Fear, bias, and moral panic
an analysis of the escalation of the Rajneeshpuram v. Antelope conflict
Mathilde Kamer 11263601
MSc Thesis Conflict Resolution and Governance Thesis supervisor Martijn Dekker
Second Reader Brunilda Pali June 18th, 2021
Acknowledgements
I would firstly like to extend my thanks to my thesis supervisor dr. Martijn Dekker. It is not a simple task to support a student intensively over Zoom for months without ever meeting in person, but you did it. Thank you for allowing me to pursue an idea that deeply interested me and helping me turn it into a workable MSc thesis concept. I am grateful for the reliable support, feedback, challenge and validation that I received over the past few months.
Moreover, I want to thank Brunilda Pali for showing genuine interest in my work, thinking along and providing me with the concept of moral panic. I also want to thank Therese Bottomly from The Oregonian for providing access to the archives. Furthermore, I want to thank my family, roommates and friends for always listening to my never-ending talk about this conflict, participating in the constant binge-watching of the Netflix-documentary Wild Wild Country and easing my anxiety when I’d lose perspective. I lastly want to explicitly thank my dear friend Freek Wallagh for introducing me to this case and pushing me to aim high and just try without worrying where I’d end up – without your genuine belief in me this thesis would not exist.
I have had the privilege to be able to dive into a conflict that has deeply interested me ever since I first learned about it in September 2020. My elective course The Politics of Gender and Diversity in Theory and Practice required a biography piece on an influential politician.
I chose to write this piece about Ma Anand Sheela, personal secretary to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and the spokeswoman for the city of Rajneeshpuram in Oregon. In January 2020, I decided to email Sheela to ask if she would possibly grant me an interview. Never expecting she’d actually say yes, my excitement was through the roof when she invited me over to Basel, Switzerland. Her commitment meant that my decision had been made about my thesis subject.
The conflict of Rajneeshpuram v. Antelope is an incredibly nuanced and complex one. While I attempted to be as comprehensive as possible, many aspects of the commune’s time in Oregon fell outside the scope of this thesis. That does not mean that these events should remain unmentioned: for example allegations of sexual and emotional abuse towards children (Stork 2009) and adults (Puttick 1995) within the commune are painful to read, but recommended for a better understanding of the complexity of this case.
The approach to this case is a result of years of academic growth. It is a blend of political science and conflict resolution, my passion for minority politics and my personal interest in the United States. I went into this research with a strong, preconceived notion, and am currently writing these acknowledgements in a completely different state of mind. I have learned so much in the past few months – academically and personally – and while completing an entire master’s during a global pandemic is incredibly challenging, I am very proud of the work that lies in front of you. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Table of Contents
Abstract 4
Chapter 1: Introduction 5
1.1 A brief introduction to the case 6
1.2 Focus of this research 6
Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework 9
2.1 Identity 9
2.2 Political attitudes and the subconscious 9
2.3 Attitudes, music, images and fear 10
2.4 Framing 12
2.5 The consequences for conflicts 13
Chapter 3: Methodology and data 16
3.1 Thick description 16
3.2 Interviews 16
3.3 Critical Discourse Analysis 17
Chapter 4: The United States of the 1980s 20
4.1 Race 20
4.2 Religion 23
4.3 Gender 25
4.4 The two C’s: Cults and the Cold War 28
Chapter 5: The Rajneeshpuram-Antelope relationship 32
5.1 From India to America 32
5.2 A city in the desert 34
5.3 The end of Antelope? 36
5.4 The violent turning point 38
5.5 New tactics: the beginning of the end 40
Chapter 6: Data Analysis 43
6.1 Race and bigotry 43
6.2 Gender 46
6.3 Religion 47
6.4 World politics 49
Chapter 7: Moral Panic 51
7.1 Moral panics and New Religious Movements 51
7.2 Sexual deviance 52
Chapter 8: Moral panic analysis 54
8.1 Identity and convergence 55
8.2 Media and moral panic 57
8.3 Cults, sects and moral panic 60
8.4 The documentary as critical mass 64
Chapter 9: Conclusion, discussion and limitations 64
9.1 Limitations and discussion 66
Bibliography 70
Sources used in Critical Discourse Analysis 70
Additional literature 73
Abstract
Academic research on identity politics as well as conflict resolution is widespread. This iterative research attempts to contribute to this scholarship by unearthing possible reasons for escalation in a case study of a conflict where minority identity plays a big role. The selected case for this study is the conflict between Rajneeshpuram and Antelope, which took place from 1981-1985 in the state of Oregon, United States. Based on an extensive review of theory surrounding bias, identity and their influences on conflict, a Critical Discourse Analysis was conducted on a documentary and 76 articles published by the newspaper The Oregonian at the time of the conflict. This data was supplemented by two interviews with key actors in the conflict. The results from the Critical Discourse Analysis did not yield substantial enough indicators of bias to explain the escalation in this conflict. The theory of moral panic did. The CDA revealed that the situation in Central Oregon between 1981-1983 met the four criteria that Goode and Ben-Yehuda (1994) set for a moral panic. Furthermore, the results strongly suggest that the documentary Ashram in Poona (1978) can be identified as the trigger for this moral panic. The discussion indicates clear directions for further research, for example to replicate this research by including data from 1983-1985 to gain a more comprehensive insight into the roles of racial, gender, religious and political bias in the entire conflict.
Chapter 1: Introduction
“It was clear to me that there was no hope from the very beginning. We might as well have packed up and gone away, because there was no way that [this] was going to work”
- Jane Stork, former sannyasin (2021)
Research into (political) bias is increasingly relevant. During, as well as since the presidency of Donald J. Trump, the United States is experiencing deep and complex political polarization in which identity politics play a huge role (Pew Research Center 2017; Pew Research Center 2017a; Dimock and Wike 2020). The 2020 election cycle between Donald J.
Trump and Joe Biden was one in which identities such as race, gender, class and religion were very influential (Brown-Dean 2020). The death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in May 2020 was the start of a turbulent summer characterized by Black Lives Matter protests in every major city in the United States and around the world. The issue of racism is a prevalent one once more, as well as gender and many other facets of ones’ identity – the summer of 2020 showed that the personal is political. Theories focusing on identity and how identity influences one's political preference, such as the theory of Intersectionality (Crenshaw 1989) and theories on the influence of race and gender on conflict resolution (Gadlin 1994), have been coined after the conflict that is at the heart of this research took place. In the forty years since the conflict, identity politics have been changing. With its increasing relevance, it is important to explore the role of identity in past conflicts so that we can gain a better understanding of the mechanisms at play.
