The problem with Cate Blanchett playing Phyllis Schlafly is that she gives the anti-feminist icon a warmth and sensitivity that she never possessed, at least not in public. As fun as Mrs. America is to watch, it resurrects the old witch, who Betty Friedan infamously said should be "burned at the stake." Phyllis was great at getting under people's skin and sure got under Betty's skin, as episode 4 showed in generous detail.
But, is Schlafly worth resurrecting? What kind of object lesson can we take from this 9-part mini-series that chronicles the fight for an Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s which never really died out?
Congress had written into the passage of the amendment in 1972 that 38 states had to ratify it before 1979. It didn't seem like a tall order back then as Democrats controlled many state legislatures and there were enough Republicans who supported the ERA to help them out. However, Phyllis made it her crusade to get 13 states to vote it down and she succeeded. Why is anyone's guess, because this series amply shows that Phyllis was subject to the same sexual abuse as any woman, mostly verbal in her case, and you would think would have gone along with Jill Ruckelhaus (amicably portrayed by Elizabeth Banks) and other conservative women who supported the ERA. Instead, Phyllis made her bed with the Evangelicals who were staunchly opposed to the ERA, almost entirely because of abortion rights.
It was this unholy alliance with the religious right that reshaped the Republican Party. It went from being a relatively moderate political party in the 1960s to a religious conservative one in the 1980s with the election of Ronald Reagan, whom Schlafly wholeheartedly supported. It is during this time that the so-called "moral majority" rose to prominence in opposition to the notorious Supreme Court decision to allow abortion within the first trimester.
Religious conservatives conflated the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision with the ERA. They chose to ignore all the benefits the amendment would provide women and instead focused on all the perceived ills the amendment would usher in, namely abortion, gay rights, women in the military and the breakdown of the traditional marriage. I guess you could say all this happened anyway, as the ERA failed to reach its ratification goal by 1979 and languished four decades before Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the amendment in January of this year. The only problem is will this fateful decision stand, given it is so long after the deadline? The Republican Senate is in no hurry to act on it.
The writers of Mrs. America try to make the process as enjoyable to watch as possible with compelling performances by Tracey Ullman as Betty Friedan, Rose Byrne as Gloria Steinem, Margo Martindale as Bella Abzug and Uzo Aduba as Shirley Chisholm. but ultimately this story is about Phyllis Schlafly and how she managed to defeat the Feminists at their own game by allying conservative state legislators against the ERA. Nothing beats warm homemade banana bread.
While Schlafly was able to get the best of Friedan on a public stage, she proved no match for Brenda Feigen-Fasteau, who probably few heard of before this television series. I have to admit I knew nothing about her, yet she was a key figure in the formation of NOW and helped Steinem start the highly influential Ms. magazine. Brenda was able to subdue Schlafly in televised debates where others had failed, as she kept a cool head and didn't let the Goldwater girl get under her skin.
Perhaps the most compelling character is Alice McCray, as played by Sarah Paulson. No need to be embarrassed if you never heard of her, because she and the other minions that work in Phyllis' home office are composite characters. What makes Alice so interesting is that she begins to question the iron lady's intents. This all comes to a head in the remarkable eighth episode, where she and Pamela drive to the Houston convention and end up having to share a room with ERA activists.
Alice inadvertently takes a pill that sends her on a wild night in which she brushes shoulders with all the leading feminists and begins to wonder if she has more in common with them than she initially thought. This awakening is played out perfectly with Alice ultimately confronting Phyllis at a ball to honor her achievements in the final episode. Alice asks Phyllis how she got to be so mean. Before she can answer, Phyllis is whisked away by body guards as a bomb threat forces them to evacuate the hall.
Schlafly knew how to play on peoples' emotions, something the Republican Party became very good at itself. As long as she could convince enough people of the pernicious intent of NOW to undermine the nation's core beliefs, she figured she would get enough people on her side to defeat the ERA and overturn Roe v. Wade. With the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 she felt like she won.
However, it turned out to be a pyrrhic victory, as the Supreme Court continued to uphold Roe v. Wade and many new gender equality measures were approved by Congress and succeeding Presidents that led to the "Year of the Woman" in 1992 and the end of the good old boys network in Washington. I'm sure this roiled Phyllis to no end.
Still, it would be nice to finally get the ERA ratified and make gender equality explicit in the Constitution, as there are still those who view women as secondary citizens, namely Samuel Alito. As long as we have judges like this on the federal courts all the strides that have been made in gender equality are in danger, given that judges like Alito like to think of themselves as interpreting the "original intent" of the Constitution and will look for any hook or crook to vote against women's rights.
To the end, Phyllis Schlafly fought against the ERA and gave her full-throated support to Donald Trump shortly before she died in 2016. I suppose this is what makes her story timely. However, I would have liked to have seen more of Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm and Bella Abzug in this mini-series and less of Phyllis "Mrs. America" Schlafly.
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