Scott Yenor’s Florida: Anti-Woke Crusade as Family Regime Generator

• In Event: Sociology of Sex and Gender Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 13. Family Regimes, Demographic Anxiety, and Governance

Abstract

Scott Yenor, a political science professor and rightwing activist, has played a key role in reshaping education and family policy in Florida. As Claremont Institute Director of State Relations, Yenor advised Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on higher education “reform” and on policy to “strengthen the family”. This paper draws from an analysis of Yenor’s published writing and public speeches and from an analysis of state policy passed under Governor DeSantis (2018-present) to argue that recent “anti-woke” Florida policies should be understood as an attempt to create a family regime. The “Florida family regime” is premised on a rigid gender binary in which men and women are compelled to enter enduring, monogamous, and procreative unions and to respectively assume breadwinner and caregiver roles. It is being inscribed through state policies that take a strong and anti-liberal role with respect to regulating individual behavior and thought and a limited role with respect to funding the carework that women are being asked to assume. The “Florida family regime” has implications beyond Florida as the Claremont Institute intends for its state projects to serve as laboratories for national level changes.

Author

• Katie Rainwater, FIU