Schlafly became a subject of national discussion through during Barry Goldwater's presidential run—a hard-right campaign she wholeheartedly supported. Her self-published book, A Choice Not an Echo , a populist treatise that explicitly supported her chosen candidate, became something of a sensation, selling over three million copies—despite being panned by critics as conspiracy-minded and inaccurate.
While Goldwater lost, the conservative coalition that Schlafly helped inspire would later usher in the Reagan revolution. In the words of conservative theorist Paul Weyrich, she "dressed up the conservative movement for success at a time when absolutely no one thought we could win. Even as she was traveling across the country to lobby leaders, organize her coalition, give speeches—and, at one point, simultaneously pursue a law degree—Schlafly dismissed her political career as a "hobby," a secondary pursuit to her obligations at home with her six children.
There was always someone outside willing to take care of a baby rather than listen to a long lecture. Speaking to NPR in , she noted, "My husband was very supportive. I told the feminists the only person's permission I had to get was my husband's.
This was especially frustrating to feminists, who believed that Schlafly was living a liberated life while campaigning against liberation. When she first heard the Equal Rights Amendment being debated in Congress, she told her biographer Carol Felsenthal, Schlafly thought of it as "something between innocuous and mildly helpful. She tapped into the network of women she'd built while distributing A Choice Not an Echo and her newsletter, the Phyllis Schlafly Report , and grew it substantially.
The political firebrand took it upon herself to teach these women how to affect change. Her ranks grew substantially after the Supreme Court legalized abortion in with Roe v.
Wade—a landmark ruling that spurred a political awakening for some anti-abortion Catholic and evangelical women. With Schlafly's help, the ERA went from a largely symbolic, bipartisan piece of legislation to a political lightning rod. In , the year she began her crusade, 30 states had ratified the amendment.
By , the ERA remained three states short of the 38 needed to enshrine it in the constitution—meaning that, despite an extension, the amendment failed to pass by the arbitrary deadline set by Congress. The conservative activist persuaded like-minded Americans to join her side by trotting out a familiar lineup of "family values" arguments: the supposedly terrifying prospect of unisex bathrooms and the importance of maintaining gender roles.
Schlafly convinced women that feminists hated their way of life "I think the main goal of the feminist movement was the status degradation of the full-time homemaker," she'd later say. It also helped her cause that it was unclear if the ERA's passage would have required women to sign up for the draft some feminist groups fought to exclude an exemption to this from the amendment , a prospect that many balked at. She lead both from behind the scenes growing her Eagle Forum into a national organization and in front of the camera publicly debating prominent feminists on the merits of the ERA.
In one particularly memorable debate, Feminist Mystique author Betty Friedan lashed out at Schlafly with an oft-cited insult. I consider you an Aunt Tom.
Schlafly published her monthly newsletter, the Phyllis Schlafly Report , for half a century. Though her personal influence and renown eventually lessened, the conservative philosophy that Schlafly championed—staunch social conservatism with a heady dose of populism—would continue to gain traction.
Schlafly gained national attention with the publication of her first book, A Choice, Not an Echo , which attacked the moderate East Coast leaders in the Republican Party and supported the campaign of conservative Arizona senator Barry Goldwater when many party leaders did not. She now had a platform for her views and published a monthly four-page pamphlet known as The Phyllis Schlafly Report, distributing it to thousands of subscribers, many of them women she had cultivated in her role as a member and later vice president of the National Federation of Republican Women.
She thought the communists could not be trusted to abide by agreements being reached on nuclear weapons and improved relations. One of the issues that did not interest Schlafly much at all was the feminist movement, which had reemerged during the protest culture of the s. But the cultural revolutions of the s, from civil rights to the anti-Vietnam War protests, reshaped feminist responses and radicalized women, who now saw their concerns linked to political issues in a very personal way.
Even as members of protest movements, women often found themselves treated as second-class citizens, with very few in leadership positions and most serving as secretaries and romantic partners to the male leaders of the movement.
Women began to discuss their thoughts about these issues, and the resulting consciousness-raising sessions led to an explosion of feminist organizations in the late s and early s. Cultural and radical feminists bore no hostility toward the economic and political concerns of NOW, but they pushed the movement further, urging control over their own reproductive decisions and their sexuality. They also believed men and women were equally competent and should be treated as equals in the workplace and in their freedom to make personal decisions.
The feminist movement resurrected the ERA initially proposed in the s and moved for its adoption. Congress passed it in and, by early , 30 states had ratified it, leaving it only eight states short of adoption. Moreover, several states had also legalized abortion and, in , the Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide in a vote in the case known as Roe v.
Schlafly also attacked the ERA as undermining the protections that women already possessed and that the ERA would leave women vulnerable to the military draft.
Although she supported equity for women in careers and pay, she also defended motherhood and the home in her essay. She also later claimed the ERA would lead to coed bathrooms and the promotion of homosexual marriage. Buttons like this were worn by opponents of the Equal Rights Amendment in the s. ERA supporters were often white, middle-class, secular, and well educated; they tended to be single or, if married, in one of the professions. They were also divided among many feminist organizations, such as NOW and others dedicated to securing passage of the amendment.
STOP ERA members were married women with children, religious, middle class, and older, and they saw links between attacks on religion in the courts and the feminist movement as threats to motherhood and the home. Schlafly linked the ERA fight to the fight against abortion and drew support from the emergence of a religious right at the grassroots level in the s. Schlafly took the lead in challenging feminists in debates and in making appearances in the national media, while her grassroots supporters lobbied at the state level, often bringing cookies to appeal to the men who dominated state legislatures.
As one of the leaders of the rising conservative movement of the s and s, she remained an active Republican and conservative activist for the rest of her life.
Phyllis Schlafly began her grassroots activism in the s with which of the following organizations? Beginning in , she led opposition to the ERA — a word constitutional measure that guaranteed equal rights under the law regardless of gender — arguing that it would mark the end of the traditional family. The campaign to pass the ERA was led by the National Organization for Women, which made the amendment central to its mission after it formed in Opponents said the ERA would have granted more power to Congress and the federal courts and cause women to lose privileges and protections, such as exemption from compulsory military service and combat duty, and economic support from husbands for their families.
With Mrs. Her army of volunteers brimmed with stay-at-home mothers, and she contended the amendment would deprive a woman of the basic right to stay home and care for her children. Dobson, chairman and founder of Focus on the Family, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in When Mrs. Schlafly and her troops entered the fray, 30 states had already ratified the ERA. Within a year, the amendment — first introduced in Congress in — started losing steam.
It ended up three states short of the 38 needed for ratification and was defeated in Schlafly at least 50 times, said in By the end of the 20th century, some feminists and historians said they felt history had passed Mrs.
0コメント