Mrs. America | Imamother

amother

Thu, May 21 2020, 9:55 pm

Is anyone watching it? I’m curious to know more about how accurate it actually is, and more background on that part of history. I’m finding it fascinating but still sorting out my opinions.

Especially interested in fox’s take.

amother

Sun, May 24 2020, 7:58 pm

Bump

Fox

Sun, May 24 2020, 8:10 pm

Whoops! I got distracted by online shenanigans! Will work on a response right now!

amother

Aubergine

Sun, May 24 2020, 8:48 pm

following

Fox

Sun, May 24 2020, 8:49 pm

I'm not watching it, so I can't vouch for its accuracy or lack thereof, but I can speak a little about the era in general. I was a pre-teen/teen living on a college campus during the time, and it consumed everyone's attention.

Background
If I understand the premise of the series, it shows the trajectory of the second wave feminist movement and the attempt to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. The dramatic foil is Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative activist who became famous for her efforts to block ratification of the amendment.

The Equal Rights Amendment proposed to end all legal distinctions between men and women. The "pro" position was that such a blanket amendment would be more effective than piecemeal efforts to attack discrimination in labor law; education; family law, etc. The "anti" position was that the amendment was too sweeping and could potentially hurt women more than help them, such as eliminating alimony and abolishing separate gender activities and spaces.

In the end, the amendment lacked the requisite number of ratifying states, though it has been re-proposed on several occasions since.

Who Was Phyllis Schlafly?
The most fascinating and most misunderstood character of the conflict was Phyllis Schlafly. A Harvard-educated lawyer and the mother of six, she is often caricatured as a reactionary intent on keeping women barefoot and pregnant.

In fact, that is far from the truth. Schlafly was not necessarily opposed to the goals of second wave feminism. She supported many of the legal changes of the era, including labor law, credit practices, and educational opportunity. Her opposition to the ERA was based on two elements: her conviction that it represented bad law; and her staunch support for traditional families.

Shlafly died in 2016 in her nineties. Her children have carried on her organizations and conservative activism. She also has a niece, Suzanne Venker, who writes about relationships and how "alpha women" can cultivate femininity without losing their personalities or mistaking subservience for femininity.

Why Does It Matter
In retrospect, the most important element of the struggle was the grassroots conservative movement that emerged from it. Prior to the 70s, conservatism and the GOP was entirely dominated by Eastern Establishment types -- men who'd attended Ivy League schools and worked in white-shoe law firms. Schlafly identified a more populist-oriented conservative base that had little in common with the GOP leaders of the era.

Her first book, A Choice Not an Echo, took on this issue, especially as it related to selecting presidential candidates. Published in the 60s during the Goldwater campaign, it positioned her for the coming battles in the next decade.

The battle over the ERA was similarly divided along regional and educational lines. Feminist leaders such as Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, et. al., were highly educated, affluent, and lived almost exclusively in New York or its environs. Their specific frustrations and concerns tended to be of an intellectual bent and were not necessarily those experienced by working class women, who often had more down-to-earth issues.

Schlafly represented small town and rural America, though she herself had an impressive educational background. She argued that traditional family structure created more safety for women than it cost them in lost opportunities.

Postscript
In retrospect, it is tough to say whether Phyllis Schlafly had the ability to look around cultural corners and anticipate the future excesses of feminism, transgender activism, and identity politics; whether her lawyer's mind was troubled by the potential legal pitfalls of the ERA; or whether she simply saw herself standing up against a society changing faster than virtually anyone could absorb.

But certainly, she pioneered the concept of a conservative political presence that focuses on family and community. In that respect, she was the forerunner of Andrew Breitbart, a"h, whose defining quote is that "politics is downstream from culture" and even Steve Bannon, who recognized the deep disaffection in the country for those perceived as a largely liberal cultural elite.

The societal tension that Schlafly first identified and Breitbart and Bannon capitalized on is still playing out in debates over Covid-19 quarantining. People with portable jobs who can work from anywhere have a much different view than those whose work is tied to a location. The tension over these class distinctions is likely to get worse before it gets better.

Fox

Sun, May 24 2020, 8:57 pm

BTW, this isn't an essay for school or something, is it? Because if it is, I'll want to know what grade I got!

dancingqueen

Sun, May 24 2020, 9:35 pm

Dh and I are really enjoying this show! Cate Blanchett is always amazing.

Fox, that was interesting thanks. On the show she gets her law degree much later in life from a local school, it’s her dh who was a Harvard grad.

I find it interesting that the feminists leaders are almost all Jewish.

Fox

Sun, May 24 2020, 10:18 pm

dancingqueen wrote:

Fox, that was interesting thanks. On the show she gets her law degree much later in life from a local school, it’s her dh who was a Harvard grad.

My mistake! You are (and the series) are correct. She received a master's degree from Radcliffe/Harvard. She received her JD from Washington University in St. Louis.

amother

Sun, May 24 2020, 10:27 pm

Thanks so much fox! That deserves an A+

Do you anything about how accurate the portrayal is? The show makes Phyllis seem cool and aloof, a very stern, almost mean mother, and somewhat fanatic and backwards. Her buddies seem really dumb, shallow and unsophisticated, she partners with radical evangelicals. The pros sound progressive, sophisticated, genuine and empathetic. Is this how it was?

Also, they won that particular battle, but what about the war?

Fox

Mon, May 25 2020, 12:02 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Do you anything about how accurate the portrayal is? The show makes Phyllis seem cool and aloof, a very stern, almost mean mother, and somewhat fanatic and backwards. Her buddies seem really dumb, shallow and unsophisticated, she partners with radical evangelicals. The pros sound progressive, sophisticated, genuine and empathetic. Is this how it was?

