Mama Grizzlies Research Articles

Response to Jeffrey R. Dudas’s review of Tea Party Women: Mama Grizzlies, Grassroots Leaders, and the Changing Face of the American Right

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Tea Party Women: Mama Grizzlies, Grassroots Leaders, and the Changing Face of the American Right. By Melissa Deckman. New York: New York University Press, 2016. 384p. $95.00 cloth, $35.00 paper.

Tea Party Women: Mama Grizzlies, Grassroots Leaders, and the Changing Face of the American Right. By Melissa Deckman. New York: New York University Press, 2016. 384p. $95.00 cloth, $35.00 paper.

Tea Party Women: Mama Grizzlies, Grassroots Leaders, and the Changing Face of the American Right. By Melissa Deckman. New York: New York University Press, 2016. 385 pp. $95.00 (hardcover), $35.00 (paperback).

Tea Party Women: Mama Grizzlies, Grassroots Leaders, and the Changing Face of the American Right. By Melissa Deckman. New York: New York University Press, 2016. 385 pp. $95.00 (hardcover), $35.00 (paperback).

Tea Party Women: Mama Grizzlies, Grassroots Leaders, and the Changing Face of the American Right

Scholarship on the Tea Party remains prevalent following the 2016 presidential election, but recent work comes with considerable overlap. Melissa Deckman offers a much-needed departure from exiting literature by arguing that women hold a uniquely new position within the Tea Party. However, her analysis falls short of fully interrogating why the mostly white, educated, middle-class women of the Tea Party find the movement’s call to “take their country back” so captivating. According to Deckman, the Tea Party is a vehicle for conservative women to enter politics amid traditional Republican Party gender barriers. Personal interviews illuminate several Tea Party women who have become activists and grassroots leaders, such as Jenny Beth Martin, who organized the first Tea Party rally under the “Tea Party Patriots” banner. The personal accounts of “Mama Grizzlies” are a new and intriguing contribution, and the variety of women taking leadership roles is an important and overlooked element of the Tea Party. Furthermore, Deckman claims that the active role of women in the Tea Party has a chance to shape our “perception of what constitutes women’s politics,” especially if the movement is able to expand it’s appeal beyond a “relatively small number of conservative women” (p. 29). Conversely, her analysis of public opinion data leads to a different interpretation.

Review of Tea Party Women: Mama Grizzlies, Grassroots Leaders, and the Changing Face of the American Right

Review of Tea Party Women: Mama Grizzlies, Grassroots Leaders, and the Changing Face of the American Right

Ronald Reagan in heels: constructing the Mama Grizzly political persona in the 2010 US elections

ABSTRACTThis study investigated the ways in which ‘Mama Grizzlies’ – female Tea Party politicians – in the US strategically made use of socially dominant constructions of both masculinity and femininity in their campaigns during the 2010 US mid-term elections. By analysing news media interviews, television debates and campaign advertisements, this study found that these ‘Mama Grizzlies’ are female and contemporary versions of Ronald Reagan, an icon of conservatism in US politics. Hegemonic masculinity proved to be a useful device for Mama Grizzlies to attack their opponents as indecisive. Masculinity, as displayed by Mama Grizzlies, corresponds to a type of ‘female masculinity’ by which these female candidates tried to portray themselves as strong and tough. At the same time, by constructing an empathetic persona and utilizing a feminine style of presentation, these candidates employed a gender strategy of hybrid masculinity: a blending of muscle and compassion. Mama Grizzlies’ gendered rhetoric also contravened some of the basic tenants of feminism, such as gender equality.

Book Review: Tea party women: Mama grizzlies, grassroots leaders, and the changing face of the American right

Book Review: Tea party women: Mama grizzlies, grassroots leaders, and the changing face of the American right

“A Mom First and a Candidate Second”: Gender Differences in Candidates' Self-Presentation of Family

Parenthood carries different consequences for men and women in politics. While the conventional wisdom is that motherhood is a liability for women candidates and fatherhood an asset for men, recent elections have called this idea into question. Specifically, Sarah Palin's candidacy and her cadre of “Mama Grizzlies” suggest that there may be times when motherhood can be an asset. We analyze how men and women present their families to voters by examining the campaign websites of congressional contenders in 2008 and 2010. The results indicate that despite the proliferation of mother candidates, women still tend to de-emphasize their children compared to their male colleagues, who are more likely to showcase their families, most notably in pictures. Moreover, we find that other factors like parental status, age of children, party, chamber, incumbency, and opponent gender also affect differences in candidates' propensity to use their families in campaigns.

