Phyllis Schlafly, whose grass-roots campaigns against communism, abortion, and the Equal Rights Amendment galvanized conservatives for nearly two generations and helped reshape American politics, died Monday.
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“We’ve been following the losers for so long – now we’ve got a guy who’s going to lead us to victory”, she said in March at an Eagle Forum event in IL. “I was honored to spend time with her during this campaign”.
Her political ardor did not fade with age and in 2014, as President Barack Obama pushed for pay equity for women, Schlafly sparked controversy with a column for the Christian Post saying a man’s paycheck comes first. Opponents cited her marriage to John Fred Schlafly Jr., a wealthy IL lawyer who died in 1993, as the reason she had opportunity to inveigh against liberal and feminist causes. Ms. Friedan called Mrs. Schlafly an “Aunt Tom”. After the ERA’s defeat, she continued to preach conservative causes such as limited government, anti-abortion laws, traditional education, strong defense and keeping out illegal immigrants. After all, one of the shining moments of her lifetime of activism was blocking the Equal Rights Amendment back in the 1970s. The constitutional amendment came close to passage when both chambers of Congress passed it in 1972 and 35 states ratified it. Schlafly’s attack on the proposed amendment was based on the premise that the rights of women already were well protected by the U.S. Constitution.
The ERA died in 1982.
Many saw her ability to mobilize that citizens’ army as her greatest accomplishment.
It described her as an “iconic American leader whose love for America was surpassed only by her love of God and her family”.
Next page: Meeting Phyllis Schlafly at CPAC in 2012. She recognized America as the greatest political embodiment of those values.
Her life in totality reflects so much of what we all share as women – work and family and children and aspirations and wanting a place in the world.
Her energy was formidable.
In April, before the endorsement, her support of Trump caused a split among the Eagle Forum board of directors, some of whom supported Texas Sen. It did not change her opinion of gay rights, though. She also started distributing a newsletter in 1967 called The Phyllis Schlafly Report. Schlafly maintained that the ERA would lead to a loss of workplace-safety protections for women, increased rights for gays and a strengthening of the pro-choice movement.
Schlafly’s organization had been split for the 2016 presidential election. She authored 27 books and thousands of articles. “To me, that’s liberation”.
Schlafly wrote some 20 books, including “Feminist Fantasies“, “The Supremacists: The Tyranny of Judges and How to Stop It“, “Who Will Rock the Cradle?: The Battle for Control of Child Care in America”, “Pornography’s Victims”, “Child Abuse in the Classroom” and “Kissinger on the Couch”.
“They were never able to show women would get any benefit out of it”, she told the Associated Press in 2007.
In 1980, a protester threw an apple pie in her face at a Women’s National Republican Club reception in NY, painfully scratching an eye. In 2011 she spoke out for “shotgun marriages” as the solution to unwanted pregnancies.
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It was known as the Equal Rights Amendment, and had been relatively uncontroversial – until Schlafly stepped in.
