Ford, Carter & Reagan 1974-80
Ford 1974-77
Carter 1977-1980
Response to social divisions
Women’s rights
In a 1970s poll, over two-thirds of female college students agreed that ‘the idea that the woman’s place
is in the home is nonsense’.
- Most women now expected to work for most of their lives.
Although increasing numbers of women entered traditionally masculine occupations, such as medicine
and law, they received 73% of the salaries paid to professional men.
- Women remained overwhelmingly dominant in low-paid jobs and constituted 66% of adults
classified as poor.
- In terms of political representation, there were only 16 women in the US House of
Representatives and no women in the US Senate in 1980.
The Democrat-controlled Congress voted overwhelmingly for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in
1972.
- Liberals were delighted, but opponents said it would lead to gay marriages, women in combat,
unisex toilets and the end of the nuclear family.
- Although Betty Ford championed the ERA and supported Ford’s appointment of a significant
proportion of women to high-level positions, Ford did little to help women.
- In 1972, Phyllis Schlafly, the ‘Sweetheart of the Silent Majority’, established a ‘Stop ERA’
organisation that attracted 50,000 members.
- However, when 20,000 feminists met in Houston, Texas, for a National Women’s
Conference in 1978, Schlafly’s counter-rally only drew 8000 supporters.
- Schlafly opposed the ERA on the grounds that it would remove protective legislation for
women, separate restroom facilities and women’s exemption from the draft.
- Many conservative states agreed with Schlafly over the ERA, so although the ERA
remained high on the political agenda throughout the 1970s, it never obtained the
assent of the 75% of states required for an amendment to the Constitution.
Carter was more sensitive than Ford to women’s rights.
- He insisted that at least one female candidate be considered for each cabinet post and
appointed two female cabinet members and more women to high-level posts than any previous
president.
- He supported the ERA, but many female voters felt that he should have spoken out more
instead of letting his wife Rosalyn Carter speak for him.
- However, he opposed federal funding of abortion except in cases of rape, incest or the
endangerment of the mother’s life.
Many feminists considered the right to abortion the most important of women’s rights.
- From 1971, the National Abortion Rights Action League had lobbied state legislatures for the
legalisation of abortion.
- The case of a Texas woman who did not want to bear a child that would grow up in poverty led
to the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which legalised abortion in the first 13 weeks.
- The ruling was politically and socially divisive.
- Feminists, women who feared unplanned pregnancies, liberals and
organisations, such as the National Organisation for Women (NOW) and
Planned Parenthood, were thrilled.
- Betty Ford called the ruling a ‘great, great decision’.
, - Conservative organisations established by the Catholic Church, such as the
National Right to Life Committee, campaigned against Roe v. Wade in the
courts, in elections and in the streets.
- In 1979, Beverly LaHaye established Concerned Women for America (CWA)
which boasted 500,000 members by the mid-1980s to fight against the ERA and
abortion.
- LaHaye and her supporters wanted women to stay at home, look after the
family and not deprive men of possible employment.
- Ford kept quiet about it.
- Carter said he accepted the decision, but personally disliked easy access to
abortion.
- He accepted that the Supreme Court’s 1977 ruling in support of the 1976
Hyde Amendment which banned federal funds for abortion was unfair to
poor women, but said ‘many things in life are not fair’.
- The passage of the 1976 Hyde Amendment was led by
Republican Representative Henry Hyde, suggesting that both
Carter and the Republican Party shared the social conservatism
towards abortion.
- While neither Ford nor Carter could settle the social divisions over
women’s rights, their low-profile responses did not exacerbate them.
Poverty
Although more liberal Democrats, such as Senator Edward Kennedy, wanted to offer more to the poor,
more conservative Democrats, such as Carter, felt that the country could not afford it and most
Republicans, such as Ford who had no real impact on poverty, favoured a ‘self-help’ philosophy.
Problems faced by Carter:
- The elderly as the fastest growing section of the US population necessitated increased federal
government expenditure on Social Security and healthcare, but Carter wanted to reform those
government programmes without increasing federal expenditure as a fiscal conservative.
- The continuing ‘white flight’ of middle-class taxpayers to the suburbs and from the Snow Belt to
the Sun Belt led to the further deterioration of poverty-stricken Northern city centres.
- The economic recession of 1973-5 further increased the numbers living below the poverty line
by 1.3% from 1974 to 1976. The numbers eligible for food stamps grew by 1.5 million from 1976
to 1980 during the 1980 recession.
- Carter made little progress on these problems despite the allocation of $4 billion for
public works in 1977 and increased federal aid for food stamps for the poor as taxpaying
voters did not want to subsidise the poor and he wanted to balance the budget.
Due to the awareness LBJ’s Great Society had drawn to poverty, Americans in 1980 had a greater
welfare safety net than in 1945 with Social Security and free medical care being expanded.
Civil rights
Economic
Positive change
- By 1980, around one-third of AAs were middle class.
- The South’s lower wages and less powerful unions continued to attract industries as it had
since the Second World War and the attraction increased after the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the
1965 Voting Rights Act.
- In Atlanta (South), the proportion of AA public employees in professional positions rose by 23%
from 1973 to 1978 with Mayor Jackson hiring Atlanta’s first affirmative action officers.
- This was assisted by the 1972 Equal Employment Opportunities Act which expanded
the prohibition against discrimination in the 1964 Civil Right Act to include state and
local government jobs.