A 'Velvet Hammer': The Criminalization of Motherhood and the New Maternalism

In 2014, Tennessee became the first state to criminalize the use of narcotics during pregnancy. While women have been prosecuted for the outcomes of their pregnancies and for the use of drugs during pregnancy in the past decades, Tennessee is the first state to explicitly authorize prosecutors to bring criminal charges against pregnant women if they use drugs. This Comment suggests that this new maternal crime is reflective of a social and political paradigm called “maternalism,” which enforces the idea that women are meant to be mothers and to perform motherhood in a particular fashion. This concept has developed from the “old maternalism” of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to the “new maternalism” of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The new maternalism is developing in a modern world, finding its voice through liberal mother-centric organizations such as MomsRising and through conservative mothers like Sarah Palin and her “mama grizzlies.” While new maternalism is developing in a modern context, it still upholds motherhood as the prime directive of women. The Comment first tracks the history of policing of pregnant women, with an eye for the effects this has had on women of color and poor women in particular. Next, it describes the progression of maternalism and the ways in which it has shaped American politics and culture. Finally, it proposes that the new law in Tennessee criminalizing the use of drugs during pregnancy is reflective of new maternalism. By criminalizing the behavior of some pregnant women, this law helps to create a vision of a “bad mother,” whose punishment acts as a foil to the “good mother” that the new maternalism tries to reinforce. Through the criminalization and policing of pregnant women’s behavior, women’s reproductive freedoms become increasingly constricted. Table of

Mama Grizzlies and Guardians of the Republic: The Democratic and Intersectional Politics of Anger in the Tea Party Movement

Tea Party activists have proudly embraced anger and outrage as a distinguishing mark of patriotic dissidence, and have successfully exploited the contemporary politics of anger in the United States. Although much democratic theory casts anger as a hazardous impediment to democratic politics, these theories and the progressive critiques based on them participate in troubling efforts to discipline or even expel anger from the public sphere. Instead this article theorizes public anger as an agonistic, performative, and intersectional practice. Drawing on feminist and queer theory, it also demonstrates how intersectional formations of gender, sexuality, and race have played a central role in making Tea Party performances of anger politically intelligible and powerful. The analysis highlights not just how white men and white women are able to enact public anger, but also how some Tea Party activists of color have surprisingly circumvented contemporary affective norms that usually render racial minorities' public anger politically suspect. The article concludes with a discussion of the democratic implications of an agonistic approach to anger for democratic theory and practice.

Women’s Rights on the Right: The History and Stakes of Modern Pro-Life Feminism

Recently, pro-life advocates have popularized claims that abortion harms rather than helps women. The best known of these arguments are the womanprotective arguments—contentions, such as those endorsed in Gonzales v. Carhart, justifying abortion restrictions on the basis of the physical or psychological harms supposedly produced by the procedure. Woman-protective claims, however, represent only one part of a much larger strategy that this Article calls pro-life feminism. The Article follows pro-life activists’ use of the term “feminist” or “feminism.” As the Article makes clear, activists on competing sides of the abortion issue have contested the meaning of “true” feminism. Taking sides in this struggle has obscured the influence and complexity of ideas that abortion opponents identify with pro-life feminism. These are the lost nuances that the Article seeks to recapture. For legal scholars, social movement activists, and historians, there is a good deal at stake in better understanding the pro-life feminist law reform movement. In the wake of the 2006 decision in Carhart and Justice Ginsburg’s dissent in that opinion endorsing equality-based claims, liberals on the Supreme Court may become willing to openly support equality-based arguments for abortion rights. Pro-life feminists have promoted an important counterargument to equality-based justifications for abortion rights: pro-life feminism helps to paint abortion opponents as pro-woman and amenable to the needs of women who pursue higher education or professional careers. The Article also identifies potential common ground among self-identified feminists with different positions on abortion. Both pro-choice and pro-life scholars have written extensively on how to present their arguments as forwarding (or at least not undermining) women’s equal citizenship. However, previous work has not fully captured the complexity or diversity of the pro-life † Assistant Professor of Law at Florida State University College of Law. I would like to thank Miriam Cherry, Kelly Dineen, Joel Goldstein, Eric Miller, Elizabeth Pendo, and Anders Walker for their help with earlier versions of this draft. MAIN ZIEGLER (DO NOT DELETE) 7/12/2013 7:47 AM WOMEN’S RIGHTS ON THE RIGHT 233 feminist movement. Public discussion of pro-life feminism has primarily involved a bitter struggle about who properly counts as a feminist. Lost in this dialogue has been a meaningful consideration of legal issues on which opposing activists might agree: contraception, equal pay for equal work, or state support for parental leave. If we no longer view pro-life feminism as monolithic, we can identify areas of agreement between some of those on opposing sides of the abortion question. INTRODUCTION 233 I. A TRULY LIBERATED WOMANHOOD: PRO-LIFE FEMINISM IN THE 1970S ...... 237 A. Women’s Rights and Feminists for Life 237 B. Rights for Women in the Antiabortion Mainstream 239 C. Beyond Abortion: The Influence of American Citizens Concerned for Life 240 D. The Decline of Pro-Life Feminism 246 II. MAMA GRIZZLIES, AUTHENTIC FEMINISTS, AND SMART GIRLS: THE PROLIFE FEMINIST DIVIDE 252 III. PRO-LIFE FEMINISM IN CONTEXT 263 CONCLUSION 268