This thesis describes the tale of the conflict between the cities of Rajneeshpuram and its neighbor Antelope. So much more than just a ‘simple’ political conflict – this is one of contrasting rights under the constitution, between different cultures, about identity, and for political influence. It took place in Central Oregon from 1981-1985, but the events that happened could easily span a decade. In the United States, the Constitution and the freedom it grants are revered above all. American exceptionalism, the belief that America is inherently different from other countries, stems from the American Revolution in which the United States crafted its constitution (Lipset 1996). America’s, and more specifically, Oregon’s love for the constitution was tested in 1981, when followers of an Indian guru bought a ranch in Central Oregon and settled there, with the intention of creating a new city. What happened in Oregon in the 1980s, was at the time the largest wiretapping-, immigration fraud- and poisoning case in the history of the United States (Wild Wild Country 2018).
1.1 A brief introduction to the case
When Netflix released the documentary “Wild Wild Country” (2018) about the commune’s time in Oregon, the 40-year old conflict between Rajneeshpuram and the tiny town of Antelope gained renewed popularity. The hashtag #WildWildCountry was trending on Twitter for months (Trendsmap n.d.), the documentary reached the #1 spot of most-watched shows in the United States as well as the Netherlands, and the forum-based social media Reddit saw an influx of threads in which viewers discussed the dramatic events in the documentary (Subredditstats n.d.). The documentary, which uses almost only original footage combined with interviews with the key actors of this conflict, dives into the political conflict between the city of Rajneeshpuram and the neighboring town of Antelope. The Rajneeshees, or sannyasins, as the followers of an Indian Guru named Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh call themselves, settled in Central Oregon in 1981 after buying the ‘Big Muddy’; a 66,000-acre ranch. Within months, the rugged desert is transformed into a bustling city called Rajneeshpuram. The neighboring town of Antelope – population: 40 – is anything but happy with the arrival of the ‘Red People’. Tensions steadily increase until the situation comes to a boiling point on July 29th, 1983 when the Rajneeshee-owned Hotel Rajneesh in Portland was targeted by three pipe bombs.
After a little more than two years of rising tensions, harassment of the Antelope residents, anti-Rajneeshee organizing and battle for political influence, the communication changed from simply hostile to violent. While there were no casualties, Ma Anand Sheela, personal secretary to Bhagwan and spokeswoman for the commune, sees the bombing as a personal and targeted attack on the commune. After the bombing, Sheela imports weapons into the ranch and starts training Rajneeshees in combat. This elevates the anxiety and fear of the local residents and seems to confirm their initial convictions that this group is an immediate threat and danger to the local residents, making tensions rise even further. The commune’s time in Oregon was characterized by scandal after scandal: the poisoning of Wasco County’s biggest city with salmonella bacteria; the non-consensual sedation of thousands of formerly homeless members within the commune; the failed execution of a murder plot to kill Charles Turner, U.S. Attorney for the State of Oregon; the attempted murder of Deva Raj, Bhagwan’s doctor; and the largest immigration fraud in the history of the United States (Wild Wild Country 2018).
1.2 Focus of this research
While there were many identifiable actions that helped increase tension, the research described in this thesis focuses on the much more subtle role of bias in this conflict, and specifically on the escalation of this conflict up until the bombing of Hotel Rajneesh in 1983.
The almost seven-hour-long documentary Wild Wild Country (2018) inspired this scope: it
focused predominantly on the events that happened and hints that religious bias may have been at play. Racial bias is only mentioned once by the Rajneeshpuram Mayor when the INS tried to deport Bhagwan (Wild Wild Country 2018e), and not a word is spoken about gender bias towards Ma Anand Sheela or political bias in the context of the Cold War. The documentary shows many commune members, including Sheela and Ma Prem Sunshine, who worked in press relations, describe the opponents of the commune as bigots and biased. The literature of intersectionality by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) inspired the author to look at this conflict (and the documentary Wild Wild Country) through an intersectional lens, which led to the idea that racism, sexism and religious bias could possibly have played a role in this conflict. The desire to test this hypothesis guided the scope of this research.
This thesis describes a conflict analysis that focuses predominantly on the events up to the Portland bombing, since that marked the violent turning point in this conflict. Careful analysis of the documentary Ashram in Poona (1978) as well as 76 newspaper articles, are combined with interviews with Ma Anand Sheela herself and Jane Stork (formerly known as Ma Shanti Bhadra). This is done to see if there can be any indications of racial, gender, religious and political bias found amongst one or both parties, something that might have influenced the conflict from the moment the Rajneeshees arrived in Central Oregon. Extensive research has been conducted into this case study, but predominantly into the downfall of the commune (Abbott 1990; Van Driel and Van Belzen 1990), the role of charisma and control (Cummings 1994) or how it was possible that there was no bloodshed in this conflict (Goldman 2009). Papers that dove into the cultural differences between Rajneeshees and locals either focused on the Rajneeshee side of the conflict (Latkin 1992) or were published before the conflict ended (Buckwalter and Legler 1983). This thesis will add a dimension of understanding and explanation to this conflict by focusing solely on the period of 1981-1983 and by approaching the case from a different perspective: a neurobiological and sociological one.
The research question that guides this thesis is as follows: “What was the influence of (racial, gender, religious and political) bias on the escalation of the Rajneeshpuram v. Antelope conflict?”. This research attempts firstly to deepen the general understanding of this conflict by focusing on the beginning of the conflict. Furthermore, it attempts to provide insight into a very specific phenomenon: the influence of minority identity on conflict escalation. What are the effects of a key actor in a conflict being part of a minority? Ma Anand Sheela, the spokeswoman for the commune, was a Woman of Color (WoC) from India, in a religious minority1. Did her being part of multiple minority groups influence the way this conflict escalated?
1 The religion of Rajneeshism was created in 1983. In this thesis, the Rajneeshees are referred to as a religious minority, even when discussing events that took place before the creation of Rajneeshism.
This thesis describes a mixed-methods design used to explore this question. Theories on intersectionality and identity (in) politics will be discussed, as well as theories on neurological processes and their influence on fear, bias and conflict escalation. A thick description will be given of the zeitgeist in Oregon and the United States at the time of the settlement of the commune, as well as a summary of the commune’s time in Oregon.
Interviews have been conducted with Ma Anand Sheela, former spokeswoman of the commune during its time in Oregon, as well as Jane Stork, a confidante of Ma Anand Sheela and a key actor in some of the polarizing events that took place. Furthermore, this thesis attempts to uncover the power relations at play between discourse and action, by conducting a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) on newspaper articles between 1981-1985. Integrating the thick description, interviews and CDA will allow for the exploration of the role of (subconscious) bias in the escalation of the Rajneeshpuram v. Antelope conflict. The CDA revealed a lack of clear racial, religious and gender bias against the commune in the Oregonian at the time. Dissatisfied with these results, the choice was made to look further for a different explanation. Being presented with the concept of moral panic led to a reflexive process of revisiting the data, using an iterative framework2. The conclusion of this research is that a moral panic among locals can be identified in the period of 1981-1983.
