Esther's Army: The Christian Women Who Power the American Right
How and why right–wing Christian women have risen to the forefront of American politics.
The 2024 election of Donald Trump was the culmination of the strategic efforts of Christian women over six decades.
Sociologist Katie Gaddini was with them as they organized, rallied, and celebrated. As a former evangelical, Gaddini speaks the language of the Christian Right fluently. In Esther’s Army, she profiles six distinct archetypes: college idealists, anti–feminist powerhouses, Black conservatives, MAHA social media influencers, white suburbanites, and “Mama–Bears” marching on state capitols to ban books and gender initiatives. Observing Christian women’s activism from grassroots networks to conservative academies and law school to public politics and jobs at the White House today—as they borrow feminist rhetoric to “lean in” to their executive skills while rejecting liberal feminism—Gaddini reveals how these women have turned being underestimated into a strategic force.
PUB DATE: JUNE 30, 2026 | W.W. NORTON
ABOUT
Dr. Katie Gaddini is a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, an Associate Professor of Sociology at the Social Research Institute, University College London (UCL) and a research associate at the University of Johannesburg, Department of Sociology. From 2022-2026 she is a United Kingdom Research & Innovation (UKRI) Research Fellow at Stanford University and UCL.
Her next book, Esther's Army: The Christian Women Who Power the American Right, on Christian women and conservative politics from 1970 to present, based on over 10 years of ethnographic research, will be published in June 2026 by W.W. Norton. Her debut book, The Struggle to Stay, was based on over four years of in-depth ethnographic research with single evangelical women in the US and the UK.
Her writing has been published in TIME magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, The Hill, The Conversation, Religion & Politics, LA Review of Books, The Marginalia Review, and more. She has given expert opinion to media including New York Times, The Guardian, BBC, Newsweek, NPR, The i, and international outlets in France, Spain, Colombia, Germany, Norway, Australia and Turkey.
Katie holds master’s degrees from Boston College and the London School of Economics, and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge. She currently lives in California.