Description
"Esther's Army tells the story of millions of Christian women who are overlooked yet are defining the course of American politics. The 2024 election of Donald Trump was the culmination of their strategic efforts over the last 55 years. Drawing from extensive, on-the-ground immersive research in which she has been an embedded observer, sociologist Kate Gaddini identifies the motivations and contradictions of women who have successfully redirected the course of American politics. As a former evangelical herself, Gaddini speaks the language of the Christian Right fluently. In Esther's Army, she profiles six distinct archetypes-from college idealists, anti-feminist powerhouses, and Black activists to MAHA social media influencers, white suburbanites, and "mama-bears" marching on state capitols. This expansive portrait exposes how right-wing Christian women operate through grassroots networks to influence conservative politics from the bottom up. She also reveals how these women have been a strategic force in the conservative movement precisely because they are underestimated. Unlike their predecessors confined to traditional roles in the 1970s and 80s, today's Christian conservative women are going to law school, "leaning in" to their executive skills as organizers, and entering public politics - selectively borrowing feminist rhetoric while simultaneously rejecting liberal feminism itself. This tension with secular womanhood fuels their increasingly radical political agenda. Threaded through with history that has largely been ignored, Esther's Army reveals how these ground forces of conservatism aren't just shaping the Christian Right-they're redefining American politics itself"-- Provided by publisher.