2 An iterative framework entails a highly reflexive process of revisiting the data after gaining new insights (Srivastava and Hopwood 2009). This differs from an inductive or deductive approach because it combines the two, to be able to connect the data with “emerging insights, progressively leading to redefined focus and understanding” (idem: 77). Because a thesis is a description of the research process, it has been decided to structure this thesis according to the chronological steps that were taken in this iterative research process.
Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework
In this chapter, the theories that are at the foundation of the research will be discussed.
This literature gives insight into the functioning of the brain when presented with new stimuli, and how this relates to identity, framing, political attitudes, subconscious bias and conflict escalation.
2.1 Identity
A large and growing body of literature has investigated the relationship between identity and oppression. While the concept of intersectionality has been understood for decades by Black feminists such as the Combahee River Collective, who have been organized since 1974 to struggle against “racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression [...] based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking [and] the synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives” (Combahee River Collective 1977 as published in Taylor 2017: 15-27), Kimberlé Crenshaw was the first scholar to academically conceptualize this. Intersectionality is a lens through which one can see the complexities and interwovenness of oppression. In her 1989 essay titled “demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics”, Crenshaw (1989) shows the undeniable and inextricable relationship between racism and sexism on the oppression of Women of Color (WoC). Crenshaw illustrates how WoC find themselves at the intersection of racism and sexism: the anti-racist struggle focuses predominantly on the emancipation of Black men, while feminist discourse serves the attempted emancipation of white women. Black men perpetuate sexism towards WoC, while white women perpetuate racism towards WoC. WoC thus embody a unique position:
experiencing the oppression of racism as well as sexism simultaneously. In her 1991 essay, Crenshaw (1991) names this particular viewpoint on multiple oppressions ‘intersectionality’.
She argues that someone who experiences multiple forms of oppression cannot be seen as experiencing different things, instead she argues that it creates a unique form of oppression.
Crenshaw’s theory suggests that Sheela, as an immigrant Woman of Color in a religious minority, would have experienced a unique form of oppression.
2.2 Political attitudes and the subconscious
Identity, and specifically intersecting identities, influence political attitudes. Being part of one or multiple minority groups influences the way one looks at politics and influences one’s political attitudes about issues that are relevant to one’s daily lives3. Cassino, Lodge and
3 See Kamer (2020) for an elaborate discussion on how identity influences political attitudes and voting behavior among PoC and sexual minorities.
Taber (2017) dive into the more psychological and technical ways that the brain processes information and form political attitudes. They define political attitudes as the expression of political beliefs, opinions and preferences (idem: 2). In their work, they focus predominantly on implicit political attitudes, which they say are “preconscious processes” that are
“extraordinarily receptive to all sensory aspects of the environment, both internal and external, that escape conscious awareness” (ibid.). Implicit attitudes often differ from conscious responses but appear to be the most influential of the two when it comes to behavior.
In other words, Cassino et al. state that implicit attitudes have more influence over behavior than conscious attitudes. This is due to the thresholds of awareness. Research has shown that the human brain is unable to consciously process all information that enters our brain (Norretranders 1998), so the majority of received information is processed unconsciously.
When the objective threshold is passed, information enters our system. For it to become conscious, it needs to pass a subjective threshold, but information or stimulus passing the subjective threshold is no guarantee that the individual is aware of the impact on thought and behavior. These situations are also known as “Consciously Unappriated Events”, or Type 2 CUES (idem: 3).
To manage all the information stored in our long-term memory (LTM) and to be able to call the relevant memory to mind in the working memory (WM), the brain works by structures of association (Collins and Quillian 1969). Hebb’s law (Hebb 1949) states that concepts that are often mentioned together have a strong association with one another, and those associations are easily triggered when one concept is mentioned. Additionally, the brain uses a parallel affective system (Bower 1981) in which it associates concepts on the basis of similar affective valence: good or bad. In other words: negative stimuli prompt other related negative thoughts and emotions, while positive stimuli prompt other related positive thoughts and emotions. This is called the ‘affect-congruence effect’ (Cassino et al. 2017). Research by Collins and Loftus (1975: 419) has shown that one concept’s activation, in turn, activates all related concepts in our LTM.
While LTM can process enormous amounts of information at once, WM can only process up to seven concepts simultaneously (Cassino et al. 2017). The concepts that get triggered in the LTM have to fight to make it to the WM: only the concepts with the strongest associations enter the working memory. The working memory, in turn, guides decision- making. The information which is considered before making decisions is thus already biased by the subconscious associations that are triggered within the brain. Therefore: “affect precedes and contextualizes cognition” (idem: 5).
2.3 Attitudes, music, images and fear
Considering the role of subconscious processing and its effect on (political) attitudes, Ted Brader (2005) researched the role of music and images in political ads on citizens’
behavior. His conclusions are relevant to apply to other politically influential video footage such as the documentary Ashram in Poona (1978) in this case study. Brader finds that the use of positive music and images elicit a different emotional response than negative music and images. Emotions, too, function predominantly under the thresholds of awareness, meaning that they are often subconscious and out of our control (idem: 390). In his book titled Descartes’ Error, Antonio Damasio (1994) explains how we’ve been taught to associate certain stimuli (be it an environment, event, or object) with either desirable, undesirable, or outright dangerous outcomes. These associations are stored in our associative memory, which, as Bower (1981) has shown, are in turn associated with similar concepts. When met with stimuli, our brain is triggered and we experience a ‘gut reaction’. Which gut reaction it will be (some variant of excitement or fear) is determined by earlier experiences and their associated emotions (Brader 2005: 390).
Brader explains how fear cues in music and footage stimulate citizens’ vigilance, search for information and participation in elections (idem: 398). Participants who were shown a negative news frame that included fear cues, were three times more likely to recall related information to the (negative) news segment they just saw, than participants who only saw the negative news frame without the fear cues (idem: 399). Participants who were shown a negative frame that included fear cues were also almost eight times more likely to be persuaded to support the ‘sponsor’ of the news segment (ibid.). Fear cues, thus, have great power of association and persuasion. While Brader’s research focuses on political participation, his findings are also relevant outside the strict confines of the political arena. Clearly, fear motivates people to politically participate, as well as be vigilant. In the context of the Rajneeshpuram v. Antelope conflict, a lot of the initial information that the local citizens received about the commune was through the documentary Ashram in Poona (1978), shown for the first time in a cinema close to Antelope in 1981. Research has shown that threatening stimuli that are experienced as uncertain (Smith and Ellsworth 1985) or new (Marcus, Neuman and MacKuen 2000) are believed to prompt feelings of fear.
