Other Voices Crying Out Against the Feminists : Concerned Women for America at 2nd Convention Join Other Conservatives

Vicki Enscoe of Ontario, Calif., remembers clearly-- quite clearly-- when she abandoned her feminist principles.

“It was 1971, in November. I was on Azusa Avenue, going north under the overpass of Highway 10 at a red light,” Enscoe said. “My bags were packed, I was pregnant, I had my boy in the car and I was on my way to group therapy to tell them I was getting a divorce and an abortion.”

Waiting for the light to change, Enscoe remembered pounding on the steering wheel, feeling “at the end of my rope,” when she decided, “I will give my life to God.”

World of Grief

Enscoe had her baby and salvaged her marriage, discarding what she construed as feminist principles.

“I started out with women’s lib in the first seven years of my marriage. It was a world of grief,” she said. “It caused me to be self-centered and constantly dissatisfied unless I was one-up and on top.”

For Enscoe, a disenfranchised feminist, and other traditional women who have always disagreed with the feminist movement, frustration has been building over the feeling that their voice is missing from the national debate on “women’s issues.”

Slowly, these traditional women have begun to organize. Last weekend, Enscoe and 2,000 others attended the second annual convention of the Concerned Women for America (CWA), a politically conservative, Christian organization that estimates its current donor base at 150,000.

In a press conference, CWA President Beverly LaHaye quoted a Time magazine article putting their membership at 500,000, “larger,” LaHaye glowed, “than the National Organization for Women, the League of Women Voters and the National Women’s Political Caucus combined.”

But Barrie Lyons, a CWA vice president and LaHaye’s sister, later explained to a reporter that the larger figure includes “those who have been donors or asked to be on our mailing lists or signed a petition” supporting a CWA stand. Lyons said the group estimates that 30% of that figure, or about 150,000, are “current donors” who are paying $15 or more a year to receive the group’s newsletter. They do not have a dues-paying membership.

‘An Outrage,’ Says Smeal

Nonetheless, LaHaye told a press conference, “We have our fingers on something the majority of women in America support.”

But NOW President Eleanor Smeal, citing the feminist stands of NOW and organizations such as the National Education Assn., the American Assn. of University Women, the League of Women Voters, the National Women’s Political Caucus, the American Nurses Assn., the United Methodist Women and others, called LaHaye’s claim to represent the majority of women “an outrage.”

“How can this puny little group of bloated figures be compared to all the major women’s organizations in this country? We all have rules for membership, we stand for elections, we pay dues, have public meetings and file reports. Our numbers are not make-believe.” Smeal said that although NOW’s membership figures are under review, she estimated the current membership at 150,000.

LaHaye said CWA’s 1985 budget is $2 million. No information was available on CWA’s finances in the New York office of charities registration, and the Sacramento Registry of Charitable Trusts of the state attorney general’s office said the group is delinquent in filing its 1984 financial report. But in its 1983 report to the California attorney general, the group said it received $200,000 in total direct public support. CWA’s 1983 tax return claimed a net loss of $127,000.

Apples and Oranges

By comparison, a financial statement filed with the New York office of charities registration showed that in 1984, NOW took in $3.3 million in membership dues and another $1.9 million in donations.

“Comparing the two of us,” Smeal said, “is like comparing apples and oranges. They’re a publication, is what they are.”

Whatever CWA is, it has an ambitious political agenda:

--The group’s legal staff, composed of five full-time attorneys, is litigating 13 cases, including three in the Supreme Court. The cases cover a range of issues, from a child-custody suit on the part of a California woman who was married to a homosexual, to the right to picket abortion clinics, to the right to use a state’s handicapped education program to become a minister.

--CWA moved its headquarters this year from San Diego to Washington to step up its national visibility and access to lawmakers. According to LaHaye, the Washington office has a full-time staff of 25 employees.

Future moves CWA is contemplating:

--Forming its own political action committee, or PAC, to donate money to candidates who support its positions against legalized abortion, for school prayer, against comparable worth, against the Civil Rights Act and for the Strategic Defense Initiative.

--Introduction of a parents’ rights amendment to the Constitution. The amendment, the members say, would give them the right to oversee what their children learn and read in school, the right to make all medical treatment decisions for their children (including abortion) without interference from the state, and the right to enforce disciplinary actions, such as “moderate spanking.”

At the three-day convention here, the women prayed, sang hymns and viewed an aborted fetus in a coffin. They also had a heavy political schedule, hearing speeches from Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.), Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), and retired Lt. Gen. Daniel Graham, and attending how-to workshops on lobbying, picketing and facing the media.

The CWA convention was held a week after Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, another conservative women’s group that lobbies for pro-family issues, held its convention in Washington and had a parade of Reagan Administration officials come speak, including White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan, touting tax reform.

