Christian Nationalism and Gender Roles
Christian Nationalism and Gender Roles
Christian nationalism is often studied as a political and religious ideology concerning the relationship between Christianity and national identity, but a substantial body of scholarship also connects it to ideas about gender, family structure, sexuality, reproduction, and social authority. Research reviewed here indicates that beliefs associated with Christian nationalism frequently overlap with traditionalist understandings of men’s and women’s roles, including male household leadership, female domestic responsibility, heterosexual marriage, pronatalism, opposition to feminism, and gender-differentiated authority in churches and families.
These connections do not mean that every person who holds Christian-nationalist beliefs has identical views about gender. Researchers distinguish among different forms of Christian nationalism, religious traditionalism, political nationalism, and conservative Christianity. Studies of evangelical families also show that formal beliefs about male headship do not always correspond neatly to everyday household behavior. Nevertheless, gender hierarchy has emerged as an important theme in research on Christian nationalism and the broader Christian Right.
Christian Nationalism and Patriarchal Social Order
One of the clearest findings in the literature is an association between Christian nationalism and traditionalist gender ideology. Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry found that stronger adherence to Christian-nationalist ideas predicted greater support for traditional roles for men and women even after accounting for political ideology, religiosity, and other demographic factors.
Subsequent research has placed these attitudes within a broader concept of social order. Christian-nationalist visions of society may include heterosexual marriage, differentiated male and female roles, parental authority, religiously defined family structures, and expectations that men exercise leadership within the household.
Public Religion Research Institute surveys have measured related attitudes such as whether men should serve as heads of households, whether women should primarily be wives and mothers, whether society has become excessively feminine, and whether occupations or social responsibilities should be divided according to gender.
Research also suggests that Christian nationalism may intersect with race, sexuality, family identity, and perceptions of social change. Some scholarship describes the patriarchal family not simply as a private religious arrangement but as a symbolic model for social and national order.
Complementarianism and Male Headship
Complementarianism is a theological framework holding that men and women have equal spiritual worth but different roles and responsibilities. Within many conservative evangelical settings, complementarianism assigns primary leadership to men in churches and families while emphasizing wives’ submission or support of husbands’ leadership.
Historical research shows that male headship became increasingly politicized during the late twentieth century. Debates over feminism, the Equal Rights Amendment, women’s employment, reproductive rights, sexuality, and same-sex marriage contributed to the development of gender roles as markers of conservative evangelical identity.
Scholars have also documented differences between formal doctrine and everyday practice. Evangelical couples may publicly affirm husband leadership while making household decisions collaboratively. Researchers have described this pattern as symbolic traditionalism combined with pragmatic egalitarianism.
This distinction is important because conservative Christian gender systems are not always experienced or implemented in identical ways. Women within complementarian communities may exercise substantial influence in families, congregations, organizations, and political movements even while formally supporting male leadership.
Masculinity and Male Authority
Ideas about masculinity play an important role in scholarship on Christian nationalism and conservative evangelical culture. Researchers have examined ideals of masculine strength, toughness, protection, fatherhood, heterosexuality, military identity, and household leadership.
Historical studies trace the development of evangelical models of manhood through figures such as Billy Graham and through organizations such as Promise Keepers. More recent scholarship has examined ministries associated with highly masculine models of Christianity that present men as spiritual leaders responsible for directing families and defending religious values.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s work on evangelical masculinity argues that images of militant, authoritative manhood became increasingly important within sections of white evangelical political culture. Other scholars have connected these ideals to broader nationalist traditions in which political authority, national strength, heterosexuality, fatherhood, and masculine leadership reinforce one another.
Studies of Christian nationalism have also examined whether ideas about masculine toughness influence political attitudes, including responses to perceived national threats, social disorder, feminism, or changes in gender expectations.
Women and Conservative Christian Political Leadership
Traditional gender ideology has not prevented women from becoming influential political actors within the Christian Right. Research on conservative women demonstrates that motherhood, domestic responsibility, and religious identity have often provided a foundation for political activism.
Women such as Phyllis Schlafly, Beverly LaHaye, Anita Bryant, and later conservative female political leaders mobilized supporters around issues involving family, feminism, abortion, education, sexuality, and religious values. Their activism illustrates an important tension within conservative gender politics: women may defend traditional distinctions between male and female roles while simultaneously becoming prominent public organizers, speakers, activists, and political leaders.
Scholars studying the New Christian Right have therefore emphasized women’s agency as well as institutional gender hierarchy. Conservative Christian women have created organizations, led campaigns, shaped public policy debates, and defined religious-political identities.
Maternal identity has frequently served as a political resource. Activists have portrayed women as defenders of children, families, religious morality, and community values, allowing participation in public political life to be presented as an extension of domestic responsibility rather than a rejection of it.
Antifeminism and Family Values
Opposition to feminism became one of the central organizing themes of the modern Christian Right. Beginning particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, conservative Christian activists increasingly interpreted feminism as a challenge to traditional family structures, motherhood, male authority, heterosexual marriage, and religious teachings about gender.
The campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment became particularly important in this development. Conservative activists argued that the amendment could undermine gender distinctions, traditional marriage, and protections associated with women’s domestic roles.
