Gendered Politics in the Modern South: The Susan Smith Case and the Rise of a New Sexism Book

In Gendered Politics in the Modern South, Keira V. Williams uses the Susan Smith case to analyze what she calls the "new sexism" found in the agenda of the budding neo-conservative movement of the 1990s. Just days after Smith's confession to killing her children, soon-to-be Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich linked Smith's behavior to the 1960s counterculture and to Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" programs. At the same time, the assault on liberal social causes gained momentum as the media declared the "death of feminism" and a "crisis in masculinity." In response to this perceived crisis, Williams argues, a distinct code of gender discrimination developed, one that sought to reassert a traditional form of white male power at the end of the twentieth century.