While CWA’s top priority is outlawing abortion, Schlafly is zeroing in on school textbooks as a major battlefield, advocating the return of phonics, traditional roles for people featured in readers, and elimination of secular humanism. She wants children to be taught that God is in the Constitution, and that premarital sex and drugs are wrong.

Supportive of Parents

Schlafly is also supportive of parents who want to keep their children at home and teach them themselves. During the Eagle Forum convention, “Full-time Homemaker” awards were given out to a woman from each state.

Eagle Forum and CWA have virtually identical viewpoints, but CWA apparently has grown larger. Eagle Forum, which has, according to Schlafly, 40,000 subscriptions to her newsletter, does not litigate cases--another important distinction. Both organizations began as anti-equal rights amendment groups, the Eagle Forum starting as “STOP ERA” in 1972 and CWA forming in 1979. Both groups grew when the Reagan Administration took office and the country took on a conservative mood, and if the CWA membership estimates are correct, LaHaye’s group has swept past Eagle Forum.

“I’ve been a minister’s wife for 30 years, so I have a quicker access to church women,” said LaHaye, 56, explaining the difference in size between the two groups. She is married to the Rev. Tim LaHaye, a fundamentalist Baptist who runs the American Coalition for Traditional Values and advocates that government hire a 25% quota of Christian conservatives.

If Schlafly is ruffled by LaHaye overtaking her as the nation’s spokesman for conservative women, she does not let on.

“We are the most tolerant people in the world,” said Schlafly. “We’re happy to have anybody work against the equal rights amendment, pornography and abortion. It doesn’t bother me.”

Says LaHaye: “Phyllis has a wonderful ability to attract those who are already activists. I feel I develop women into activists, who have never done it before. For instance, we put out a guide ‘How to Lobby From Your Kitchen Table.’ ”

In-Person Lobbying

Ten buses carrying 450 CWA members went to Capitol Hill during the convention so that the women could try their in-person lobbying techniques after attending a classroom session on it.

“We were all nervous,” said Nada Jagerson of San Bernardino.

“I’d never done this before,” said Laura Krocka of Pomona. In the class, “they talked about not being argumentative. Go there to share, not attack.”

Gentleness also was advocated in a media workshop, especially when giving an interview on camera.

“Everyone likes to look at a smiling face,” said CWA’s “public-relations lady” Kathy Pitcher, teaching the media workshop.

“Do all you ladies have mirrors?” Pitcher asked. “Get them out and we’re going to learn how to control our brows. Everyone practice moving your eyebrows up. It makes your voice more melodic.”

Next they were all standing up with their hands on their rib cages, practicing how to breathe. Pitcher made them promise to practice both skills at home, moving up their brows, and taking deep breaths.

Voice is also important. Shouting into the microphone conveys an undesirable “authoritative” quality.

“Get it almost to a whisper,” advised Pitcher.

She also said that on camera, makeup should be a shade darker and lips should be outlined. Pitcher pointed out the triangle of the face where rouge should go.

“No one knows where to put rouge,” said Pitcher.

On a television talk show, “walk to the chair, sit on the edge and then move your derriere back,” said Pitcher, demonstrating for them. “And ladies, remember, your knees are best friends, so keep them together.”

Pitcher advised them on answers to troublesome questions they are likely to encounter, such as, don’t you believe in the separation of church and state?

“The right answer,” Pitcher said, “is, ‘Nowhere in the Constitution of the United States does the phrase ‘separation of church’ and state exist. It is only in the U.S.S.R. constitution.”

Rights of Homosexuals

If someone asks why you oppose the morals and causes of homosexuals, specifically their rights to employment, “you tell them,” said Pitcher, “being a homosexual is not like being black, something you can’t change. You choose that life style. You can certainly change your sexual habits. They have the right to go somewhere else and get a job.”

Mock interviews were done with television lights and a monitor. The women had plenty of questions.

“There seems to be the perception that we’re extremists,” said one woman who had already struggled with the media. “How can we rid ourselves of this without compromising what we’re trying to say?

“I wanted so much not to give the impression of being a nut, so I didn’t say some of the things I felt God wanted me to say.”

Pitcher encouraged always telling the truth, and trying to strike a rapport with reporters.

“They may think of you as a right-wing fundamentalist nut,” said Pitcher. But that is no reason to give up.

Dee Ann McElhose of Santa Maria, Calif., found that the convention left her energized to return home and “educate people on the issues.”

Krocka of Pomona had “always been interested in politics,” she said. “But I didn’t have any feel for how I could be effective. I didn’t know where to begin.

“I very much resented NOW claiming to be my representative. They don’t represent me at all.”