“A True Conservative Wants to Conserve”: American Women and the Conservative Environmental Movement in Historical Perspective

Amidst the ever-growing prominence of climate challenges, environmentalism has transformed into a highly contentious subject within the US. Given the nation's considerable role in environmental degradation alongside its prominent global position, internal divisions are a substantial barrier to environmental progress. Politically, the American right has become associated with anti- environmentalism; however, as this thesis helps to understand, this has not always been the case. Moreover, in recent years a new movement has arisen that aims to reunite Republicans with their environmental past. The conservative environmental movement is an intriguing development within the environmental debate. I examine the movement in light of environmental history and combine it with the field of gender research, as the significant contributions of women to the movement have oftentimes been neglected in scholarly works. In bringing these two phenomena together, this thesis addresses the research gap...Show moreAmidst the ever-growing prominence of climate challenges, environmentalism has transformed into a highly contentious subject within the US. Given the nation's considerable role in environmental degradation alongside its prominent global position, internal divisions are a substantial barrier to environmental progress. Politically, the American right has become associated with anti- environmentalism; however, as this thesis helps to understand, this has not always been the case. Moreover, in recent years a new movement has arisen that aims to reunite Republicans with their environmental past. The conservative environmental movement is an intriguing development within the environmental debate. I examine the movement in light of environmental history and combine it with the field of gender research, as the significant contributions of women to the movement have oftentimes been neglected in scholarly works. In bringing these two phenomena together, this thesis addresses the research gap located in the intersection of these academic fields. I apply two different research methods, combining historical and social research, or content analysis. I investigate two current conservative environmental organizations, RepublicEn and the American Conservation Coalition, as well as the product of the institutionalization of the movement, namely the Conservative Climate Caucus. This study is led by the question, how have women contributed to the conservative environmental movement in the United States? The answer is multifold. Historically, women have played significant roles in the development of American environmentalism by using their womanhood and feminine qualities like cooperativeness and communication skills. My socio-political analyses of the present-day conservative environmental movement add nuance: I find gendered distinctions in the conservative environmental approach in the form of the paradigms of “leadership” and “cooperation”. Within the civic organizations of this study, a clear gender difference exists as the women under study are more likely to take a cooperative approach, in contrast to their leadership-oriented male counterparts. This distinction dissipates when women obtain more power, which is shown through the near absence of these distinct approaches within the party itself.Show less

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“A True Conservative Wants to Conserve”: American Women and the Conservative Environmental Movement in Historical Perspective