Ol Phyllis and her same ol Screed: Laugh along w/us

PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY STRIKES AGAIN

Tagged with: Equal Rights Amendment National Federation of Republican Women Phyllis Schlafly Republican Rockefeller Republican Sarah Palin United States World War II

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02-24-2011 by L. S. Carbonell

There are hypocrites, and then there is Phyllis Schlafly.

In 1952, Schlafly ran for Congress. In 1960, she firmly attached herself to the right wing of the Republican Party, and spent years denouncing the “Rockefeller Republicans” she thought weren’t conservative enough. In 1967, she ran for the presidency of the National Federation of Republican Women. She had a husband and six children at home while pursuing her political career and authoring numerous books. And she hates “feminists.” What is it with career-minded, successful conservative women? Sarah Palin, while running for the vice-presidency, denied being a feminist.

Well, according to Schlafly’s newest book, The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know – and Men Can’t Say, co-authored with Suzanne Venker, having a career has nothing to do with being a feminist. We didn’t fight for equality in the workplace or more equal representation in government. According to Schlafly, we fought for the right to get divorced, be liberated from raising children and destroy America.

Schlafly believes that the first legislative goal of the feminist movement was easy divorce. Really? Let’s examine the time frame here. The feminist movement dates itself back to the publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, on February 19, 1963. Twelve years later, our niece was waiting out a two-year required legal separation from her first husband, again. They had briefly reconciled half-way through the first one. In the end, it took her four years to end that marriage. Divorce laws are state-by-state, not national. Some states instituted no-fault divorces before the end of the 1960’s, but most states lagged well into the 1970’s. Divorce back in the dark ages could require proof of adultery, and no other acceptable reason. The laws were oppressive for both men and women. It was men who pushed this legislative agenda, since women had damned little political power back then.

Schlafly also believes that the feminist movement has offered women nothing that they didn’t have before. She was a very vocal opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment, and still says it would have taken rights and benefits away from women, like the right not to serve in the military and the right to be supported by a husband. Her book makes the claim that the feminist movement has taught women to hate men and demeaned motherhood. Schlafly never has understood that there are women who choose to serve in the military. The weird part is that she’s 86 years old. She was a teenager during World War II. She grew up with women who worked in defense plants, who served in the military. What did she think, that Rosie the Riverter was a guy in drag? Schlafly is still hung up on the idea of women being drafted, instead of an all-volunteer Army. As for hating men? Well, there are days, aren’t there? But feminism hasn’t done nearly as much to demean motherhood as women like Schlafly who preach anti-feminism while leaving their kids behind to pursue their own careers, or who use them as props in their public appearances like Sarah Palin. The big bitch in the feminist movement is the way men have been taught that they get to make babies but don’t have to take care of them. We didn’t so much demean motherhood as we insisted on a redefinition of fatherhood.

Let’s not forget the conspiracy theory. Don’t all conservative positions involve a conspiracy by liberals? In this one, the decline of marriage is the fault of special interest groups and that nasty liberal media, with massive help from Hollywood. Something that resembles facts would be appreciated here, like which special interest groups? Is this whole thing the result of pressures from divorce lawyers or the secret guild of nannies? And of course, Hollywood must be behind all this. We’ve all seen those movies where divorced women are living in luxury….um, sorry, can’t think of any off the top of my head.

Schlafly and Venker claim that all of America’s problems started with the feminist movement. America would be just peachy keen if women had stayed unemployed, married, pregnant and barefoot, just the way Schlafly did. Oh, I forgot, she’s been pursuing a career for 58 of her 85 years. It takes a really well-honed ability to deny reality not to be able to see that she is a contradiction of her own positions.