Phyllis Schlafly (person)


 * This article is about the real person. For the first episode of Mrs. America, see Phyllis (episode), and for the character in the series, see Phyllis Schlafly.

Phyllis Schlafly was a movement conservative and author. She held staunchly conservative social and political views, opposed feminism and abortion, and successfully campaigned against ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

She's known among liberals as an "anti-feminist feminist," the religious conservative who helped stop the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment and criticized the second-wave feminism of the 1960s. To conservatives, Schlafly was the activist who led the charge against social liberalism and abortion on demand.

History
Phyllis Schlafly grew up in a staunchly Republican household in St. Louis, and after leaving Washington University to get a master's degree in political science at Radcliffe, she hoped to work for the government in D.C. When that didn't work out, she returned home at age 24 and married Fred Schlafly — a lawyer and fellow conservative from a banking family. Republicans wanted her husband to run for Congress and he turned them down; she volunteered to do it instead, winning a Republican primary but losing the general election. By the late 1950s, she'd become a leader, speaking out against Communism and by the 60s, writing about national defense issues. She'd been conservative all her life, basically, but it was in 1971, when a friend asked her to debate a feminist about the ERA, that she studied up on the amendment and decided it was dangerous.

Against the ERA
Schlafly worried that rather than ensure gender equality, which was already protected under the 14th Amendment, the ERA would eliminate distinctions between the sexes to the extent that it jeopardizes laws exempting women from being drafted into the military and that women would suffer disadvantages in divorce (no alimony, less custody). She warned that the ERA amendment was so loosely worded that it would be translated by the courts to allow abortion on demand and same-sex marriages.

Schlafly saw the ERA as an attempt by the Left to gain more power on every level, complaining that "equality" as defined by the amendment, which was loosely worded, was actually vague.

Historian Donald Critchlow stated that without Schlafly, the ERA probably would have passed.

Accomplishments
Phyllis Schlafly wrote or edited more than 20 books, including A Choice Not an Echo, which aimed to expose the influence that "kingmakers" had on the Republican primary nomination. Released in 1964, it sold some three million copies. She was, at one point, an officer of the Daughters of the American Revolution and president of the Illinois Federation of Republican Women from 1956 to 1964. By the 1970s, she'd become a media savant, like the Alex Jones or Rush Limbaugh of her time, blending half-truths, conspiracy theories and political rhetoric through media appearances and a mailed newsletter that was almost like the Twitter of the time.

She founded The Eagle Forum in 1975, a pro-family, anti-feminist group that's still going and promotes the idea that a family should only consist of a father, mother and children, supports English-only education in schools, and opposes same sex-marriage. Historical scholars say her ideas and influence helped Ronald Reagan rise to prominence, and she supported Donald Trump in his 2016 campaign. He attended her funeral.

Quotes
"One reason a woman gets married is to be supported while caring for her children at home. So long as her husband earns a good income, she doesn't care about the pay gap between them." "Nobody's stopping them (LGBTQ people) from shacking up. The problem is they are trying to make us respect them, and that's an interference with what we believe." "I want to thank my husband, Fred, for letting me come here."