After working for the STOP ERA campaign in Michigan, Donnelly became very interested in military issues and, among other things, she sat on the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (a governmental body issuing recommendations on the situation of women in the Armed Forces), before creating her own group. In her case, meeting Schlafly and taking part in her cause proved empowering on a personal level.

The articulation of an individual search for more autonomy with a defense of a social organization based on gendered hierarchies leads to a mix of both transgressive and normative behavior. It also reveals limits to these norms, which conservative women can subvert; this was primarily visible in their link to men.

4.2 Men’s Patronage

Despite the leeway in the combination of gender roles and political activity, patriarchy was the underlying structural element in conservative women’s space of expression. Although in the background, men’s involvement in the antifeminist cause was palpable at Eagle Forum. As Schlafly herself put it, “these women were mostly full-time homemakers who had supportive husbands who encouraged them, the same as my husband encouraged me.”⁵⁶ Were they careful watchers or genuine supporters? One needs to bear in mind that the women who engaged in Schlafly’s organization were able to devote some of their personal time to the movement because they were financially and emotionally supported by their partners. For example, Fred Schlafly helped his wife attack the women’s conference in Houston in 1977: he initiated a lawsuit through his own law firm against the commission responsible for the summit.⁵⁷ His assistance was thus emotional, material, and ideological.

Men’s often discreet backing of the movement led the organization to create an award to recognize their invaluable help, the Fred Schlafly Award. During the first ceremony in 2017, the husband of Gayle Ruzicka, who was president of Eagle Forum in Utah and mother of 12 children, received the prize.⁵⁸ Through Mr. Ruzicka, it was their functional relationship which was being recognized, despite the fact that Mrs. Ruzicka spent a lot of time volunteering for Eagle Forum. So far, this award has been granted to husbands of prominent activists of the organization, who dedicated most of their life to help Phyllis Schlafly and her cause.⁵⁹ This collective appreciation presented by the group was conservative women’s way of showing their respect for the person they depended on and to stage the harmony within traditional couples.

Additionally, the antifeminist crusade was not only about praising men’s role as provider but also protecting their masculine stature. As such, the role of breadwinner seemed to go hand in hand with men’s “innate” nature. In an essay from her book Who Killed the American Family?, Phyllis Schlafly wrote that feminist ideas about women’s financial emancipation undermined manhood and masculinity. “Men are getting false and confusing messages from society, the media, and women about what is man’s role and what makes a man.”⁶⁰ Warning against the emasculation of American men, she promoted the idea of the disappearance of the “real male” and the “crisis of masculinity.” As clichés of antifeminist discourse, these ideas are put forward every time women question patriarchal norms and jeopardize the status quo, returning to claims of the existence of natural differences between men and women to defend the gender hierarchy.⁶¹

It could, therefore, be suggested that the defense of traditional womanhood and families concealed a defense of the traditional man. The modesty of husbands and their wives’ determination to defend the structures that they benefited from expose the conservatives’ plan to support patriarchy under the guise of the woman’s cause. The activism of housewives proved pivotal for the conservative movement as they acted as a more acceptable showcase of conservative ideology.

4.3 Negotiating with Patriarchy?

Phyllis Schlafly’s defense of traditional gender roles for men and women was ambiguous, raising the question of whether traditional womanhood was a facade for negotiating the norms to obtain benefits under the form of male protection and goodwill. Because they claimed to defend the interests of their family and husband, Schlafly’s followers were authorized to leave the home and were tolerated in the public sphere, even if that meant subverting domesticity and granting women more autonomy.

On one hand, conservative women insisted on their fear of losing men’s protection and hence refused the feminist emancipation. The president of the Nevada Eagle Forum chapter, Janine Hansen, affirmed that they were “defending [their] right to be women instead of to be liberated from men.”⁶² In their ideological framework, being a woman was always seen as a relational identity: they were someone’s wife. Their link to men was especially important because it was also, paradoxically, the source of their vulnerability. In The Power of the Positive Woman, Phyllis Schlafly demonstrates this in discussing the necessity of curbing men’s alleged casualness. She states that, “If he [the man] is deprived of this role, he tends to drop out of the family and revert to the primitive masculine role of hunter and fighter.”⁶³ Men’s reliability was, therefore, also an issue for this group of women, and their wariness showed the acuteness of their dependence. According to radical feminist Andrea Dworkin, they were in a state of inextricable subservience as they were convinced that marriage would insure the control of men’s carelessness and violence:

Their desperation is quiet; they hide their bruises of body and heart; they dress carefully and have good manners […] They use sex and babies to stay valuable because they need a home, food, clothing. They use the traditional intelligence of the female—animal, not human: they do what they have to survive.⁶⁴

Respecting the patriarchal structures was, thus, an absolute necessity for traditional women since it guaranteed their economic survival.

On the other hand, other researchers identified attempts on the part of conservative women at circumventing or accommodating patriarchy. The respect of traditional gender roles could provide an invaluable level of protection against having to compete with men, who dominated society and the job market,⁶⁵ or else it could be resisted passively.⁶⁶ Political scientist Magali Della Sudda also recently raised the question of conservative women’s practices in social movements and the subsequent impact of their activism on their situation.⁶⁷ In her study of Catholic women involved in right-wing groups at the beginning of the twentieth century, she describes the activists as “paradoxical citizens,” caught between conservative discourse and innovative practices. However, if she identified emancipatory strategies, they always happened on an individual basis. Similarly, collective emancipation was never advocated for at Eagle Forum. Despite the occasional personal empowerment of some women, the collective interests at stake concern a class of individuals.

Conservative women’s relation to their state of domination thus appears to be very complex: their empowerment opportunities, if any, were always deployed within the boundaries of gender norms. The women of Eagle Forum claimed a political voice while operating in restrained spaces and abiding by the rules, barely touching on the possibilities of female emancipation.