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Summary: Women: Co-Creators of the Texas G.O.P.
Review: GRASSROOTS WOMEN is primarily about Texas and Texans but also has something for all Americans in love with politics. For example, Republican women interviewed by the author tell of supporting through doubts and disappointments Senator John Tower, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon and other politicians. Campaign strategists of any party can harvest winning tips about fund raising, telephone polling, selecting great candidates and running campaigns from women who were there and did these things, including Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and Ambassador Ann Armstrong.--Sociologists will find raw material about the struggle for equal status with men. For decades the most Republican women could hope for was to be invited to serve as the sometimes barely tolerated Deputy Chairmen of long entrenched males. Winning Co-Chairman status was not easy. Feminists will note little signs of emerging personal identities not derivative from one's husband. Thus, one and the same person served as G.O. P. National Committeewoman for Texas from 1982 to 1999. She is recorded in 82-83 as Mrs. H. E. Chiles, Mrs. Fran Chiles in 84-85, and just plain Fran Chiles in 86-87. (See list, p. 506.) --Texas women could not even sit on juries before 1954. Glass ceilings were everywhere. Republicans first empowered themselves through political clubs for women before they moved up to party positions like precinct chairmen. They campaigned for favored candidates with their babies in their arms. Without active Republican women, GRASSROOTS WOMEN suggests, Texas might still be a majority Democratic Party state, though notably more conservative than the national Democratic party of Senator Ted Kennedy.
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