Research done by Banks and Hicks (2016) also focuses on fear. Where Brader (2005) looks into the effect of fear on voting behavior, Banks and Hicks (2016) focus on the effect of fear on implicit racism. They conducted an experiment of the role of fear on implicit racism when it comes to voter ID laws, a racially charged subject in the United States known for disenfranchising minority groups. They find that the emotion of fear and unconscious racial bias amongst white people are tightly linked in memory. Fear seems to trigger white peoples’
implicit racism more than anger does. Further research has shown that when people can justify
their behavior, actions or opinions on something other than race, implicit racial bias plays a bigger role (Gaertner and Dovidio 1986; Mendelberg 2001; Pearson et al. 2009; Son Hing et al. 2008). In their paper, Banks and Hicks (2016) find support for this claim as well: people who were reported to have higher amounts of implicit racism were 16% more inclined to believe that their support for voter ID laws was based on wanting to stop voter fraud instead of denying minority groups their right to vote (idem: 654). It appears that when people have a different reason besides race to form their opinion or defend their actions (such as being against ‘immoral sex’ or preventing voter fraud), implicit racism plays a bigger role than people are aware of.
2.4 Framing
Something that greatly influences one's political attitudes is the way that news is framed. According to framing theory, the news is always biased. The news is conveyed to the viewer in a specific way, making use of specific words and images. Influential conceptualizations of framing differ slightly from one another, but there is consensus on the fact that the framing of news stories influences the viewer’s interpretation of an issue and guides their opinions (Tversky and Kahneman 1981). Tuchman (1978) sees framing as a necessary process to provide meaning to otherwise ‘meaningless and unrecognizable happenings’ into a cognizable event. Media frames have a strong influence on the way the public perceives an issue since they suggest “what the controversy is about, the essence of the issue” (Gamson and Modigliani 1987: 143). Research has shown that there are specific factors that potentially affect the framing of a specific issue by a journalist: ideological and political orientation of journalists, pressures of interest groups, social norms and values, journalistic routines and organizational pressures (Shoemaker and Reese 1996 and Tuchman 1978 as cited in Scheufele 1999). With framing, news organizations influence agenda-setting on a different dimension.
McCombs, Shaw and Weaver (1997) argue that framing is an extension of agenda- setting and call it second-level agenda-setting. According to them, framing affects the way the public thinks about an issue and influences the salience of an issue, helping to put it on the public agenda (idem: 4). Salience, here, refers to “the ease in which instances or associations can be brought to mind” (Tversky and Kahneman 1973: 208). This is consistent with the discussed literature on the parallel affective system, affective-congruence effect and Hebb’s Law (Bower 1981; Cassino et al. 2017; Hebb 1949), which show how the brain links concepts by association. Thus follows the conclusion that news is framed in a biased way, consistent with factors such as the ideological and political orientation of journalists and social norms and values, which then influences the way the public cognitively situates the new information,
which in turn activates all the related concepts in our memory, which ultimately has an influence on a person’s behavioral response.
2.5 The consequences for conflicts
Susan Fiske (2002) explores the effect of different types of bias on intergroup conflict and finds support for the claim that people who are comfortable in their in-group, tend to neglect out-groups (idem: 123). However, when there is a perceived threat to the in-group,
“murderous hostility” towards the out-group can be prompted (ibid.). In earlier research, Fiske has shown that discrimination, stereotypes and prejudice reflect people’s reactions (behavioral, cognitive and affective) towards out-groups (Fiske 1998). Fiske (2002) differentiates between two situations: subtle bias among well-intended moderates and blatant bias among ill-intended extremists. Well-intended moderates can express biases that are cool, indirect and ambiguous or ambivalent and mixed. Ill-intended extremists can express biases that are hot, direct, unambiguous and conscious, as well as extreme biases that underlie aggression (idem: 124-127). Fiske shows that people can go from well-intended moderates to ill-intended extremists when they mentally and behaviorally confirm their prejudices, leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy (idem: 126). She furthermore states that “blatant prejudice may also lead to self-righteous aggression against non-conformers and other people who threaten core values. If out-groups deviate and threaten traditional values, they become legitimate targets of aggression” (idem: 127). This is also recognizable in the case study that is the focus of this thesis.
Howard Gadlin (1994) explores a facet of bias and its influence on conflict mediation, resolution and escalation: race. In this publication, Gadlin describes the relationship between racism and a ‘culture of racism’ in the United States. He defines the culture of racism as follows: “the entire constellation of social relationships, beliefs, attitudes, and meanings that develop amongst those living within a racist culture. A certain circularity exists in these definitions because the culture of racism is built around the validation of differences” (idem:
39). He points out that the culture of racism differs from racist culture, which is a “culture in which there is a clear hierarchical structure in which one racial group dominates all other racial groups on the basis of differences – real or imaginary – that the dominant group defines, reifies, assesses and valorizes. “Racist” here is an adjective, a descriptor” (ibid.). The culture of racism results in a (subtle) racial bias, one that influences conflict whether one wants to or not.
In this essay, Gadlin illustrates how racial bias often plays a role in conflict. This can happen in (generally) two ways; when racial bias is explicitly mentioned within the complaint, or when race is only mentioned when someone defends themselves and says race did not play a role in the treatment of the victim (idem: 34). Gadlin goes on to argue that in conflicts in which racist bias plays a covert role, conflict mediation can be more harmful than helpful when it fails to recognize the underlying dynamics of the culture of racism that play a role in the conflict: “Racial and ethnic conflicts are so complexly rooted in the structure of our society and so deeply embedded in our psyches that it would be naïve and misleading to speak of resolving those conflicts through the application of techniques such as mediation” (idem: 44).
Additionally, he says “the dynamics of these race-related disputes are structured, in part, by institutional and individual fears and needs to avoid underlying conflicts. […] Those of us in dispute resolution must be particularly wary of the various ways in which we might be co- opted into helping institutions cover up or defuse racial tensions and conflicts that result from efforts to address discrimination, bigotry and inequality. The civil rights movement did not develop through the avoidance of conflict” (ibid.). The important takeaway from this paper is that yes, (implicit) racial bias influences the way a conflict plays out and yes, racial bias is often unconscious due to a culture of racism within the United States.