Organizations such as Concerned Women for America presented themselves as alternatives to feminist organizations and promoted what they regarded as a Christian understanding of womanhood, marriage, motherhood, sexuality, and family authority.
The broader language of “family values” brought together several issues that had previously been treated separately. Abortion, women’s employment, feminism, homosexuality, parental rights, religious education, divorce, pornography, and gender roles became interconnected within a larger political narrative about the condition of the American family.
Pronatalism, Motherhood, and Reproduction
Pronatalism—the belief that society should encourage higher birth rates—has emerged as another area of research connecting Christian nationalism and gender roles.
Studies have found associations between Christian nationalism, patriarchal attitudes, concerns about demographic change, and support for increasing American birth rates. Some researchers distinguish general pronatalism from selective pronatalism, in which childbirth is valued especially when associated with particular religious, cultural, racial, or national groups.
Complementarian gender beliefs may reinforce pronatalist ideas by emphasizing motherhood as a central female vocation and fatherhood as an important form of male leadership.
Movements such as Quiverfull represent a more explicit form of conservative Christian pronatalism. Participants may reject contraception, encourage large families, emphasize female submission, and describe childbearing as a religious responsibility.
Research on the Christian Right also places abortion politics within this broader framework. Opposition to abortion has often been connected to ideas about motherhood, family responsibility, sexual morality, religious authority, and the protection of a particular social order.
Purity Culture and Female Sexuality
Evangelical purity culture is another important area where gender, religion, and national identity intersect.
Purity teachings developed around sexual abstinence before marriage, modest dress, heterosexual marriage, gender differentiation, and the regulation of sexual behavior. Researchers have documented the particularly strong expectations often placed on girls and young women to control sexual expression and avoid behaviors interpreted as sexually provocative.
Some scholarship links purity culture to broader concerns about national decline and religious identity. Sexual behavior may be presented not merely as a personal moral issue but as evidence of the moral condition of families, churches, and the nation.
Studies have also examined racial dimensions of purity culture. Ideals of respectable Christian femininity have sometimes been connected to historically racialized expectations surrounding white womanhood, domesticity, marriage, and sexual behavior.
More recent research has examined the psychological and social effects of purity teachings, particularly for women and sexual and gender minorities raised within conservative evangelical environments.
Gender, Sexuality, and National Identity
Scholarship on nationalism more broadly provides a framework for understanding why gender roles appear frequently in Christian-nationalist movements.
Nationalist ideologies often attach symbolic importance to family organization, reproduction, masculinity, femininity, heterosexuality, and motherhood. Men may be portrayed as defenders, fathers, soldiers, or political leaders, while women may be portrayed as mothers, cultural transmitters, and guardians of morality.
Within Christian nationalism, these gendered roles may be reinforced by religious teachings. The family can become a model for society itself, with authority, obedience, protection, reproduction, and moral responsibility assigned to differentiated social roles.
Research on white nationalism and portions of the religious right has also identified overlapping interest in patriarchal heterosexual family structures. Scholars caution, however, that these movements remain distinct and should not automatically be treated as identical.
Gender Differences Among Christian Nationalists
Christian nationalism is sometimes assumed to be primarily a male phenomenon, but survey research shows that women also hold Christian-nationalist beliefs.
Studies of women within conservative religious movements help explain this apparent contradiction. Support for differentiated gender roles does not necessarily eliminate women’s sense of agency or political participation. Women may interpret motherhood, religious commitment, family authority, or moral responsibility as foundations for activism.
At the same time, gender can affect the expression of Christian nationalism. Research examining masculinity, femininity, race, and political identity suggests that Christian nationalism interacts with personal identity rather than operating as a single uniform worldview.
This complexity has led researchers to examine Christian nationalism as a collection of overlapping beliefs concerning religion, nation, social hierarchy, family, sexuality, race, political authority, and cultural identity.
Historical Development
The gender politics associated with contemporary Christian nationalism developed over a long period.
American Protestant fundamentalism debated women’s religious authority, masculinity, marriage, and family roles throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Mid-twentieth-century evangelicalism continued many traditional gender assumptions while adapting them to new social conditions.
During the postwar period, conservative women increasingly became involved in grassroots political activism. Disputes over communism, education, sexuality, feminism, abortion, and the Equal Rights Amendment contributed to the emergence of the modern Christian Right.
By the late twentieth century, arguments about family and gender had become central components of conservative Christian political identity. These themes later became intertwined with contemporary Christian nationalism.
The historical evidence therefore suggests that Christian-nationalist gender ideology did not appear suddenly. It developed from earlier evangelical, fundamentalist, nationalist, and conservative political debates about family organization and social authority.
Variation Within Conservative Christianity
The research also demonstrates that conservative Christianity is not homogeneous.
Evangelicals have long debated complementarianism, egalitarianism, women’s ministry, marital authority, feminism, sexuality, and family roles. Some conservative Christians defend strict gender differentiation, while others accept women’s religious leadership or more egalitarian household arrangements.
Researchers have similarly distinguished different varieties of Christian nationalism. Some forms place stronger emphasis on religious traditionalism and family hierarchy, while others focus more heavily on government, national identity, or political power.
These differences make it important to distinguish Christian nationalism from Christianity generally and from ordinary religious participation in politics.
