Phyllis Schlafly

Phyllis Schlafly (2011)

Phyllis Schlafly (born August 15, 1924 in St. Louis , Missouri as Phyllis McAlpine Stewart , † September 5, 2016 ibid) was an influential conservative publicist and political activist in the United States .

Origin and education

Phyllis Schlafly came from a family of originally Scottish Presbyterians (although she was a Roman Catholic herself). Her father was a representative for Westinghouse , and his unemployment during the Depression, when her mother kept the family afloat as a teacher and librarian, shaped Schlafly. Schlafly attended Washington University in St. Louis and Radcliffe College ( affiliated with Harvard ), where she received her MA in Political Science in 1944. In 1978 she also graduated from Washington University Law School in St. Louis and was admitted to the Illinois bar.

Political life

Fight against "ERA"

Schlafly advocated the role of women as housewives and mothers and was known as an opponent of the women's movement and feminism . She became known for her long-running campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), a constitutional amendment that would have enshrined gender equality in the US Constitution. The amendment was passed by the US House of Representatives in 1971 and the Senate in 1972 , but was not ratified by individual states before the 1982 deadline, with Schlafly's activities being deemed to be paramount. In 1972 she founded the "STOP ERA" movement, which later became the Eagle Forum (and an associated think tank in St. Louis), a conservative "pro-family" organization of which she was president until her death. Schlafly saw the Equal Rights Amendment as a threat to the traditional American family and feared for certain female “privileges” that the addition would make unconstitutional, e. B. the exclusion from military service and the right to financial support from the husband. Legal equality for women would also force them to give up their motherhood role, which Schlafly saw as natural and satisfying, and to go to work, which, according to Schlafly, leads to unhappiness and childlessness or the neglect of the offspring. She also claimed that the Equal Rights Amendment legalized same-sex marriage and abortion . Above all, she was active against the military service of American women.

Phyllis Schlafly (2007)

Phyllis Schlafly can be seen as the greatest opponent of the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. Schlafly's social and political influence went back to her activities in the 1950s and 1960s, during which she made a name for herself as a speaker, author and vehement opponent of communism and as an anti-liberal. Schlafly was considered an extraordinarily talented organizer and the voice of conservative America. She was also known as a talented rhetorician, which she demonstrated as a candidate for Congress in 1952 and in the fight against Betty Friedan in the 1970s. Schlafly was able to reach large parts of the public with simple language by simplifying complicated matters. Schlafly's reputation has been described as being "doctrinal, intolerant and self-righteous" by her opponents, and "logical" and "morally passionate" by her supporters.

In a liberal society, Schlafly feared the danger of communism exerting influence, since communist currents could develop more freely in an open society. Schlafly's influence on society and the Equal Rights Amendment was so enormous that it received financial support from insurance companies and the John Birch Society . Schlafly reinforced her position against the Equal Rights Amendment by stoking fears such as the possible introduction of common sanitary facilities for men and women, the legalization of rape and the drafting of American women into military service or their dispatch to combat missions.

Schlafly, by fueling fears and thanks to her conservative values, was able to lower support for the Equal Rights Amendment. Contemporary critics also described Schlafly's arguments as " fear-evoking ". While political support for the Equal Rights Amendment was ratified at the start of thirty of the thirty-eight states required for ratification, ratification slowed in the remaining eight years. Only five other states ratified the Equal Rights Amendment. The remaining 15 states, most of which were Democrats in the majority in 1980 , did not ratify the Equal Rights Amendment until 1982. Schlafly criticized the fact that equal pay for women and men meant that women were less likely to agree to marrying, since mostly financially better off men marry financially worse off women.

Your fight against women's armed service

For the Conservative Schlafly, the possibility of registering women for military service was unthinkable, and so she managed to organize many women against the Equal Rights Amendment and against the possible registration under the Military Service Selective Act for the military service of American women; even children were taken to demonstrations with signs clearly calling on the state and the public not to send their mothers to war.

The inclusion of minors revealed the determination of the STOP-ERA movement to prevent by all means the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and the associated possibility of universal conscription for American women. For Schlafly, it was clear that a possible registration of American women would only be the beginning and would lead to further military service or even being sent to war missions. She summarized her attitude as follows: "It becomes that much more important to defeat ERA to keep women out of combat" (It is all the more urgent to fight ERA so that women are not drawn into war missions) . Even before President Carter's decision to reactivate compulsory registration for military service, Schlafly fought against the possible combat deployment of women.

Further positions

In 1952 she ran for the first time (unsuccessfully) as Republican for Congress . In 1964 , her advocacy for the conservative Republican presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater , attracted a lot of attention in her book A Choice, not an Echo , in which she polemicized the (in her opinion too liberal) “ Rockefeller Republicans” of the northeast coast. In the 1960s she also campaigned against arms control agreements with the Soviet Union. In addition, she advocated isolationist tendencies in the USA and spoke out against the United Nations and the involvement of the USA in international "police actions" such as in Bosnia. She was an opponent of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which she held responsible for globalization tendencies that were harmful to the USA. She also campaigned against some US Supreme Court justices. To this end, she published in 2004 "The Suprematists - the tyranny of judges and how to stop them" (Die Vorherrschaftsverfechter - The tyranny of judges and how we can stop them) .

Since 1967 she has published the monthly Phyllis Schlafly Report . Her columns appeared regularly in about 100 newspapers in the United States. She was a regular radio commentator and commented on television in 1974/5 on CBS Morning News and from 1980 to 1983 on CNN .

Private

From 1949 until his death in 1993 she was with the lawyer John Fred Schlafly jr. married, with whom she had six children. Her son Andrew Schlafly is the founder of the right-wing wiki Conservapedia .

Web links

Commons : Phyllis Schlafly  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Official website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Patricia Sullivan: Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative activist, has died at age 92 . In: Washington Post . September 5, 2016, accessed September 5, 2016
2. ↑ Carol Felsenthal: The Sweetheart of the Silent Majority: The Biography of Phyllis Schlafly. Doubleday, New York 1981, pp. 258 ff.
3. ^ ^{A b} See Sara M. Evans: Born for Liberty. A History of Women in America. Simon & Schuster, New York 1997, ISBN 0-02-902990-2 , p. 304.
4. ↑ Phyllis Schlafly's Crusade. In: Reviews in American History. 34, No. 4 (2006), 565-572: “Her opponents [characterize her] as 'doctrinaire, intolerant and self-righteous.' To supporters, [...] she was 'logical, morally passionate'. "
5. ↑ Donald T. Critchlow: Phyllis Schlafly And Grassroots Conservatism. A Women's Crusade. Princeton University Press, Princeton 2008, ISBN 978-0-691-13624-0 , p. 567.
6. ↑ Cf. A Giant Step Toward Equality? Registration may brighten the prospects for ERA. In: The New Republic . No. 182, March 1, 1980, p. 18.
7. ↑ 57c. The Equal Rights Amendment. In: US History Online Textbook.
8. ↑ Phyllis Schlafly Claims Women Paid The Same As Men Won't Find Husbands. In: Huffington Post . April 15, 2014
9. ^ Rights Proposal Debate Goes On: ERA Needed, Mrs. Mitgang Says Adequacy of Defense Disputed. In: New York Times . July 20, 1980, p. 29.