So a funny thing happened recently.
More funny whoa than funny hahahaha.
For those of you who don’t know who Phyllis Schlafly is or I should say was because she
died in 2016, she was arguably one of the most influential conservative political organizers
in American history.
But ol’ P. Schlafs would agree on very little.
Yes, she was extremely smart and savvy and scrappy and doggedly persistent in getting
her views across.
Ehh, she wasn’t too keen on, well, feminism for starters.‘Feminism is incompatible with
human nature.’
She made her name in the 1970s by leading the effort to stop the ratification of the
Equal Rights Amendment and if you’re like, uh, what’s the Equal Rights Amendment?
You probably haven’t heard of it because she was successful.
‘I simply didn’t believe we needed a constitutional amendment to protect women’s rights.’
Schlafly and her Moral Majority followers were also not fans of things like, hmmm, sex
ed.
‘Sex education classes are like in-home sales parties for abortion.’
LGBTQ rights.
‘ERA means funding abortions, means homosexual privileges.’
Oh and did I mention, she really hated feminism.
‘Men should stop treating feminists like ladies and treat them like the men they say
they want to be.’
And while a lot of her comments might seem downright shocking— ‘The atomic bomb is
a marvelous gift given to our country by a wise God.’
‘You can’t be an American if you don’t speak English.’
‘Non-criminal sexual harassment on the job is not a problem for the virtuous woman except
in the rarest of cases.’—she had masses of supporters which I recently learned, here
comes the funny huh, not haha, part of the story, I mentioned Phyllis Schlafly to my
mother and she said stop.
Do not talk ill of her.
My mother explained to me that when she came to the crossroads that so many women come
to, whether she was going to continue in her academic career to pursue obtaining a PhD
and a full professorship because she was already instructing at a college at the time versus
staying at home to take care of her children, she opted for home.
P.S. thank you mom for, for caring and for being an amazing mom and for making sacrifices
and I wish that you didn’t even have to make that choice.
Back to the story.
Phyllis Schlafly was a role model and a comfort for her because Phyllis Schlafly’s whole
thing has been promoting the value of mother’s who opt to stay home and raise their children
before opting to cultivate their career.
‘Women can avoid sexual harassment and domestic violence by focusing on marriage instead of
career.’
For my mom, she didn’t identify with the feminist movement, she didn’t have other
women in her life who she could grapple with the situation and get advice from, get help
from.
Phyllis was the one in front of her.
On Stuff Mom Never Told You and even in my like personal social media, I do try to exercise
empathy and check my privilege.
This was just a reminder of why that was important to do not only for issues that are near and
dear to me but also it’s important to do for puzzling out why people disagree with
me and the life events and circumstances that led them to that choice.
And it can be hard to remember that, especially when you are in the middle of a garbage fire
presidential election.
While that doesn’t justify what someone supports or what they say— ‘By getting
married a woman has consented to sex and I don’t see how you can call that rape.’—if
we understand better why people make the choices, especially the ones that we disagree with
than perhaps we can look back and see where we can focus our work because longterm change
for the better means getting at the root problem.
So I guess what I’m saying is…not thanks Phyllis Schlafly.
‘News flash: one reason women get married is to be supported by their husband while
taking care of the children at home.
So long as the husband earns a good income she doesn’t care about the pay gap between
them.’
But to my mom for making hard choices with me in mind.