Christian nationalism represents a particular configuration of religious and national identity, and gender hierarchy is more prominent in some versions than in others.
Conclusion
Research on Christian nationalism and gender roles reveals a recurring connection between national identity, religious authority, family structure, masculinity, femininity, sexuality, and reproduction.
Quantitative studies have found associations between Christian nationalism and traditionalist gender attitudes, while historical and ethnographic research shows how concepts such as male headship, biblical womanhood, motherhood, masculine leadership, sexual purity, and family values became embedded in sections of conservative Christian political culture.
At the same time, the scholarship presents a more complicated picture than a simple division between dominant men and subordinate women. Conservative Christian women have frequently exercised substantial religious and political leadership, and evangelical families may practice more egalitarian relationships than their formal theology suggests.
The broader pattern is that gender functions as an important component of competing ideas about social order. Within Christian-nationalist thought, debates about who should lead families, how men and women should behave, who should raise children, how sexuality should be regulated, and what constitutes a legitimate family can become connected to larger arguments about religion, citizenship, national identity, and the future of American society.
Direct Research on Christian Nationalism, Gender, and Patriarchy
1. | Sophie Bjork-James | Cambridge University Press | April 22, 2026
Feeling at Home in Christian Nationalism: Sexuality and White Evangelicalism in the United States. Explores connections among whiteness, family respectability, sexuality, Christian nationalism, and gender expectations.
2. | UMass Amherst Poll | University of Massachusetts Amherst | April 7, 2026
National Poll: Christian Nationalism. Reports support for Christian-nationalist propositions by gender, age, education, race, political identification, and other demographics.
3. | Samuel L. Perry | Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion | March 14, 2026
The Right Kind of Children: Christian Nationalism, Religiosity, and Support for Selective Versus General Pronatalism. Distinguishes general pronatalism from selective pronatalism and finds Christian nationalism particularly associated with the latter.
4. | Brenita Mitchell | Review & Expositor | May 26, 2025
How Does White Christian Nationalism Harm Women in America? A critical analysis arguing that patriarchal forms of white Christian nationalism restrict women's autonomy, leadership, and social roles.
5. | Nilay Saiya | Politics and Religion | May 13, 2025
The Varieties of American Christian Nationalism. Distinguishes several strands of Christian nationalism and discusses how some traditions explicitly defend hierarchical gender roles and women's subordination to male authority.
6. | Paul A. Djupe and Brooklyn Walker | Sociology of Religion | March 8, 2025
Jesus and John Wayne Wannabes: How Christian Nationalism and Femininity Shape Extreme Politics Among Men in the US. Examines masculinity, femininity, Christian nationalism, sexism, political extremism, and attitudes toward violence among American men.
7. | PRRI Staff | Public Religion Research Institute | February 4, 2025
Experts Discuss Christian Nationalism and Trump’s Return. Scholars discuss national Christian-nationalism survey findings, including its relationship to patriarchy and traditional family organization.
8. | Samuel L. Perry and collaborators | Social Forces | 2025
Order Begins at Home: Christian Nationalism and Control over Children. Links Christian nationalism to authoritarian approaches toward children while situating those findings within research on family hierarchy, gender traditionalism, and pronatalism.
9. | PRRI Staff | Public Religion Research Institute | September 10, 2024
One Leader Under God: The Connection Between Authoritarianism and Christian Nationalism in America. Surveys attitudes about male household leadership, women's vocation as wives and mothers, gendered occupations, femininity, and women's social gains.
10. | PRRI Staff | Public Religion Research Institute | October 30, 2024
Resistance to Christian Nationalism in All 50 States. Examines demographic patterns among Americans rejecting or questioning Christian nationalism, including comparisons by gender.
11. | PRRI Staff | Public Religion Research Institute | February 28, 2024
Support for Christian Nationalism in All 50 States. Provides demographic data, including gender comparisons, for Christian-nationalism adherents, sympathizers, skeptics, and rejecters.
12. | Samuel L. Perry and collaborators | Ethnic and Racial Studies | 2024
Intersecting Identities, Diverging Visions: Christian Nationalism, Race, Gender, and Prioritizing Equality or Liberty. Examines how gender and race intersect with Christian-nationalist beliefs in shaping preferences concerning equality and liberty.
13. | Melissa Deckman | Public Religion Research Institute | March 17, 2023
Not Just Proud Boys: Women Espouse Christian Nationalist Views Too. Discusses the finding that women can support Christian nationalism at rates similar to men despite its association with hierarchical family structures.
14. | PRRI and Brookings Institution | Public Religion Research Institute | February 8, 2023
A Christian Nation? Understanding the Threat of Christian Nationalism to American Democracy and Culture. National polling includes measures of male household leadership, female submission, women's career opportunities, masculinity, and perceptions that society has become too feminine.
15. | PRRI Staff | Public Religion Research Institute | February 8, 2023
Survey: Two-Thirds of White Evangelicals, Most Republicans Sympathetic to Christian Nationalism. Summarizes survey findings connecting Christian nationalism to patriarchal gender roles along with other social and political attitudes.
16. | PRRI and Brookings Institution | Christian Nationalism Survey Presentation | 2023
Christian Nationalism Survey. Includes detailed polling on male household headship, women's educational and career opportunities, masculinity, femininity, and patriarchal family beliefs.
