Phyllis Schlafly

[lpetrich]

Phyllis Schlafly paved the way for Trump. ‘Mrs. America’ explains why. - The Washington Post

In searching for the origins of our current madness, you can start by watching the historically accurate drama “Mrs. America” streaming on Hulu. It tells the story of the 1970s battle over the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) that pitted feminists such as Bella Abzug (Margo Martindale), Gloria Steinem (Rose Byrne) and Shirley Chisholm (Uzo Aduba) against a woman named Phyllis Schlafly who would become the godmother of modern conservatism. Schlafly, who is portrayed with icy hauteur by the sublime Cate Blanchett, was a walking paradox: This champion of “homemakers” was herself a liberated woman who devoted most of her energy to political activism, not to looking after her husband and six children.

My mother agreed that she was a "liberated woman".

Schlafly specialized in incendiary — and far-fetched — claims that passage of the ERA would eliminate alimony, child support and single-sex bathrooms and force women into combat. “Mrs. America” shows television host Phil Donahue challenging her assertions. The fictional Schlafly replies with a tirade comparing the feminists to the Bolsheviks and predicting that before long we would be “living in a feminist totalitarian nightmare.”

"... but Schlafly’s tendency to play fast and loose with the facts was as real as her beehive hairdo."

She was a member of the John Birch Society in the early 1960's, resigning in 1964 so that she could work on Barry Goldwater's campaign. She wrote a book defending BG, "A Choice, not an Echo", and she claimed in it that the Republican Party was controlled by some secret cabal that made the party take dives with weak candidates. Though she claimed that "Barry Goldwater is the one Republican who can and will win — because he will campaign on the issues of 1964", he was defeated in a crushing landslide.

There was always a big difference, however, between what activists like her said and how Republican officeholders acted. Even the most conservative presidents such as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were far more moderate.

But Trump was different, and not long before she died, she endorsed him. He returned the favor by calling her a "hero".

 

[ideologyhunter]

She had better manners than Coulter, but she was a loony bird. Read her late 70s book Child Abuse in the Schools for an hysterical hard right rant, in this case against public education. On one of her Donahue appearances, he brought up one of her old quotes to faze her, to the effect that God gave America the atom bomb. Good ole' Phyllis, she didn't bat an eye. She proudly took credit for it and was happy to elaborate.

 

[lpetrich]

"Mrs. America" captures the birth of the modern day right-wing troll | Salon.com - "The show's fourth episode portrays the impossible choice between fighting and ignoring right-wing trolls" - Amanda Marcotte

As feminist writer Kate Harding wrote in her newsletter, the show's portrayal of Schlafly belongs to a "genre everyone seems to love when it's about men: the villain's origin story." Schlafly may not have a mustache to twirl, but her smugness, condescension towards other women, dishonesty, and arrogance radiate out of Cate Blanchett's almost eerily accurate performance.

The fourth episode, "Betty", is about Betty Friedan, whose book "The Feminine Mystique" helped restart the feminist movement in the US. AM then discusses how trollish PS was, starting with "At the center of the episode is a question that plagues left-wing movements to this day: How do you deal with right-wing trolls that are trying to take you down with bad faith tactics?"

Schlafly's arguments against enshrining gender equality were fatuous, and deliberately so. Her entire style was to be provocative and mean-spirited, to provoke an emotional reaction from her feminist opponents, which she could then use as gloating evidence that she'd gotten to them. They didn't have the phrase "trigger the libs" back then, but that was exactly what Schlafly was doing.

In this fourth episode, Schlafly goes into her debate with Friedan with a troll's heart, kicking off her opening remarks with a joke about how she'd "like to thank my husband Fred for letting me come here today," a joke that she often made in real life, because "I know it irritates women's libbers more than anything else."

And instead of arguing against equality on the merits, Schlafly dives right in to trolling, telling the "girls" in the audience that feminism isn't going to score them romantic love (no one said it would!), before turning to Friedan and mocking her for her husband leaving her for a much younger and more submissive woman, and calling Friedan "the unhappiest woman I have ever met."

Friedan explodes in rage, calling Schlafly a "witch" and saying, "I'd like to burn you at the stake." (This really happened.) The debate, it seems, has been won by the troll, because she provoked an emotional reaction — she triggered the liberal.

It's a jarring but accurate portrayal of the methods of the right-wing troll. First, they wind their liberal opponent up with nasty accusations and bad faith arguments and, when the liberal opponent finally succumbs to the irritation and snaps back, the troll declares victory.

AM then got into an awkward dilemma about trolling. Does one acknowledge them and debate them, and risk an emotional outburst that enables the troll to claim victory? Or does one ignore them and let them spread their lies unchallenged?