Where Fiske’s and Gadlin’s research focuses on actual bias, Kathleen Kennedy and Emily Pronin (2008) explore the role of perceived bias on the escalation of conflict. They find support for what they call a “bias-perception conflict spiral”. This spiral works as follows:
people are known to perceive others as biased when they don’t agree with them. In psychology, people are seen as naïve realists, because we tend to believe that the world we live in is the
‘objective reality’ (Pronin, Gilovich and Ross 2004). Consequently, people believe that if others don’t agree with them, these others must be “either ill-informed or (having ruled out that possibility) incapable or unwilling to view things objectively” (Kennedy and Pronin 2008:
834). Subsequently, this research finds that when people see their opponents as biased, they are more likely to respond more conflictually. This, in turn, leads to the opponent thinking that the other party is more biased, and therefore less worthy of ‘cooperative gestures’. These conflict-escalating actions inspire the opponent to also take conflict-escalating actions, resulting in a downward spiral (Kennedy and Pronin 2008: 833-835). Since past research has shown that people tend to overestimate how biased others are (see Kennedy and Pronin 2008 for an overview), perceptions of bias play a big role in the possibility of a conflict escalating since these perceptions have real, conflict-escalating, consequences.
In summary, the above-mentioned research indicates a relationship between identity, framing and political attitudes, and one between identity, framing, political attitudes and conflict escalation. It’s clear that biases, once triggered, do not stand alone. They, in turn, trigger similar thoughts and experiences, which influence conscious behavior before we are even aware of it. Biases are predominantly the result of our lived experiences— be it experiences of oppression, historical events that had an impact or negative experiences with perceived ‘out-groups’. They are also fed by the media and their biased way of reporting:
framing, however biased in itself, has been shown to influence people’s opinions and to be able to trigger fear, which in turn can trigger more prejudice and bias. These triggered biases, whether real or perceived, influence conflicts in an escalating manner.
Chapter 3: Methodology and data
To answer the research question “What was the influence of (racial, gender, religious and political) bias on the escalation of the Rajneeshpuram v. Antelope conflict?”, research was conducted using a mixed methods approach. A combination of interviews, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and a thick description was chosen to be able to explore the research question on different levels.
3.1 Thick description
The focus of this thesis is a case study of a very specific conflict: the (political) clash between residents of the newly founded city of Rajneeshpuram and residents of the local town of Antelope, OR. This thesis might be referred to as an intrinsic case study: a deep dive into a unique phenomenon or case (Crowe et al. 2011: 2-3). A “thick description” was used in this research as one of the methods. “Thick description” is originally conceptualized by Gilbert Ryle (1971) and later further developed by Clifford Geertz (1973). A thick description is not merely an objective description of what a person is doing– it “goes beyond mere fact and surface appearances. It presents detail, context, emotion, [...] evokes emotionality and self feelings. It inserts history into experience. [...] In thick description, the voices, feelings, actions and meanings of interacting individuals are heard” (Denzin 1989: 83). In this thick description, the zeitgeist of the United States in the 1980s will be explored. By giving an extensive description of the culture at that time, it will be possible to situate the findings of this research better and understand the sequence of events that took place during 1981-1985.
For example, the thick description will touch upon the general anxiety that people had surrounding the concept of ‘cults’. While it is up for debate whether Rajneeshpuram was a cult or not, the Rajneeshees arrived in the United States a mere three years after the U.S. was confronted with the Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ and the mass suicide that Jones’
experiment ended in. This has influenced the way that the commune was received from the moment they arrived.
3.2 Interviews
Besides a thick description, this thesis draws on interviews with Ma Anand Sheela, spokeswoman of the commune during its time in Oregon, as well as Ma Shanti Bhadra (Jane Stork), one of Sheela’s personal confidantes who was involved in two failed murder plots. The interviews with Sheela and Stork have been conducted over Zoom. Due to international travel restrictions and ethical considerations as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the interview with Sheela was changed from in-person to online. Both the interview with Sheela as well as Stork was conducted using semi-structured interview techniques. Semi-structured interviews
allow for obtaining detailed information from an individual, leaving space to probe for deeper answers as well as collect simpler, factual data (Halperin and Heath 2017: 286). Ma Anand Sheela was approached for an interview because she was one of the key actors that was at the center of this conflict. As an immigrant Woman of Color in a religious minority, she embodied multiple minority positions when she arrived in the United States. Jane Stork was also approached due to her influential position in the conflict. Furthermore, she was a close confidante of Sheela and as a white woman in an important position, it was believed that she may have had relevant insights into the situation at that time. To be able to draw back on the discussed literature (especially Crenshaw 1989; Kennedy and Pronin 2008) both women were asked questions about their identity, their experience with the (perceived) bias of the Antelopians upon arrival and the effects this bias has had on the escalation of the conflict. The interview with Stork revealed the substantial influence the documentary Ashram in Poona had on the relationship with locals, which changed the focus of this research to include theories (see chapter 7) that could accurately explain this influence (Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994;
Wright 2005; Fahs et al. 2013).
3.3 Critical Discourse Analysis
Since Sheela and Stork both have first-hand and subjective experiences, a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) has been conducted to be able to more systematically and objectively look into the possible existence of bias in the media. CDA originally developed as a critique on general Discourse Analysis. According to scholars, Discourse Analysis fails to reveal the relationships between ideology, power and language (Fairclough 2001: 4). CDA focuses on the “embeddedness of semiosis in social contexts, on discourse as the social activity of meaning-making through (written/spoken) language, bodily expressions and/or sounds”
(Forchtner 2011: 1). In this way, CDA sees discourse as a reproduction of the social. According to Fairclough and Wodak (1997), it is this power relationship between discourse and inequality and discrimination that lies at the core of CDA. Forchtner (2011: 1) sums up the basic convictions of CDA as follows: “hidden power structures should be revealed, unjustified discrimination and inequality have to be fought, and the analyst has to reflect on [their] own position and make [their] standpoint transparent”. It seems that CDA has an inherently normative and subjective aspect to it, the latter referring to the analyst’s own position and standpoints being made transparent.
Five key moments in the conflict, up until the moment the confrontation became violent, were chosen to be able to research the presence of racial, gender, religious and political bias against the Rajneeshees. The arrival; the showing of the documentary; the ‘takeover’ of Antelope; the disincorporation election; the bombing of Hotel Rajneesh. Articles were selected in a timeframe starting two weeks prior to the event to two weeks after. The plan was to select
15 articles for each key moment, but publicity about the ranch really picked up in 1982.
Therefore, to get enough articles, the arrival ‘timeframe’ ranged from the very first article being published on August 12th, 1981, to the end of that year. The showing of the documentary took place in the same timeframe as the arrival. The ‘takeover’ of Antelope, and the consecutive disincorporation election, happened between February 20th to May 12th. The last event was the bombing of Hotel Rajneesh, which took place on July 29th, 1983. After the bombing of Hotel Rajneesh, Sheela started importing weapons onto the ranch and training Rajneeshees in combat. This is a clear turning point in the conflict, after which the conflict violently escalated. This research focused on the role of bias in the beginning in the conflict, therefore only events happening up until the bombing were selected. The increased tensions (and consecutive articles) after the bombing fall outside the scope of this thesis. The arrival, documentary, takeover, disincorporation election and bombing were chosen because these were ‘emotional’ events for both parties involved, which provides more relevant articles than every-day reporting.
