OPINION:
Phyllis Schlafly called herself “just a housewife,” and lost several races for public office. She was scorned by the political elites and mocked by feminists. Betty Friedan, an early modern feminist icon, told her she should be “burned at the stake” for opposing the Equal Rights Amendment. But when she died Sunday, aged 92, she was recognized as one of the most politically important women of her time.
The Equal Rights Amendment was the holy grail of the feminist movement, endorsed by nearly every politician in the land. It had passed the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate by enormous majorities and had been ratified by 35 of the 38 states needed to make it part of the Constitution. Even after the ERA finally died graveyard dead in 1982, after Congress extended the ratification period to pump blood into the corpse, feminists urged a symbolic vote for it to make feminists and women of like persuasion feel good.
Mrs. Schlafly, a lawyer, paid little attention when the amendment was introduced in Congress. She thought it “something between innocuous and mildly helpful,” but when she read it closely she decided that it would void earlier laws to protect women, and above all, it was unnecessary and an unneeded adornment to the Constitution.
“I simply didn’t believe we needed a constitutional amendment to protect women’s rights,” she told The New York Times in 2006. “I knew of only one law that was discriminatory toward women, a law in North Dakota stipulating that a wife had to have her husband’s permission to make wine.”
But defeating the ERA was only one chapter in a life of dedication to principle. She was a steadfast opponent of abortion and supporter of conservative causes and candidates. Her self-published book, “A Choice Not An Echo,” sold 3 million copies in support of Barry Goldwater in 1964. Mrs. Schlafly was one of the Republicans who picked up the pieces of the shattered party when he lost, and 16 years later their effort flowered in the election of Ronald Reagan.
She was a woman of wit and humor, and delighted in needling feminists. She often opened her speeches with “thanks to my husband Fred for allowing me to come here.” She stood always erect, fashionable in cashmere with pearls at her throat, in sharp contrast to the baggy unwashed turtlenecks and dusty sandals worn by feminist tormentors, and she never lost her cool, even when she was smacked in the face by a pie thrown by an angry opponent. She and her friends took apple pies they had baked themselves to persuade legislators in states where the ERA was up for ratification.
She paid a price, as patriots often do. When a gay activist publicly revealed that her son was homosexual, Mrs. Schlafly said she considered the disclosure an attempt to embarrass her, but it did not soften her disapproval of homosexual marriage nor her affection for her son.
Her comments on the passing parade, delivered with bite, bark and sometimes a little vinegar, were calculated, as her targets said they were, to provoke feminist ire. She once said sexual harassment in the workplace “is not a problem for virtuous women,” and “sex education classes are like in-home sales parties for abortion.” She called the atomic bomb “a marvelous gift that was given to our country by a wise God.” She credited improvements in women’s lives to devices like indoor clothes dryers and paper diapers, not feminism. “Feminism,” she told The New York Times a decade ago, “has changed the way women think, and it has changed the way men think. But the trouble is, it hasn’t changed the attitudes of babies at all.”
Phyllis Schlafly defended principles and changed attitudes. We will miss her.
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