Faithful Feminists: Religion and Gender in 1970s Chicago

The historian Ann Braude has famously declared that “American religious history is women’s history.” Ordinarily, Braude’s insight might refer to the numerical dominance of women in congregations, mission societies, and voluntary organizations. By the 1970s, however, the billowing impact of feminist thought forced a frank and sometimes-contentious reckoning within numerous religious communities over the status of women in both church and society. In Chicago, the growing influence of feminism produced both denominational and ecumenical movements that attempt to connect religious reform to broader social activism on women’s issue. In particular, this paper will examine the activities of the Midwest Women’s Center, Chicago Catholic Women, and Evangelicals for Social Action. All three Chicago-based organizations wrestled with the signature feminist issues of the 1970s: the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, pursuit of labor equity, and reproductive rights. This paper will illustrate a fluid historical moment when liberal religious coalitions emerged in favor of feminist issues—including abortion rights—and offer suggestions for why so many of these coalitions were quickly usurped by larger and more powerful ecumenical religious movements (often rooted in the very same religious traditions as these liberal coalitions) committed to gender traditionalism, pro-natalism, and “family values.”