In total, 65 articles were selected for analysis. Five articles surrounding the documentary: searches for “Dobrowolny”, “Ashram” and “documentary” yielded only five articles mentioning the documentary in question. For the arrival, terms such as “Muddy Ranch”, “Sheela”, “guru”, “Bhagwan”, “Ma Anand Sheela” and “Sheela Silverman” yielded many articles published between August 12th and December 21st, of which fifteen were selected. Some articles were already selected for the documentary; those were excluded to make sure fifteen unique articles were analyzed. The rest was read to filter out articles that mentioned the key words offhandedly. Terms such as “Antelope”, “property” and “Sheela” (in the same article) or “Antelope”, “property”, “Rajneesh”, were used to find articles surrounding the takeover of Antelope. In total twenty articles were selected. The takeover of Antelope eventually led to the town attempting to disincorporate itself. Since the disincorporation election stemmed from the takeover of Antelope, the two-week period after the takeover encompassed the disincorporation election. The search for articles that focused on the disincorporation (“Antelope” and “disincorporation”) only yielded ten results. It was therefore decided to select more articles for the takeover, so that together the two events yielded 30 articles. To find articles for the bombing of Hotel Rajneesh, search terms such as “Hotel Rajneesh”, “bomb” and “bombing” were used. Once again fifteen articles were selected that discussed the events at the hotel.
In the search for articles about the takeover of Antelope, the disincorporation election and the bombing, letters to the editor showed up. It was decided to include these in the articles to gain insight into opinions of locals who were not an active party to the conflict. All twelve letters to the editor that concerned the conflict were selected. The bombing was cause for seven letters, the period encompassing the takeover and disincorporation election was good for four
letters. Going back to see if any letters to the editor surrounding the arrival or documentary were missed resulted in the finding of one editorial. This was also selected for analysis since it is written on a personal title and therefore similar to letters to the editor. The total number of articles analyzed was 76. Analysis was done in Atlas T.I., a qualitative data analysis and research software. Descriptive, in-vivo and thematic coding was used to code the articles. The articles were analyzed for distortion, exaggerations, repetitions and negations, as well as racist dogwhistles and subtle sexism, religious bias and Cold-War references.
Brader’s (2005) research on the role of music and images on (voting) behavior makes it relevant to look into the effects that the documentary “Ashram in Poona” (1978) had on public opinion of Antelopians as well as their voting behavior and voter turn-out. The Netflix documentary Wild Wild Country (2018) was used to supplement the other data. This documentary makes use of original footage filmed by the commune members, as well as original news segments that were aired at the time. It helps to reconstruct the chain of events in this conflict (see Chapter 5) and supplements the conclusions drawn from the CDA.
Chapter 4: The United States of the 1980s
To understand the complexity of the relationship between the locals and Rajneeshees, it is essential to dive into America’s political and societal issues of the time. In the unfolding of the conflict between Rajneeshpuram and Antelope, many societal and cultural factors played a role. In this and the following chapter, the context of the conflict will be discussed.
This will be done in two ways; a discussion of the United States’ culture in the 1980s, as well as a chronological summary of the relationship between the Rajneeshees and the Antelopians/Oregonians. The lengthy discussion of U.S. culture in the 1980s is provided to really give a sense of the zeitgeist of the time and to introduce multiple concepts that have played a role in the nuanced and complex relationship between the Rajneeshees and Antelopians.
4.1 Race
As Angelo Ancheta (2006) says: “Dualism is a convenient lens through which to view the world. Black or white, male or female, straight or gay – the categories help us frame reality and make sense of it” (Ancheta 2006: 4). When it comes to racial history of the United States, the focus has always been put on African American history. Racism, in the United States, is a Black-white dichotomy. This is no surprise; according to the United States Census of 2020, African Americans make up 13,6 percent of the U.S. population, making them the largest non- white racial group in the country (United States Census Bureau 2020). However, the U.S.
census’ way of measuring the racial makeup of the country has been up for debate for years (see i.e. Roth 2010) and the census does not accurately account for bi- or multiracial African Americans. Nevertheless, as biggest non-white racial group, African Americans have been (and still are) victim of racial subordination.
Racial hierarchies are woven into the fabric of the United States. The westward expansion, bringing white settlers from across the Atlantic to the shores of what is now known as the United States, was marked by genocide against Native Americans. Furthermore, even before independence from the British crown was won because of the American Revolution (1765-1783), enslaved people were already forced to labor for white settlers. The first of an estimated 6 to 7 million enslaved people arrived as early as 1619, when twenty Africans were brought ashore in Virginia (Rein 2006). These enslaved people were forced to work on plantations in states south of the Mason-Dixon line as the states north of the Mason-Dixon line did not have plantations. This doesn’t mean, however, that these northern states did not practice racial exclusion; when the state of Oregon was granted statehood in 1859, only white people were allowed to live there, a law that was upheld until 1926 (Novak 2015: 1). It was for
this and other reasons that Portland, Oregon, was called the most segregated city north of the Mason-Dixon line (ibid.).
Abolitionism and plantation economies, combined with northern as well as southern nationalism and other political and social differences set the stage for the American Civil War (1861-1865). Historians tend to agree that the primary cause for the Civil War was the issue of slavery, which the southern states wanted to preserve, and the northern states wanted to abolish (Hustan 1999). An ideologically deeply divided country, with very different ideas of human worth, remained after the Union defeated the southern Confederacy in April 1865. The era of Reconstruction (1865-1877) began, which was characterized by the ratification of the amendments known as the Reconstruction Amendments: the 13th amendment abolished slavery (except for those convicted of crimes); the 14th amendment focused on citizenship of emancipated African Americans as well as equal protection under the law; the 15th amendment prohibited discrimination in voting rights on the basis of race. With these amendments, the Oregonian constitution prohibiting Black people from living, working or owning property in the state was overruled. However, while Oregon ratified the 14th amendment in 1866, the ratification was promptly rescinded in 1868 when a more conservative state government won the elections (Novak 2015: 4). This was a symbolic act, since federal law overrules state law. Nevertheless, it was a clear statement. Only in 1959 was the 14th amendment ratified again (Rector 2010: 18).
Reconstruction was met with strong resistance, especially in the South. The South desperately tried holding onto the segregated racial order, and the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896) upheld the constitutionality of segregation. This case is the origin of the “separate but equal” doctrine, which dominated the Jim Crow era (1880-1965) in which the United States segregated African Americans from white Americans in public spaces. Jim Crow laws institutionalized racial segregation and white supremacy over People of Color in the United States until Brown v. the Board of Education (1954) challenged racial segregation in schools.