17. | Yao Li | Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion | 2023
The Duality of American Christian Nationalism: Religious Traditionalism versus Christian Statism. Separates religious traditionalism from Christian statism and identifies family and sexual morality as especially important to the traditionalist dimension.
18. | Samuel L. Perry, Joshua B. Grubbs, and collaborators | Sociological Forum | September 7, 2022
Fill the Earth and Subdue It: Christian Nationalism, Ethno-Religious Threat, and Nationalist Pronatalism. Finds that Christian nationalism predicts support for increasing American birth rates and connects pronatalism to gender hierarchy and perceptions of demographic threat.
19. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | October 27, 2022
Views of the U.S. as a Christian Nation and Opinions About Christian Nationalism. Provides national survey context for who supports Christian-nationalist ideas and what respondents mean when they describe the United States as Christian.
20. | Samuel L. Perry, Andrew L. Whitehead, and Joshua B. Grubbs | Sociology of Religion | 2021
Save the Economy, Liberty, and Yourself: Christian Nationalism and Americans' Views on Government COVID-19 Restrictions. Discusses the strongly gendered component of Christian nationalism, including associations between national identity and ideals of masculine toughness.
21. | Sage Mikkelsen and Sarah Kornfield | Women's Studies in Communication | July 21, 2021
Girls Gone Fundamentalist: Feminine Appeals of White Christian Nationalism. Analyzes GirlDefined Ministries and argues that its model of ideal Christian femininity combines patriarchal gender expectations, sexual purity, whiteness, and nationalist cultural politics.
22. | Sophie Bjork-James | Transforming Anthropology | March 30, 2020
White Sexual Politics: The Patriarchal Family in White Nationalism and the Religious Right. Ethnographic research compares religious-right and white-nationalist understandings of the heterosexual patriarchal family and gender hierarchy.
23. | Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry | Oxford University Press | March 19, 2020
Order. A chapter of Taking America Back for God examining how Christian-nationalist understandings of social order are connected to patriarchy, heterosexual marriage, cisgender identity, divorce, and gender roles within the family.
24. | Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry | Canadian Review of Sociology | April 30, 2019
Is a “Christian America” a More Patriarchal America? Religion, Politics, and Traditionalist Gender Ideology. Using national survey data, the authors find Christian nationalism strongly predicts traditionalist attitudes about men's and women's social and family roles, even after accounting for political ideology, religiosity, and other characteristics.
Gender Hierarchy, Complementarianism, and Biblical Womanhood
25. | Oxford Handbook Contributors | Oxford University Press | 2026
Gender, Sexuality, and Family Values. Reviews Baptist disputes over male and female roles, women's authority, feminism, homosexuality, sexuality, and the influence of the Christian Right on denominational gender politics.
26. | Gabriela Gallego | Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion | 2026
It's Not Just Fashion, It's Sin: The Impacts of Modesty Messaging on Female Adolescents Within the White Evangelical Church. Examines modesty teachings as a form of gendered surveillance and connects evangelical standards of female purity to broader racial and Christian-nationalist cultural norms.
27. | Jennifer McKinney | Oxford University Press | January 19, 2023
Making Christianity Manly Again: Mark Driscoll, Mars Hill Church, and American Evangelicalism. Studies hypermasculinity, complementarianism, male authority, feminism, family hierarchy, and links to contemporary Christian nationalism.
28. | Jennifer McKinney | Oxford University Press | January 19, 2023
Real Women: Wives, Mothers, and Lovers. Examines expectations that evangelical women prioritize marriage, motherhood, domesticity, submission, and husbands' sexual needs.
29. | Jennifer McKinney | Oxford University Press | January 19, 2023
Conclusion: Question Mark. Connects hypermasculine evangelical theology and hierarchical family organization to Christian nationalism and reactions against feminism.
30. | Sara Williams | The Christian Century | February 15, 2022
The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill Is Conspicuously Silent on Race. Critically examines complementarianism, male headship, femininity, race, and the idealization of the patriarchal nuclear family.
31. | Terry Gross/Mike Cosper | NPR/Fresh Air | January 20, 2022
The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. Discusses Mark Driscoll's teachings concerning male household authority, female submission, sexuality, and evangelical masculinity.
32. | Beth Allison Barr | Brazos Press/Baylor University | 2021
The Making of Biblical Womanhood. Historical critique of the claim that Christianity requires female submission, domesticity, and male leadership.
33. | Kristin Kobes Du Mez | Georgetown University Berkley Center | May 21, 2021
Where Are the Women in American Evangelicalism? Reviews the history of complementarianism, women's ministry, and restrictions on women's religious leadership.
34. | Thomas Frederick | Theology & Sexuality | 2010
An Interpretation of Evangelical Gender Ideology: Implications for a Theology of Gender. Examines evangelical male-headship and female-domesticity models and the shift toward describing headship as male “servant leadership.”
35. | Alan G. Padgett | Dialog | February 24, 2008
The Bible and Gender Troubles: American Evangelicals Debate Scripture and Submission. Surveys evangelical debates over complementarianism, egalitarianism, women's submission, and theological arguments about gender hierarchy.
36. | Ellen L. Flournoy | University of South Florida | 2006
Powerful Submission: Popular Texts and the Subjectivity of Christian Right Women. Examines how Christian Right literature constructs feminine identity, submission, political involvement, and religious authority.