Mrs. America on Twitter: "There's one way to win an argument, and then there's her way. Watch new episodes of #MrsAmerica every Wednesday, exclusively on #FXonHulu. https://t.co/hRZQ25Fyac" / Twitter

Ultimately, the show itself doesn't land on an answer on whether to ignore or fight the trolls. In part, that's likely because there isn't a good answer. Troll strategies have colonized the entire American right precisely because they're so difficult to defeat. The troll simply has a couple of strategic advantages that liberals don't have: Shamelessness and amorality.

Mrs. America on Twitter: "Leading a movement is a full-time job. Watch a new episode of #MrsAmerica on Wednesday, exclusively on #FXonHulu. https://t.co/VoKJqzzWPA" / Twitter

 

[fromderinside]

Shamelessness amorality. Cowabunga. Mother load.

 

[lpetrich]

Love to Hate Women - Feminism & Dogs

I was especially excited to watch it because Emily Nussbaum, with whom I have never disagreed on TV, raved about it on Twitter. But then the backlash came, starting with a Buzzfeed piece by Pier Dominguez that laments the “flattering light” cast on Schlafly. My Twitter feed followed suit with numerous variations on, “Ugh, why would I want to watch Phyllis Schlafly?”

Let me be clear: I wouldn’t want to watch actual Phyllis Schlafly, and I felt a happy little flutter in my heart when she died. What I do want to watch are well-written narratives about women’s experiences, acted by people I always want to see on screen—Blanchett! Uzo Aduba! Rose Byrne! Margo Martindale!—especially when they tell the history of a time that’s still incredibly near, yet just outside my own living memory. Men’s media has taught us time and again that it’s possible to tell great stories about terrible people. I saw no reason why foregrounding Schlafly, who led the vigorous and wildly successful opposition to the ERA, would necessarily make “Mrs. America” unwatchable.

She mentions that the first episode is essentially a villain's origin story.

Schlafly, like her pro-feminist counterparts (and Megyn Kelly and Alison Bechdel and every woman, then and now) is a victim of patriarchal constraints. The show opens with her onstage in an American flag bikini at a fundraiser for the ever-odious Phil Crane, and subsequent conversation suggests that prominent Illinois conservatives’ wives take turns enduring this public humiliation. Phyllis has a sharp mind for politics and a master’s degree. She wants to run for Congress, but her husband won’t abide her leaving the children for D.C. She’s a natural leader and organizer, author of a successful newsletter, generally a go-getter. She’s also a Catholic wife and mother who believes, on some level, that her place actually is in the home. Phyllis is frustration personified.

Does she become a feminist? Does she meekly accept it? She has a comfortable enough life to make that a good option.

Instead, she makes a choice that’s still common enough today: playing the “good girl,” strategically manipulating people to get what she wants, and denouncing feminism, all the way to the top. She fulfills herself by building a career out of bullhorning that women don’t need careers to be fulfilled—and meanwhile, a black maid takes care of her household.

That’s a fascinating villain. Awful person; fascinating villain.

She might have said that she faces a very awful paradox, that to fight the feminists, one has to live and work much like a feminist.

The depth of character development in just a few episodes is remarkable. The feminist characters are allowed to be smart, funny, furious and—this is huge—sometimes clearly wrong, especially in retrospect, without turning into villains. The main few are given identifiable central desires that put them in conflict with each other, while Schlafly’s organization remains the Big Bad opposed to them all.

Like Betty Friedan wanting to be the leader and the others considering her too hotheaded for that. And Shirley Chisholm wanting to be more than a token. And Bella Abzug wanting to work within the Democratic Party.

Author Kate Harding speculates on what must have gone on in her mind in her early adult years.

I’m smart, I’m bored, I could be doing so much more with my life, but I really do love my husband and kids. I want to feel a part of something larger, but my god says I already am, by fulfilling my role as a wife and mother. I don’t feel particularly oppressed, but I also have to ask my husband’s permission to spend money. I don’t feel trapped, per se, but if I tried to leave, I would have no savings, no income, no home, and no support from my faith community.

But then come feminists saying “Actually, lady, you are oppressed, you are trapped, you deserve to do more with your brain, and your god sucks.” She doesn't like that response, and she starts a new career: attacking feminists. A career that lets one seem like a good housewife.

Schlafly’s dead, but her Eagle Forum still exists, led by her hand-picked successor. The ERA only passed in Illinois in 2018, more than thirty years after the deadline to ratify it and long after the deaths of Chisholm, Abzug, Friedan, Kennedy, and so many others who fought for it.