From 1954 on, more Jim Crow laws were challenged and the passing of the Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965) marked the official end of the Jim Crow era.
The end of Jim Crow laws did not mean the end of racism in society, however. In the 1970s, Oregon had “Sundown Laws”, which “warned Blacks and other People of Color to be out of town by sundown” (Rector 2010: 19). During this time, white nationalist separatists wanted to create a white ethnostate located in the area of Oregon which would be called the
“Northwest Territorial Imperative” (Strochlic 2021) – a ‘dream’ that is still supported in some extreme white nationalist groups (Medina et al. 2018). In 1981, two police officers racially targeted an African American-owned restaurant in Portland and dumped dead animals in front of the business, which evoked “ugly KKK imagery” and remains one of the “most contentious disputes between police, city government and the public” in recent Oregon history
(Rector 2010: 20). The KKK was well established in Oregon; in the 1920s the state had the highest percentage of KKK members out of any state west of Mississippi (Strochlic 2021).
Even today, more than fifty-five years later, the remnants of Jim Crow laws are still experienced by People of Color in the U.S. For example in housing (Archer 2019), voting access (Bentele and O’Brien 2013) and healthcare (Prather et al. 2018). “Institutionalized racism”, the embeddedness of racism within the law, leads to racial inequality in education, criminal justice, employment and many more facets of society. The term stands in stark contrast to individual racism, which are “overt acts by individuals, which cause death, injury or the violent destruction of property” (Carmichael 1992: 3). In his book “Black Power: The Politics of Liberation” originally published in 1967, Civil Rights activist Stokely Carmichael conceptualizes institutionalized racism as
“less overt, far more subtle, less identifiable in terms of specific individuals committing the acts. But it is no less destructive of human life. The second type originates in the operation of established and respected forces in the society, and thus receives far less public condemnation than the first type” (ibid.)
It becomes clear that in America, and Oregon, of the 1980s, racism against non-whites was prevalent on an individual level as well as in the legislature. Evaluations of the condition of African Americans in the United States published in the 1980s (Piliawsky 1983; Bowser 1985) do not mince their words: segregation remains widespread and Black people have “little hope of further improving their circumstances relative to whites in the foreseeable future”
(Bowser 1985: 307). According to Piliawsky’s analysis, institutionalized racism “continues unabated” and Black people “remain as oppressed as twenty years ago” (Piliawsky 1983: 141, 143). Furthermore, Piliawsky explains how it is “no longer fashionable in polite conversation to explicitly race-bait, racism today is more subtly expressed in the code words” (idem: 142).
The 1980s thus saw a shift from explicit racism to more subtle, covert and coded racism. This form of racism, Piliawsky claims, “is particularly dangerous because it attempts to deprive blacks of the validity of their grievances, thereby placing demands of blacks in the position of appearing to be outrageous” (ibid.).
American race relations encompass so much more than the dualistic black and white division. Racism, based on the premise of white supremacy, has been woven into the fabric of the United States since before the pioneers even succeeded from the British Crown. Race relations in the United States can be seen as a hierarchy, often described as a ladder. With whites at the top and Black people at the bottom (Ancheta 2006: 13), other racial minorities are placed somewhere in between. Asian Americans have been, according to historian Gary Okihiro, “near-blacks” in the past, as well as “near-whites” in the present (Okihiro 1994: 34,
as referenced in Ancheta 2006: 4). South Asian Americans especially, due to large variety in skin tones, have a “racially ambiguous identity within the United States” (Harpalani 2013: 14).
Besides the decades of experiences similar to Black people – housing, employment and educational discrimination, as well as segregation, racial violence and unequal access to public institutions (Ancheta 2006: 6) – the American court system even classified Asian Americans as Black in the mid-19th century (Kwon 2019). Similarly to Black people, the court saw school segregation of Asian Americans as constitutional (Ancheta 2006: 5).
Simultaneously, however, Asian Americans were (and still are) seen as “honorary whites”, or even seen as a “model minority” group. Asian Americans are seen as ‘close’ to whites, due to shared values concerning family, educational achievement and hard work, as well as perceived higher IQ (idem: 3). This is a double-edged sword; it gives Asian-Americans a special type of privilege in the way that their existence makes whites less uncomfortable than other minorities, but simultaneously pushes other minority groups further down the ladder and creates a very clear mold in which they themselves are supposed to fit (idem: 14). But Asian Americans were not allowed to enjoy the privileges that came with whiteness; in the court case United States v. Thind, the court ruled that Asian-Indian immigrants were not white, and were prohibited from naturalization until 1952 (Ancheta 2006: 6). Even though the court ruled in the earlier case of Ozawa v. United States that all Caucasians were white, Thind’s argument that he belonged to the Caucasian race (which, according to accepted conceptualization of the time, he did) was not accepted because his skin color was not light enough (Joshi 2006: 215).
Anti-Asian racism has been, and still is, prevalent in the United States. Nativism plays a big role in anti-Asian discrimination. Nativism, here, is conceptualized as “intense opposition to an internal minority on the ground of its foreign (i.e. ‘un-American’) connections” (Higham 1970: 4). Asian Americans are seen as “foreign” and discrimination targeting Asian Americans centers around Asian Americans being “illegal aliens” or unwelcome immigrants: “anti-immigrant epithets such as “go home!” or “why don’t you go back to your own country?” frequently accompany anti-Asian violence” (Ancheta 2006: 12).
Asian Americans often fall victim to nativistic racism, which is strengthened by patriotic racism: America’s wars with Vietnam, Korea and Japan have fostered a deep animosity against Asian Americans (ibid.).
4.2 Religion
The question of the U.S. being a Christian nation is one that has been up for debate for decades. While the Founding Documents – the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers and the Bill of Rights – contain references that can be interpreted as references to God, the phrase “in God we trust” stems
from the Civil War Era and the phrase “one nation under God” was not used until 1956 (Schweitzer 2015). The lobby group National Reform Association thought that God was punishing the country with the Civil War. The failure to explicitly mention God in the Constitution, they thought, naturally led to the “sin” of slavery, which in turn led to the Civil War (Demar 2009). A proposition to change the constitution to include a very specific mention of God – “Recognizing Almighty God as the source of all authority and power in civil government, and acknowledging the Lord Jesus Christ as the governor among the nations [...]”
(ibid.) – was rejected by President Lincoln as well as Congress. As a compromise, Congress agreed to put “In God We Trust” on the American currency (Schweitzer 2015).
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a resolution in 1954 adding the phrase “under God” to the sentence “one nation, indivisible” in the Pledge of Allegiance (Rohde 2010).