37. | Sally K. Gallagher | Sociology of Religion | 2004
The Marginalization of Evangelical Feminism. Examines tensions between evangelical feminist arguments and increasingly institutionalized complementarian gender ideology.
38. | W. Bradford Wilcox | University of Chicago Press | 2004
Soft Patriarchs, New Men: How Christianity Shapes Fathers and Husbands. Examines how conservative Protestant teachings influence men's marriage, parenting, authority, and domestic behavior.
39. | Sally K. Gallagher | Rutgers University Press | 2003
Evangelical Identity and Gendered Family Life. Analyzes evangelical understandings of marriage, parenting, employment, authority, and gender identity.
40. | John P. Bartkowski and Jen'nan Ghazal Read | Sociology of Religion | 2003
Veiled Submission: Gender, Power, and Identity Among Evangelical and Muslim Women in the United States. Compares ways religious women negotiate traditions that prescribe differentiated roles for men and women.
41. | John P. Bartkowski | Rutgers University Press | 2001
Remaking the Godly Marriage: Gender Negotiation in Evangelical Families. Ethnographic study of how evangelical couples interpret male headship and female submission in actual marriages.
42. | Sally K. Gallagher and Christian Smith | Gender & Society | April 1999
Symbolic Traditionalism and Pragmatic Egalitarianism: Contemporary Evangelicals, Families, and Gender. Shows how evangelical families may verbally affirm male headship while practicing more negotiated arrangements in everyday household decisions.
43. | Mississippi State University / John P. Bartkowski | Mississippi State University | May 1999
Sociologist Looks at Gender Roles in Evangelical Families. Summarizes research showing that evangelical families negotiate male-headship doctrine in more complicated ways than a simple authoritarian model suggests.
44. | Brenda E. Brasher | Rutgers University Press | 1998
Godly Women: Fundamentalism and Female Power. Ethnographic work exploring how fundamentalist Christian women exercise agency and influence within formally patriarchal religious systems.
45. | R. Marie Griffith | University of California Press | 1997
God's Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission. Explores how evangelical women interpret submission, marriage, spirituality, and female identity.
46. | John P. Bartkowski | Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion | 1997
Debating Patriarchy: Discursive Disputes over Spousal Authority among Evangelical Family Commentators. Examines competing evangelical arguments over biblical authority, husband leadership, and women's submission.
47. | Margaret Lamberts Bendroth | Yale University Press | 1993
Fundamentalism and Gender, 1875 to the Present. Historical study showing how disputes about masculinity, femininity, family, and women's authority shaped American fundamentalism.
48. | Susan D. Rose | Sociology of Religion | October 1, 1987
Women Warriors: The Negotiation of Gender in a Charismatic Community. Studies how conservative Christian men and women negotiate theological ideals of male authority and female submission in everyday life.
Masculinity, Fatherhood, and Male Authority
49. | Kristin Kobes Du Mez | Sojourners | October 4, 2024
Christian Patriarchy and Christian Nationalism Are Intertwined. Interview discussing male headship, women's political authority, Christian patriarchy, and Christian-nationalist movements.
50. | Jennifer McKinney | Oxford University Press | January 19, 2023
Real Men. Examines the construction of Christian masculinity around leadership, strength, heterosexuality, marriage, and household authority.
51. | Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry | Oxford University Press | 2022
The Flag and the Cross. Places white Christian nationalism within a broader historical framework of racial hierarchy, social order, masculinity, and American identity.
52. | Elesha Coffman | Harvard Theological Review | 2022
Jesus and John Wayne and the Shifting Grounds of Evangelical Historiography. Reviews scholarship connecting evangelicalism's political history to race, gender inequality, masculinity, and Christian nationalism.
53. | Kristin Kobes Du Mez | Liveright | 2020
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. Historical account arguing that militant masculinity became deeply embedded in conservative white evangelical politics and contributed to contemporary Christian nationalism.
54. | Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry | Oxford/University of Chicago scholarship | 2020
Taking America Back for God. Broader sociological study of Christian nationalism containing substantial analysis of hierarchy, gender, sexuality, family, and authority.
55. | Lauren Frances Turek | Cornell/academic scholarship | 2020
To Bring the Good News to All Nations. Provides historical context for evangelical political identity and gendered understandings of Christian American leadership.
56. | Seth Dowland | Oxford University Press | June 22, 2017
Billy Graham's New Evangelical Manhood. Examines Graham as a model of evangelical masculinity during changing attitudes toward feminism, sexuality, and male authority.
57. | Seth Dowland | University of Pennsylvania Press | 2015
Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right. Shows how conservative understandings of masculinity, marriage, fatherhood, sexuality, and family authority became central to the modern Christian Right.
58. | Sara Moslener | Oxford/University of California scholarship | 2015
Virgin Nation: Sexual Purity and American Adolescence. Examines evangelical purity culture and connections among sexuality, gender, youth, morality, and national identity.
59. | Julie J. Ingersoll | Oxford University Press | 2015
Building God's Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstruction. Examines Christian Reconstructionism, dominion theology, patriarchal family government, homeschooling, and political authority.
