Abstract

We present findings on women's political perspectives, participation, and activism derived from a survey of women in Montgomery County, Ohio, undertaken by the Women's Research Network formed at Wright State University, which we argue have both local and national implications for feminist organizing. We connect this work and these findings to the history of feminism in Dayton as well as to other status-of-women studies at national, state, and local levels. Our analysis shows that there has been a substantive decline in feminist activism and radicalism in Dayton, Ohio, the "heartland of America," in the face of continued race and class divisions among women, the rise of the New Right, and an aging population. Given increasing barriers to the renewal of feminist activism in the heartland, local research on women such as this can provide one avenue for the reanimation of feminist civil society by identifying not only what divides women but also what issues can connect them. Such data offer the raw materials for future feminist activists and such research projects constitute one form of renewed feminist activism.

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