President Eisenhower himself argues that it was done to recognize “the dedication of our Nation and our people to the Almighty” (Eisenhower 1954). This amendment to the Pledge came at the height of the Cold War, however. In his speech, Eisenhower also says that “[t]o anyone who truly loves America, nothing could be more inspiring [...]” (ibid.). This is closely related to what historians call ‘civil religion’: “the use of commonly-accepted religious sentiments, concepts and symbols by the state for its own purposes” (Pierard 1979: 81) as well as self-understanding (Canipe 2003: 306). The concept of civil religion has been around since the American Revolution. Sociologist Robert Bellah says that the new nation has always been understood through a form of religion – the “collection of beliefs, symbols and rituals with respect to sacred things” – which might have had a lot in common with Christianity, but wasn’t sectarian or Christian (Bellah 1988: 104). As Canipe (2003: 306) so concisely put it: “civil religion [...] borrows from the sacred to give meaning to the secular”. Civil religion, claims Martin Marty (1974: 143), is periodic. It has outbursts, paired with patriotism, often as a response to a (perceived or real) threat to American values or safety.
Seeing as the Soviet Union was a secular nation, the addition of “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance was a simple way to further frame the Cold War as a war between two completely opposite countries: one that is secular and ideologically atheist, the other, “one nation, under god, indivisible”. By strengthening the cultural identity of the United States through civil religion, the distance to the Soviet Union increased, so to speak. At the time of the second “Red Scare” (1947-1957), religion and patriotism became synonymous with anti- communism and religiosity in the country rose to incredibly high levels (Canipe 2003: 312).
The Gallup poll, a recurring poll about American public opinion and religion, reported that 96% of Americans believed in God in 1954 (Gallup 1972: 1253).
Religion, however, played (and still plays) a big role in the United States. Continued by George Gallup’s son no doubt, Gallup Jr. conducted the same survey about religiosity in 1985.
This survey gives a glimpse of the state of religion during the 1980s. Eighty percent of
Americans report being a Christian, and two-thirds report believing in “the divinity of Jesus Christ and that he was resurrected from the dead” (idem: 168). Of all Americans, more than sixty percent believe that Jesus will return to earth someday and this survey reports that one in three Americans experienced a “dramatic life-changing religious experience” (ibid.).
Christianity was (still) widespread in the 1980s, and according to Gallup Jr., on the rise (idem:
169). While Oregon has historically been one of the least religious states in the country, over a third of the state’s citizens reported being religious in 1980 (Association of Religion Data Archives [ARDA] 2010). Wasco County and Jefferson County, the counties that Big Muddy Ranch was a part of, reported a similar percentage of religiosity: 35,1% (ibid.).
Other research also found that religiosity in the United States was on the rise in the late 1970s and early 1980s, shown by a higher social visibility of evangelical Christians (Smidt and Penning 1982: 231). Evangelical Christians believe in the salvation by Jesus Christ, and attach great importance to the act of evangelicalism: converting others to their faith (National Association of Evangelicals n.d.). In 1980s Oregon, out of the 85 religious bodies that were reported to be in the state, 63 were Evangelical Protestant (ARDA 2010). In Wasco and Jefferson County, 20 out of the 34 religious bodies were Evangelical (ibid.). The Catholic church had a great following in these counties too, however: these counties were about equally divided between Evangelical Protestants and Catholics (ibid.). Over the past decades, research has consistently indicated that religious affiliation as well as church attendance negatively influence a citizen’s willingness to extend civil liberties to minority groups (Filsinger 1976;
Beatty and Walter 1984; Katnik 2002). In the 1980s, evangelical Protestants entered the Republican electoral base (Patrikios 2008: 368). Catholics have been almost equally divided in their support for the Democratic and Republican party since the 1960 election which elected the first Catholic President: John F. Kennedy. Froese, Bader and Smith (2008) find that Americans who believe in the scripture of the Bible and believe that it must be taken for its word, express “willingness to curb free expression” (Froese, Bader and Smith 2008: 41).
According to the National Association of Evangelicals, evangelicals identify “biblicism” as one of the four primary characteristics of evangelicalism (National Association of Evangelicals n.d.a).
4.3 Gender
While there is still debate on how to explicitly define the different waves of feminism, consensus exists that, historically, the feminist struggle can be divided in three waves. The first wave took place from late 19th century to early 20th century, when efforts for women’s equal rights gained momentum. Women such as Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) and Jane Austen (1775-1817) used their talents to advocate for women’s intelligence and education, but it wasn’t until 1848 that a declaration was drafted that outlined the ideological goals of what we now
know as the feminist movement. The Declaration of Sentiments, authored by Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) and signed by 68 women and 32 men, was the outcome of the first Women’s Rights convention organized by women in Seneca Falls, New York. The declaration was modeled after the Declaration of Independence and was “the grand movement for attaining the civil, social, political and religious rights of women” (Douglass 1848). It is said that Frederick Douglass’ attendance at the convention and support, as the leader of the abolitionist movement in New York and Massachusetts, helped pass the resolutions (Stanton, Anthony and Gage 1889: 74). Douglass’ efforts correlated the abolitionist movement with early feminism: he believed that collaboration between both movements was essential to gain equality when it came to race and sex (Rojas 2015) – a clear example of an intersectional viewpoint before the term was created.
The declaration spoke of suffrage and political representation, the lack of rights for married women, financial dependence and education. The first wave, kick-started by this declaration, discussed differences between men and women and their effects. First wave feminism is now seen as rather moderate (compared to the second and third wave) and the American Woman Suffrage Association was willing to work and lobby within the accepted political system. While there were attempts to change the culture in a broader sense and to achieve a more equal role for women in society, first wave feminism focused predominantly on suffrage. In 1920, the 19th amendment was passed. This gave white women the right to vote, as well as included reforms in health care, the workplace and higher education.
During World War II, women entered the workforce and took over jobs in traditionally male fields and the amount of women in the workforce increased from 28% to 37%
(McDermott 2018). This was only an improvement for white women however, since Black women were last to be considered for high paying industrial jobs and often ended up doing domestic work for three to seven dollars per week, as opposed to white women receiving up to forty dollars per week in industrial jobs (Mullenbach 2013: 5-38). In postwar America, women were supposed to go back to being domestic and quiescent (Johnson and Lloyed 2004).
Responsible for the baby boom (roughly 1945-1964), women took on the role of mothers and were responsible for taking care of the children and keeping the house in order. With religion at a steady high percentage, the male-female divide and gender roles as interpreted from the scripture influenced the relationships in many homes in America (ibid.):
“Although women have traditionally fulfilled supportive roles in serving the church and gained their greatest joy and sense of accomplishment from being wives and mothers, the feminist movement has successfully influenced many women to abandon these divinely ordained roles. [...] Only in Scripture can God’s intended design for women be found” (Grace Church n.d.)