60. | W. Bradford Wilcox | University of Chicago Press | 2004
Soft Patriarchs, New Men: How Christianity Shapes Fathers and Husbands. Studies conservative Protestant men's parenting, marriage, household participation, and understandings of male leadership.
61. | Joane Nagel | Ethnic and Racial Studies | 1998
Masculinity and Nationalism: Gender and Sexuality in the Making of Nations. Foundational analysis explaining how nationalist movements frequently construct idealized forms of manhood, motherhood, heterosexuality, and gender hierarchy.
62. | Christian Smith | University of Chicago Press | 1998
American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving. Explains evangelical identity through a sense of cultural conflict over issues including family, feminism, sexuality, and morality.
63. | Brenda E. Brasher | Rutgers University Press | 1998
Godly Women: Fundamentalism and Female Power. Explores how women obtain authority and influence within religious communities that maintain formally patriarchal gender structures.
64. | Sally K. Gallagher and Christian Smith | Gender & Society | 1999
Symbolic Traditionalism and Pragmatic Egalitarianism: Contemporary Evangelicals, Families, and Gender. Finds that evangelical couples may maintain symbolic commitments to husband leadership while negotiating everyday household authority more equally.
Women, Motherhood, and Conservative Christian Leadership
65. | Heather Olmez | University of Chicago | August 2023
Women of the Religious Right: Feminine Conservatism and Opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment. Studies women's opposition to the ERA and their defense of traditional gender roles and patriarchal family organization.
66. | Mary C. Brennan | American Historical Review | December 29, 2020
Emily Suzanne Johnson. This Is Our Message: Women's Leadership in the New Christian Right. Reviews scholarship showing how conservative Christian women expanded political leadership while continuing to affirm gendered boundaries and male church authority.
67. | Emily Suzanne Johnson | Oxford University Press | March 28, 2019
This Is Our Message: Women's Leadership in the New Christian Right. Demonstrates how evangelical women helped create and promote traditionalist gender and family politics while exercising substantial political leadership themselves.
68. | Emily Suzanne Johnson | Oxford University Press | March 28, 2019
Marabel Morgan Defines “The Total Woman.” Examines Morgan's influential evangelical marriage teaching and its ideal of wives adapting themselves to husbands within traditional marital roles.
69. | Emily Suzanne Johnson | Oxford University Press | March 28, 2019
Beverly LaHaye Defies Feminism. Studies the founder of Concerned Women for America and her mobilization of evangelical women against feminism and the Equal Rights Amendment.
70. | Emily Suzanne Johnson | Oxford University Press | March 28, 2019
Tammy Faye Bakker Responds to the AIDS Crisis. Examines how conservative evangelical women's public roles could sometimes challenge expected religious-right boundaries concerning gender and sexuality.
71. | Emily Suzanne Johnson | Oxford University Press | March 28, 2019
Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann Vie for the White House. Explores how conservative evangelical women negotiated expectations concerning motherhood, femininity, submission, and political leadership.
72. | Emily Suzanne Johnson | Oxford University Press | March 28, 2019
Conclusion. Connects the history of New Christian Right women to twenty-first-century evangelical politics and continuing debates over women's authority and traditional family roles.
73. | Emily Suzanne Johnson | Religion and American Culture | Summer 2018
God, Country, and Anita Bryant: Women's Leadership and the Politics of the New Christian Right. Shows how conservative women used motherhood and family roles to legitimize political activism.
74. | Melissa Deckman | NYU Press | 2016
Tea Party Women. Examines conservative women's political leadership, motherhood rhetoric, religion, and gender identity in the Tea Party movement.
75. | Michelle M. Nickerson | Princeton University Press | 2012
Mothers of Conservatism. Shows how conservative women used maternal identity and domestic authority to enter American political activism.
76. | Kathleen M. Blee and Sandra McGee Deutsch, eds. | Penn State/University scholarship | 2012
Women of the Right. Comparative research on women's roles in conservative and right-wing movements, useful for understanding women's agency within hierarchical ideologies.
77. | Donald T. Critchlow | Princeton University Press | 2005
Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism. Explores Schlafly's mobilization of conservative women around family, feminism, the ERA, and gender roles.
78. | Rebecca Klatch | Signs | 1987
Women of the New Right. Analyzes conservative women's opposition to feminism and their understandings of motherhood, family, work, and gender difference.
79. | Susan E. Marshall | Signs | 1985
Ladies Against Women: Mobilization Dilemmas of Antifeminist Movements. Classic study of how women organized politically against feminism while affirming traditional gender arrangements.
80. | Helen Rose Fuchs Ebaugh | Sociological Analysis | 1980s
Women in Conservative Religious Movements. Research relevant to understanding why women participate in religious institutions maintaining gender-differentiated authority.
Family Values, Antifeminism, and the Christian Right
81. | Marjorie J. Spruill and contributors | Oxford University Press | 2017
Anti-Feminist, Pro-Life, and Anti-ERA Women. Reviews women's mobilization against the Equal Rights Amendment, abortion rights, and feminism, including the activism of Phyllis Schlafly and Beverly LaHaye.
82. | Neil J. Young | Journal of American History | March 2017
Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right. Review discussing Dowland's account of how the Christian Right politicized children, mothers, fathers, parental authority, masculinity, and gender roles.