Also, they won that particular battle, but what about the war?

What? The conservative activist is portrayed as a one-dimensional fanatic and the progressives are portrayed as sincere, commited, and genuine. I am shocked to my inner core. Not.

Phyllis Schlafly was definitely vilified at the time, portrayed as backwards and unsophisticated. The nuance that was constantly glazed over, then and now, was that Schlafly wasn't opposed to the reasonable demands of second-wave feminism. She was just opposed to the ERA.

Schlafly's six children followed her into conservative advocacy, including her oldest son, who is gay. So I presume she must not have driven her children away from her values too thoroughly.

The pro-ERA forces were promising a better future for everyone, so of course they sounded great on sound bytes.
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The war is between cultural Marxism and Western Civilization, and it's still going on. I don't know who will win. The promises of feminism morphed into vague screeds against patriarchy and cubicle jobs for most women.

The battleground has changed somewhat, though. Many of Shlafly's fears -- which seemed ludicrous at the time -- have resulted not from the ERA but from the efforts of transgender activists, among others, who insist that biology is irrelevant.

The impact on women's sports is an obvious issue, as are the existence of any gender-segregated activities or spaces.

The biggest problem with negative characterizations of Evangelical or conservative Christians is that the caricatures are approximately one-and-a-half steps away from the anti-Semitic "happy merchant" cartoons. The people who hate conservative Christians have no love for religious Jews, either, and their vitriol against religion will not stop at the door of the shul. So whatever Phyllis Schlafly's true nature, it's important to keep in mind that the people who are choosing to portray Schlafly in such a manner would happily portray any of our rebbetzins or female educators the same way.

yo'ma

Mon, May 25 2020, 8:42 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

This is one of the reasons I don’t want to watch it.

dancingqueen

Mon, May 25 2020, 10:33 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

I don’t agree with your characterization. PS came across as very intelligent and shrewd, a sympathetic mother to her gay son, though rather aloof to the others. However, she does seem rather hypocritical for being the poster child for housewives when clearly her activism constituted a full time career.

amother

Tue, May 26 2020, 10:22 am

dancingqueen wrote:

her being sympathetic to her gay son was an attempt to humanize her, but we all know How it will appear to liberal leftists today. The feminists were fighting for equal rights for lesbians ( though they couldn’t agree if it should be on their official platform or not) and here Phyllis is struggling mightily to accept her son made of different stuff, musically inclined etc. and she even gives him a lecture about using his mind to control his urges...

Fox

Tue, May 26 2020, 12:18 pm

One of the things that I find fascinating about that era -- again, not referring to the series, which I haven't seen -- is how many of the points were rendered moot by history, and how many of the side arguments have been elevated.

The biggest problem most people had with the ERA was that it offered almost no protection to SAHM. It would have made alimony a thing of the past, and it would have prevented SAHM from assuming a joint credit history, among other things.

Those were huge issues in the 70s, when a lot of women found themselves divorced with few skills and an inadequate work history -- so-called "displaced homemakers."

But economics changed what social activism could not. As the post-WWII economic juggernaut slowed down, women went to work in order to maintain the same standard of living. Plenty of anti-discriminatory labor law was passed, but it was really economics that drove it -- not conscience.
______________________

On the other hand, some of the worries that were dismissed as ludicrous at the time -- men competing in women's sports, for example, have emerged as genuine issues.

The ERA attempted to erase all legal differences between men and women; transgender activism is now making inroads in attempting to erase all differences, period.

Now that we're fighting an ideology that claims biology is a social construct, the idea of worrying about legal equality seems almost quaint.

naturalmom5

Wed, May 27 2020, 2:31 pm

Fox wrote:

BTW, this isn't an essay for school or something, is it? Because if it is, I'll want to know what grade I got!

Excellent I can cut and paste this and turn it in to my professor..
With yom tov cooking, there was no time to do assignment ...
You understand Very Happy

amother

Wed, Jun 10 2020, 10:25 pm

dancingqueen wrote:

do you still see her the same way after the last episode?

I just finished the series and am so disappointed. I was hoping for a nuanced view on both sides of the aisle, buy Phyllis was portrayed as increasingly self centered, callous, fanatic, narcissistic. The only time she sheds a tear is when she loses the nomination to Reagan’s cabinet. And the feminists are portrayed as principled, progressive and oh so human.

Oh and her friend Alice who turns on her... and the battered wife friend who she keeps sending back home... I know these details are false, but why did they have to put them in there?

sushilover

Wed, Jun 10 2020, 10:49 pm

What a fascinating read. Thank you.

Fox

Wed, Jun 10 2020, 11:34 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

... and the battered wife friend who she keeps sending back home... I know these details are false, but why did they have to put them in there?

That is not only disappointing, but it must be terrible for her family to see her characterized as a monster.

Her niece, Suzanne Venker (whom I mentioned upthread) has written a lot about her late aunt's underratedly nuanced views -- particularly with regard to women's roles in the family. The characterization of Schlafly as encouraging women to be blindly subservient couldn't be further from the truth.

amother

Lawngreen

Thu, Jun 11 2020, 12:32 am

Wow fox. I’m so amazed! How do you do that? How do you get all the right answers?

Fox

Thu, Jun 11 2020, 12:37 am

amother [ Lawngreen ] wrote:

Wow fox. I’m so amazed! How do you do that? How do you get all the right answers?

I cheat?