When are women at the forefront of conservative movements? This paper argues that shocks to men’s status drives women to mobilize around upholding patriarchal norms and traditional household and social gender roles. I test this theory using the case of the post-Civil War U.S. South and novel data on the formation of local chapters of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), which mobilized extensively around honoring and rehabilitating the reputation of Confederate veterans through memorial and historical education activities that spread the “Lost Cause” ideology to Southern whites. Using county-level data on Civil War battles, I find evidence that UDC chapters were more likely to exist in counties where there were intensive negative shocks to Confederate soldiers’ lives and reputations, as measured by Confederate army battle losses. I support this argument with qualitative evidence on gendered humiliation of Confederate soldiers and discourse in UDC meeting minutes. This paper provides a new lens on women’s post-war activism: namely, the conditions under which women participate in spreading traditional gender ideology and reifying gender roles back to more conservative pre-war structures.