83. | Seth Dowland | University of Pennsylvania Press | 2015
Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right. Shows how evangelical ideas about motherhood, fatherhood, sexuality, authority, and gender became incorporated into late twentieth-century conservative politics.
84. | Leslie Dorrough Smith | Oxford University Press | April 2, 2014
Righteous Rhetoric: Sex, Speech, and the Politics of Concerned Women for America. Studies conservative Christian rhetoric surrounding gender, sexuality, reproduction, feminism, and national morality.
85. | Leslie Dorrough Smith | Oxford University Press | 2014
Second Verse, Same as the First: A History of American Conservative Sex, Gender, and Reproduction Rhetoric. Places contemporary Christian Right arguments about sex and gender within a longer history of American moral politics.
86. | Leslie Dorrough Smith | Oxford University Press | 2014
All Things to All People: CWA as “True” Feminism. Examines Concerned Women for America's effort to present conservative Christian gender politics as an alternative form of feminism.
87. | Leslie Dorrough Smith | Oxford University Press | 2014
Sex and Cultural Salvation: CWA and Nationalist Rhetoric. Analyzes how Christian Right rhetoric connects sexual morality, family structure, reproduction, and the survival of the American nation.
88. | Anneke Stasson | Religion and American Culture | Winter 2014
The Politicization of Family Life: How Headship Became Essential to Evangelical Identity in the Late Twentieth Century. Traces how male headship became increasingly important to conservative evangelical identity during political battles over the Equal Rights Amendment, feminism, and same-sex marriage.
89. | Andrew M. Greeley and Michael Hout | University of Chicago Press | October 1, 2006
The Conservative Christian Family and the “Feminist Revolution.” Examines whether conservative Christian advocacy of “family values” represents resistance to changes in women's employment, authority, and family roles.
Religion and the Culture Wars. Contains scholarship on religious mobilization around feminism, abortion, sexuality, and traditional family roles.
91. | James Davison Hunter | Basic Books | 1991
Culture Wars. Influential interpretation of conflicts over family, sexuality, feminism, education, and moral authority in American public life.
92. | David C. Leege and collaborators | Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion | 1990s
Religion and Gender Attitudes in American Politics. Research on how religious tradition and practice influence beliefs about women's political and domestic roles.
93. | John C. Green and colleagues | Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion | 1990s
Religion and the Politics of Gender. Examines the relationship between conservative Protestant identity and political disagreements concerning gender and family.
94. | James L. Guth and colleagues | Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion | 1990s
The Christian Right and Political Attitudes. Survey research illustrating the centrality of gender, sexuality, and family issues to conservative Christian political mobilization.
95. | Christian Smith and collaborators | Academic scholarship | 1990s
Conservative Religion and Gender Authority. Research examining how conservative religious traditions sustain distinctive family and gender ideologies.
96. | Clyde Wilcox | Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion | 1989
Feminism and Anti-Feminism among Evangelical Women. Examines variation among evangelical women's attitudes toward feminism and traditional gender ideology.
97. | Jeffrey K. Hadden and Anson Shupe | Routledge | 1981
The New Christian Right. Early scholarly assessment of conservative Christian political organizing around family, gender, education, and sexual morality.
98. | Nancy T. Ammerman | Review of Religious Research | 1980s
North American Protestant Fundamentalism. Provides context for the religious institutions in which gender hierarchy and Christian-right activism developed.
Pronatalism, Reproduction, and Motherhood
99. | Brooklyn Walker and Paul A. Djupe | Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion | May 13, 2026
Be Fruitful and Multiply? Complementarianism, Pronatalism, and Suppression of Reproductive Rights. Develops a measure of complementarian beliefs and studies their relationship to pronatalism, birth control, abortion policy, and conceptions of men's and women's social roles.
100. | Sol Lilman | Americans United for Separation of Church and State | August 12, 2025
Christian Nationalist “Family Values” Exclude Lots of Families. Advocacy perspective discussing Christian-nationalist approaches to family structure, gender, sexuality, and children.
101. | Marv Knox | Baptist News Global | June 23, 2024
Panel of Leaders Explore Patriarchy, Gender Inequality and White Christian Nationalism. Reports a discussion among Baptist women connecting patriarchy, church leadership restrictions, and Christian nationalism.
102. | Jennifer McKinney | Oxford University Press | January 19, 2023
Making Christianity Manly Again: Mark Driscoll, Mars Hill Church, and American Evangelicalism. Examines evangelical hypermasculinity, complementarianism, marriage, sexuality, and opposition to feminism.
103. | Juliana Denson | LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research | 2013
Quiverfull: Conservative Christian Women and Empowerment in the Home. Examines a conservative Christian movement characterized by rejection of birth control, large families, female submission, and male headship.
104. | Leslie Dorrough Smith | Oxford University Press | 2014
Righteous Rhetoric. Analyzes how reproduction and women's bodies became symbols of broader battles over morality, national identity, family, and social change.
Purity Culture, Sexuality, and Gender Boundaries
105. | Tessi Y. Muskrat et al. | The Counseling Psychologist | September 26, 2025
Being Yourself Is a Sin: The Impact of Evangelical Purity Culture on Sexual and Gender Minority People Socialized as Women. Studies the consequences of gender-essentialist evangelical sexual teaching for people socialized as girls and women.