Depoliticizing Feminism: Frontier Mythology and Sarah Palin's “The Rise of The Mama Grizzlies”

This essay analyzes a chapter from Sarah Palin's best-selling book America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag. We argue that Sarah Palin draws upon the mythology of the American frontier in “The Rise of the Mama Grizzlies” in order to legitimate a conservative feminism. Our analysis demonstrates how Palin appropriates the history of the women's rights movement and the symbols and language of feminism to position her audience of contemporary conservative women as the rightful heirs of a distinctly American frontier feminism. Ultimately, we expose Palin's narrative of frontier feminism as a pseudo feminist rhetoric that functions to bolster conservative and masculinist logics while undermining core tenets of feminism. While very few rhetorical studies examine women speaking frontier rhetoric, our analysis helps to fill this void by demonstrating how Sarah Palin reinterprets the frontier myth to insert conservative women at its center and by exploring the consequences of framing feminism through a masculinist myth. Our essay also extends the effort to understand the rhetorical appeal and presentation of post-feminism. Importantly, we argue that the myth of the American frontier operates as a post-feminist script to define the mama grizzly as an exclusionary construct and to depoliticize the very core of Palin's frontier feminism. Our essay lends insight into the growing trend of appropriation by conservative women of feminist rhetoric and considers the consequences of such appropriation.

Mama Grizzlies Compete for Office

In the 2010 general elections, a record number of Republican women ran for, and won congressional seats. Many were also endorsed by the Tea Party and/or heralded by Sarah Palin as being “Mama Grizzlies.” This election provides a unique opportunity to examine if ideological and partisan differences among women matter in terms of how they campaign for office. Did they behave any differently than their more liberal counterparts? Did they boast being endorsed by Palin and/or other Tea Party organizations? Did they invoke their gendered or “Mama Grizzly” status to appeal to voters? This study uses data gathered from ninety-two websites of women who ran for Congress in 2010. Overall, it is found that Republican women did not reference the Tea Party, nor embrace being “Mama Grizzlies.” In addition, these candidates shied away from discussing their gendered identities and supporting “women's issues.” Finally, there were few differences between Democratic and Republican women with regard to how they presented themselves via their websites. I conclude by discussing the implications of the claims they make (or not) about gender role norms, motherhood, and their fitness for office.

Key states, high stakes: Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, and the 2010 elections

