Women and Social Movements

When going through McGirr's work part of her second chapter struck me as very similar to a book that was assigned for HIS502. (I really hope I'm getting the book right because I remember the concept) I believe it was Southern Cross by Christine Leigh Heyrman. In Southern Cross the first members of the nuclear family to accept the rising fundamentalist beliefs of the bible belt were the wives and mothers. These individuals then had the task of convincing their husbands, who held the real power, to join these congregations. In McGirr's second chapter she describes something similar in which women became involved in the conservative movement and would then bring in their husbands. (p. 87) It raises an interesting question as to the nature of social movements, particularly those with a religious aspect which both Heyrman's and McGirr's certainly had. Perhaps the influence of women play a larger role than is shown even in modern scholarship?