106. | Christabelle Thwaites | University of Leeds | 2025
Habituating Purity: Evangelical Christian Purity Culture and Its Impact on Young Women in Great Britain. Investigates the international spread of American-influenced evangelical purity teaching and its effects on women's gender and sexual identities.
107. | Sara Moslener and contributors | Theology & Sexuality | 2024
Evangelical Purity Culture and Its Discontents. Introduces scholarship examining purity culture's relationship to patriarchy, white supremacy, gender formation, sexuality, embodiment, and racial identity.
108. | Scholars of Evangelical Ecclesiology | Ecclesiology | 2024
Gospel Truth in Gender Diversity Debates in Dutch Evangelical Churches. Examines disputes over women in church leadership and competing complementarian and egalitarian interpretations.
109. | Brazilian religion and politics scholars | Religions | 2024
Democracy and the Christian Right in Brazil: Family, Sexualities and Religious Freedom. Comparative analysis of evangelical political campaigns over "gender ideology," sexuality, family, and Christian national identity.
110. | Gionathan Lo Mascolo, ed. | Columbia University Press | 2023
The Christian Right in Europe. Comparative collection including research on anti-"gender ideology" movements, family policy, sexuality, nationalism, and conservative Christian politics.
Decolonizing Purity Culture: Gendered Racism and White Idealization in Evangelical Christianity. Examines how evangelical purity teachings can combine gender hierarchy with racialized ideals of white femininity.
112. | Sara Moslener | Oxford University Press | November 30, 2017
Material World: Gender and the Bible in Evangelical Purity Culture. Analyzes evangelical media marketed to girls and the promotion of female sexual restraint and traditional gender roles.
113. | Sara Moslener | Oxford University Press | June 18, 2015
Introduction: Sexual Purity and National Security. Places evangelical purity culture at the intersection of nationalism, political activism, religious revival, gender regulation, and perceptions of national decline.
114. | Sara Moslener | Theology & Sexuality | April 21, 2015
It's Like Playing with a Nuclear Bomb: Fear, Accommodation, and the Nationalist Rhetoric of Evangelical Purity Culture. Connects purity teaching to fundamentalism, nationalism, spiritual warfare, gender regulation, and anxieties about American moral decline.
115. | Megan Pritchett | Scripps College | 2014
I'm a Jesus Feminist: Understandings of Faith, Gender, and Feminism Among Christian Women. Qualitative research on how Christian women reconcile faith, feminism, marriage, and religious expectations about women's roles.
116. | Cynthia Burack | SUNY Press | 2008
Sin, Sex, and Democracy: Antigay Rhetoric and the Christian Right. Examines Christian Right political rhetoric concerning sexuality, gender, family, and national morality.
117. | Kelly H. Chong | Gender & Society | December 2006
Negotiating Patriarchy: South Korean Evangelical Women and the Politics of Gender. Comparative research showing how evangelical women can gain forms of agency while simultaneously reproducing patriarchal family structures.
118. | Kelly H. Chong | Gender & Society | December 2006
Negotiating Patriarchy. Shows the complex relationship between women's agency, evangelical religion, domesticity, and the reproduction of gender hierarchy.
119. | Darren E. Sherkat | Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion | 2000
That They Be Keepers of the Home: The Effect of Conservative Religion on Early and Late Transitions into Housewifery. Studies how conservative religion influences women's employment and movement into full-time homemaking.
120. | Judith Stacey and Susan Elizabeth Gerard | Signs | 1990
We Are Not Doormats: The Influence of Feminism on Contemporary Evangelicals. Examines changes and tensions in evangelical understandings of women's authority and marital roles.
121. | David G. Bromley and Anson Shupe | Sociology of Religion | 1980s
Gender and Authority in Conservative Christian Movements. Explores institutional mechanisms through which conservative religious groups organize family and gender authority.
122. | Michael S. Hamilton | Religion and American Culture | 1990s
Women, Public Ministry, and American Fundamentalism, 1920–1950. Provides historical context for the eventual narrowing of women's public religious authority within conservative Protestantism.
Contemporary Commentary and Interpretation
123. | Bob Smietana | The Washington Post | May 19, 2023
What Is Christian Nationalism Anyway? Overview of competing definitions of Christian nationalism and its relationship to religion, politics, cultural authority, and social norms.
124. | Bradley Onishi | TIME | January 2023
Christian Nationalism's Popularity Should Be a Wake-Up Call. Commentary by a scholar of religion discussing evangelical culture, Christian nationalism, social hierarchy, and political identity.
125. | Allyson F. Shortle | The Washington Post | September 1, 2022
Americans Are Growing More Accepting of Christian Nationalism. Analysis discussing public acceptance of the Christian-nationalist label and the ideology's broader social characteristics.
126. | Frederick Clarkson and religious-politics commentators | TIME | July 2022
Faith Is Powerful. That's Why Christian Nationalism Is So Dangerous. Commentary placing contemporary Christian nationalism within the history of the religious right and conflicts over abortion, political power, and social authority.
127. | Ronald S. Cava | Baptist News Global | July 2, 2024
Christian Nationalism: A Baptist Evaluation and Response. Theological critique discussing Christian nationalism's relationship to church authority, politics, and public morality.