Chapter 1 The 2010 Elections Charles S. Bullock, III Part 1: Sarah Palin's Mama Grizzlies Chapter 2. Mama Grizzly Nearly Trapped: New Hampshire's Republican Senate Primary Dante J. Scala Chapter 3. Sacrificing Electoral Viability for Ideological Purity: Christine O'Donnell and the Delaware Senate Race Daniel C. Reed Chapter 4. Nevada: The Tea Party Takes on Harry Reid but from the Wrong Angle Ted G. Jelen Chapter 5. Deep Blue Hole? California, the Tea Party, and the 2010 Midterm Elections Amy Widestrom and Christopher Dennis Part 2: Tea Party Favorites Chapter 6. Florida: A Plummeting Economy, Tea Parties, and Palin Give GOP a Clean Sweep Susan A. MacManus with the assistance of David J. Bonanza and Mary L. Moss Chapter 7. Randslide: Tea Party Success in the Establishment's Backyard Joel Turner and Scott Lasley Chapter 8. Ron Johnson: The Accidental Tea Partier Geoffrey Peterson Chapter 9. The Pennsylvania Senate Race: Toomey's Time Stanley P. Berard Chapter 10. Colorado: The Centennial State Bucks the National Trend M. Jean Kingston Chapter 11. The 2010 West Virginia Senate Race Robert Rupp Chapter 12. The 2010 Elections in New York Costas Panagopoulos Part 3 States Not in the Tea Party Play Book Chapter 13. Arkansas: The Kettle That Didn't Whistle Andrew Dowdle and Joseph D. Giammo Chapter 14. Coats vs. Ellsworth: The 2010 Indiana Senate Race Michael A. Maggiotto and Raymond H. Schelle Chapter 15. The Blue and the Red in the Land of Obama: The 2010 Midterms in Illinois Janna L. Dietz Chapter 16. The 2010 Washington U.S. Senate Race: Two Familiar Faces and Two Potential Wild Cards Edward Anegon and David Nice Chapter 17. Connecticut: Too Liberal to Be Palin's Cup of Tea Diana Evans Chapter 18. Conclusion: Evaluating Palin, the Tea Party, and DeMint Influences Charles S. Bullock, III Notes Index About the Authors

The Problem that Has a Name: On “Mama Grizzlies” and Conservative Feminism

Despite an overall tendency to dismiss some of the struggles associated with second-wave feminism under the theoretical assumption of post-feminism, numerous issues related to women and their rights are yet to be resolved. In the USA, problems such as unequal payment and lack of proper work-family support, together with a steadfast conservative endeavor to hinder reproductive rights, prove the urgency of feminist critical stances. While fostering a culture of life, several conservative groups have been appropriating feminism in order to endorse their pro-life policies; Sarah Palin, for instance, while speaking at an antiabortion gathering, recently sparked a heated debate due to her use of the terms “mama grizzlies” and “new conservative feminism”. By focusing on Palin’s speech, this essay intends to explore how feminism is being redefined by U.S. conservative women so as to reinforce patriotism and reinstate an idealized and institutionalized motherhood.

Mama Grizzlies and the Midterms: Women and the Tea Party

This paper offers a first look at women who support the Tea Party and considers both how they compare with other women politically and with Tea Party men using a national PEW survey. Compared with Republican women more generally, Tea Party women are the most theologically orthodox and religiously observant. In this respect, the Tea Party appears to be capturing support among women for whom mixing their conservative religious values and conservative politics is a good thing — women who may otherwise feel right at home in the Christian Right. Tea Party women are also more religiously devout and theologically conservative than Tea Party men. And while Tea Party women and Tea Party men are more similar than not when it comes to public policy attitudes (and certainly more conservative than the nation at large), the preliminary findings here suggest that Tea Party women hold less conservative views on social welfare concerns than do Tea Party men, which echoes other studies that consistently show that men are less supportive of government assistance to the poor. That women nationally are more likely to be more supportive of government assistance to the poor than men indicates that women are also more supportive of a larger role for government to play in society, which is exactly what the Tea Party is rallying against. So attempts to rally more women to be supportive of the Tea Party may need to be gendered in tone and may need to speak to women’s place as caregivers and mothers, aka the “mama grizzlies” that Sarah Palin talks about in her stump speeches. More empirical research needs to be conducted that determines whether Tea Party activists and conservative Tea Party candidates — especially Tea Party women — routinely employ such rhetoric in their appeals, and if so, whether such appeals are effective in terms of gaining electoral support from women.

A social life for carbon? Commodification, markets and care

. And, indeed, this is even true in the continuing hotbed of neo-liberal capitalism that is the USA, whereby efforts to instantly develop one of the largest markets in recent history—in the form of purchasable, own-able and trade-able C02 emissions —was successfully buried under the faux-populist tide of the Tea Party. Cap and trade was turned into shouts of ‘Cap and Tax!’ by the likes of Sarah Palin, her fellow Mama Grizzlies and other Tea Party minions—in conjunction with a rather compliant US media—and the jig was up. Clearly, much of the writing on capitalism and nature and the nature of (neo-liberal) capitalism argues that commodification, privatisation and the ‘enrolment’ of nature into these processes is anything but complete, uncontested, straightforward or even (e.g. Mansfield, 2008; Smith, 1984; Castree, 2003, 2010a, 2010b; McCarthy and Prudham, 2004;