#7: Three Unexpected Things I Learned from Watching Mrs. America

Phyllis Schlafly was Hard Core .... and I Adored Her for It

I’m slipping this post in between my “starter marriage” stories since it’s quite timely.

You may or may not know that there’s an active online debate about the role the federal government should, or shouldn’t, play in mandating paid maternity leave for women who work outside of the home. I’ve been involved primarily to understand what exactly the “ask” is. What precisely are women asking the government to do?

Despite many exchanges over the need to call it parental, and not maternity, leave to ensure equity (if it’s maternity leave, then it implies that women are primary caregivers), I’ve not yet received one substantive answer beyond - at least 12 weeks would be appropriate. This bothers me in more ways than I have space to explain here, but I’ll break it down in a future post.

The debate reignited my interest in the women’s rights movement, or rather movements. We are in the fourth wave of feminism so it’s hard to keep track these days. But one can hardly discuss the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s without confronting Phyllis Schlafly, founder of the Eagle Forum, and leader of the STOP ERA movement (STOP the EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT). Love her or hate her, you cannot ignore her.

I’ve recently joined the Eagle Forum to support their important work in protecting and supporting rights for ALL women, not just a handful of ideologues who have created far more harm than they will ever admit. Shortly after paying my $25 membership fee, I was inspired to write this. You’re the first to see it!

1 - Phyllis Schlafly was a very big deal.

I was a kid in sunny Florida in the 1970s and 80s. The second wave of feminism was in full flower, but we were too busy riding bikes and lip syncing to Madonna and Culture Club to worry about any of that weird “grown-up” stuff. We’d hear our moms talk about how awful the crazy women’s libbers were and how they were trying to destroy the traditional family structure of mom, dad, child, but we didn’t pay attention to the details. But, we did know Phyllis Schlafly’s name. Our parents, particularly our moms, talked her up and let us know that she was saving women and their rights to stay home and raise families by fighting the Equal Rights Amendment. I didn’t understand the totality of what was going on, but I did know that a beautiful, brilliant, and feminine woman was taking on the “crazies” and mom told me I could be just like her someday:

Yes, I could have a family and find or create meaningful work, so long as I prioritized mothering my kids while they were still at home. Seemed reasonable to me. I didn’t really give it a second thought.

The ERA was defeated and it never came up again, until it did.

When HULU released Mrs. America in 2020, my husband and I watched it with great interest, eagerly waiting for the next episode to air the following week. Given that since Mrs. Schlafly figured prominently in my growing up years, I was mesmerized, not just by the story, but by the fact the series was even made, and with an A-list Hollywood star to boot? … a fact that was not lost on me.

If Phyllis Schlafly’s story was important enough to attract Cate Blanchett, it was important enough for me to revisit and reconsider, this time through adult eyes. We watched it again over the Christmas holidays. 

2 - Phyllis Schlafly was well-known long before she launched the fight against the ERA.

The scope of Mrs. Schlafly’s professional background was unknown to me before I pressed play on Mrs. America. I had no idea she’d written an incredibly successful book in 1964, A Choice Not an Echo, about the history of the presidential nomination process, or that she’d written nearly 20 more after that. Her influence on 20th Century American conservatism, and the public’s confidence in it, was more breathtaking than I’d understood.

What impressed most was how her years of consistently showing up and working the fields, so to speak, prepared her to scale up and launch the STOP ERA campaign in record time and with enviable efficiency and efficacy. Success doesn’t happen overnight! Never has, never will.        

Perhaps even more importantly, given her previous experience, Mrs. Schlafly understood how to organize people, delegate responsibilities, and create and stay on message. Her understanding of the critical women’s rights issues in play with the ERA, combined with her ability to clearly articulate and cogently defend her position regarding them, is nothing shy of a lesson in civic mastery. It takes incredibly creative “out-of-the box” thinking to include and consider the interests of all women, not just those with whom you agree or disagree, when making and advocating policies that impact and affect all women, irrespective of their station in life, political persuasion, or ideology. There is no room for ego in policymaking - Phyllis Schlafly personified selfless advocacy.    

3 - Phyllis Schlafly did not “lean in.”

Phyllis Schlafly did not “lean in” to her career, her career “leaned in” to her. 

In 2013, Sheryl Sandberg, former COO of Facebook, published a controversial book entitled Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. The book assumes that women are unhappy because they aren’t finding satisfaction at work or at home on the grounds they are paid less, promoted less frequently, and carrying an uneven split of childcare and housework. The cure, then, is for women to run half of our companies and men to run half of our homes. It’s been 10 years. All I can say is Sheryl Sandberg is no Phyllis Schlafly.

Mrs. Schlafly certainly had no need to “lean in,” she simply and seamlessly “integrated” her professional and personal lives into a single expression of excellence revealed through her roles as a woman, wife, daughter, mother, friend, attorney, and advocate. She exercised a full measure of personal agency, aka choice, honoring her commitments and responsibilities and pursuing her passions with equal commitment and devotion.

As any good leader does, Mrs. Schlafly prioritized her time and efforts in such a way that she needed not compromise her priorities of keeping her husband and six children, her family, at the center of her life’s work. After all, but for her family, and the future they and every other American family would inherit, what else would have, could have, or should have fueled her work? 

Fortunately, we need not pursue that line of inquiry. Her legacy speaks for itself. 

The Takeaway

Be like Phyllis. 

Phyllis told us we can win, she showed us how to win, she always dared to win, and win, she, and by extension we, did. 

Thank you, Mrs. Schlafly, for showing us just how extraordinary American women truly are and that we can do it all and have it all, just not all at the same time.

Thank you for reading my posts! I appreciate you very much.

xo,

Kelley

January 16, 2023