The cause of death was not given.
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Her son, John Schlafly, was outed in 1992 by a gay activist. Throughout the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st century, Schlafly was involved in conservative politics. Schlafly said according to a published copy of her address.
Was she an Aunt Tom, in the sense of selling out women’s interests in deference to the patriarchy?
Indeed, those were all issues that Schlafly turned her sights upon, and much of her early work laid the groundwork for the contemporary conservative milieu.
Of course victories in women’s rights since the 1970s would seem to confirm President Obama’s view that the arc of history bends toward liberalism – but sometimes that narrative is surprisingly illiberal and intolerant of dissent. He’s better off if he doesn’t talk to any women when he gets there. But she was hardly a typical stay-at-home housewife/mother.
The book helped push the Republican party to the right and helped Arizona Sen. Mike Pence called her “the First Lady of the Conservative Movement”.
The intention of the ERA was to ensure women were treated the same as men under state and federal laws. In her old age, the woman who made piles of money declaring that there was no need for other women to have the right to do so themselves groaned about Latino ballplayers taking jobs from lesser US -born players, declared marital rape a logical impossibility, and backed every war crime you can think of.
Yet it was in attacking the GOP that Mrs. Schlafly made her name, exposing as she put it the “kingmakers and their shenanigans”.
It also did not change her opposition to gay rights including same-sex marriage, according to The New York Times. In a 1978 appearance at the IL capitol she was accompanied by backers bearing loaves of home-made bread. She formed an organization called the Eagle Forum in 1973, advertising it as “an alternative to women’s liberation” and using it to fight legalized abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment, which she said would be a “step down” for women who were already “well-treated” by society. The constitutional amendment came close to passage when both chambers of Congress passed it in 1972 and 35 states ratified it.
Schlafly was born August 15, 1924, and grew up in Depression-era St. Louis.
Born Phyllis McAlpin Stewart on August 15, 1924, Schlafly paid her way through Washington University by working a full-time defense job during the World War II.
She graduated from Washington University in 1944, when she was 19.
Schlafly enjoyed public prominence before she targeted feminism. You’re going to have a new amendment for women?
I remember feminists wondering at the time if Schlafly had ever taken a plane ride and used one of those dreaded unisex bathrooms. She worked for a year in Washington with the predecessor to today’s American Enterprise Institute.
She frequently criticized immigration reform and the Obama administration and wrote more than 25 books.
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In addition to her six children, Schlafly is survived by 16 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
