The mother who took on America, Phyllis Schlafly - played by Cate Blanchett in a new TV drama - championed family values but dragged women to the Dark Ages (hurl Alert)

Daily Mail ^ | 3rd July 2020 | David Leafe

[Ennis85]

When she first welcomed British 'morality' campaigner Mary Whitehouse to her home town of St Louis, Missouri, in December 1972, America's own self-appointed moral guardian, Phyllis Schlafly, might have wondered whether she was looking at a mirror image of herself.

Both favouring twin-sets, the two women also sported stiffly lacquered hairstyles — but the similarities between them went far beyond their prim appearance.

Middle-aged matrons they might have been, but both were experts at — and relished — riling their opponents.

Hugh Carleton-Greene, the BBC's director-general between 1960 and 1969, was so often provoked by Whitehouse that he bought a caricature of her, naked with six breasts, and threw darts at it in his office.

As for Schlafly, a Roman Catholic mother of six who was the scourge of America's feminists, she would begin her speeches by first thanking her husband, Fred, for allowing her to attend whichever gathering she was addressing.

'I like to say that, because I know it irritates women's libbers more than anything else,' she admitted.

'And it certainly worked. The Feminine Mystique author and activist Betty Friedan once described Schlafly as a 'witch' whom she'd like to see 'burned at the stake'.

Back in 1972, Whitehouse was in the U.S. to discuss sex education in schools. In Schlafly's view, such classes were akin to providing 'sales parties for abortions'.

But at the time, the American's attention had been diverted to what was to become her most controversial fight of all — an attempt to thwart the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) legislation guaranteeing women equality under the U.S. Constitution.

That epic battle is the subject of Mrs America, a big-budget new drama series set to air on BBC2 from next week, starring Cate Blanchett — in real life a vocal feminist — as Schlafly.

[Arcadian Empire]

What biases against men do you refer to?

How do you feel the ERA would help?

[TwelveOfTwenty]

What biases against men do you refer to?

I could get into the bias in the family courts, bias when women commit violent crimes etc., but I can't think of any where men aren't among those enforcing the bias.

How do you feel the ERA would help?

It would give men a tool to fight discrimination with, after all equal rights, but they would have to be willing to use it. Given what I've seen over past few decades, I doubt it.

[Arcadian Empire]

A generic ERA would consistently be interpreted as applying only for the benefit of women.

To address discrimination against fathers, there would need to be something very specific, ensuring the rights of fathers.

I support that.

[TwelveOfTwenty]

A generic ERA would consistently be interpreted as applying only for the benefit of women.

That may have been how male judges interpreted it, but the actual law would have barred any difference in the law between men and women. That was why it wasn't passed.

To address discrimination against fathers, there would need to be something very specific, ensuring the rights of fathers. I support that.

Such a law would never be passed. Whether you're talking about enforcing equality under the ERA or special laws that prevent discrimination against men, you're faced with the same set of problems. Getting men to fight for those laws, and getting male judges and male police officers to enforce them.

Men shell out billions a year on prostitution in the US alone, and next to nothing in support of the MRAs who are fighting a largely unfunded and unsupported fight for their rights. Until men decide that their equal rights and justice for their sons are more important that the services provided by hookers, nothing will change.

[Fledermaus]

The left never stops.

Our side should make movies about them. They make a lie about Roger Ailes, why not about Matt Laurer, Harvey W, Charlie Rose?