Equal rights housewife As Australian stars Cate Blanchett and Rose Byrne go head to head in the brilliant drama Mrs America, Juliet Rieden investigates the real women who inspired this sizzling V S feminist versus housewife battle for equal rights in the US. FEMINIST e’ve all heard of Phyllis was in many ways Gloria’s nine-part series Mrs America starring can’t help but admire for her political divide you’re watching the The very fact that this Illinois Gloria Steinem, nemesis, a conservative self-professed the cream of Aussie acting, Cate intelligence, tenacity and disruption, rise of a super villain.” Whatever your housewife took on the icons of the charismatic homemaker whose grass roots Blanchett and Rose Byrne – and even if her opinions feel out of whack viewpoint, we are clearly watching bubbling second-wave feminism poster girl for campaign against what should have interestingly it is the buttoned-up with the times and hard to stomach. a super woman with the sort of provides a fascinating dramatic America’s feminist been a shoo-in amendment securing right-winger who steals the show. In As the show’s Executive Producer, reactionary views that in the 21st tension that pitches proudly old- Wmovement, founding editor of Ms equal rights for women – and men – pastel A-line dresses and soft knits, Coco Francini, says: “If you’re on century have helped populist leaders fashioned Phyllis against the Pied magazine and ardent activist in the was not only audacious, it succeeded. her hair an undulating bouffant up-do one side of the political divide you’re get elected around the world – not Piper attractions of the queen bee of battle to legalise abortion, but Phyllis The seemingly prim pillar of the with chaste kiss-curls, Cate’s Phyllis watching the rise of a superhero and least the vanquishing of Hillary women’s liberation, Gloria Steinem, Schlafly – who is she? right is the subject of Foxtel’s superb is an intriguing anti-heroine who you IMAGES. GETTY if you’re on the other side of the Clinton by Donald Trump. slickly imagined by Rose Byrne. → 40 The Australian Women’s Weekly | JUNE 2020 JUNE 2020 | The Australian Women’s Weekly 41 Equal rights Rose’s Gloria is smart, sassy and, Phyllis had married attorney Fred alongside her verbal putdowns Schlafly in 1949. “He was tall, dark and intellectual magnitude, lifts and handsome,” she said. “He was hippy fashion onto a platform of smart, he was successful. He had a sophisticate chic. Who else could pull political, moral and family outlook off wearing glasses through a cascade on life that was very much like mine, of hair and look both studious and so it was a wonderful companionship. fashion-forward at the same time? I nursed all of my six children for at While there is a serving of dramatic least six months and I put everything licence, Mrs America is largely based else aside. I feel that there is nothing on fact and its wardrobe-perfect more helpless than a new born baby dramatisation of the era puts its and that baby needs his mother production values on a par with The around the clock.” Crown. And, like The Crown, the Phyllis spearheaded a fearmongering series had me heading to the library campaign suggesting that with the to sift the fact from the fiction and ERA in place, America’s daughters notably to find out more about the and granddaughters would be sent to curiously little-known Phyllis Schlafly. frontlines to die in combat in some foreign land. What’s more, the ERA The real Phyllis was anti-family, and promoted Mum of six Phyllis died on abortion and homosexuality, both September 5, 2016, aged 92, of which she saw to be against God. when her own state of In fact, in her TV debate with feminist Illinois had still not ratified Betty Friedan (played by Tracey the now controversial Ullman), which is recreated in the Equal Rights Amendment “THE LIBBERS series, Phyllis infamously called (that happened in 2018). WANT A SEX- homosexuals “perverts”. Incredibly, she had spent five “Betty Friedan was an decades fighting the bill. NEUTRAL extraordinary woman,” says Tracey, What’s more, the day after who captures the passion and the fury she died Phyllis’s last book TOTALITARIAN at the heart of the icon. “She wrote – she wrote 26! – The [the book] The Feminine Mystique → Conservative Case for NIGHTMARE.” Trump, was published. And two months later Trump was voted in as US President. Clockwise from left: Cate Blanchett plays Phyllis’s crystal-ball gazing Phyllis Schlafly in the new series: Phyllis Stop the ERA was spot on; loathe her or in 1976 campaigning against the ERA; Phyllis created the Stop ERA movement, endorsing Donald Trump for president in love her, this twinset and 2016, the year she died; Phyllis and two of starting with polemics written in the pearls “mom” undeniably her six children in 1975; speaking at a rally of newsletter she posted to a mailing list made a difference and had thousands of anti-ERA protesters in Illinois. of 5000. From this she also established her finger on the pulse of US the Eagle Forum, a conservative group Republicans who felt trampled on by the feminists to vote against the Equal anti-Communist, and saw any the idea of equal rights. Times had of which she remained Chief Executive what she saw as “the Eastern states Rights Amendment,” adds Cate. arms deal with Russia as a huge changed and women wanted equality Officer until she died. kingmakers”. In truth, the real Phyllis Schlafly mistake. Then in 1971 she saw an written into the constitution. This “I think the women’s lib movement “Phyllis Schlafly was a force of was also a very canny opportunist. opening to reignite her political time around, the bill would also cover is anti-family and destructive,” said nature and one of the quintessential In the beginning she wasn’t really ambitions by fighting the Equal discrimination on the basis of sexual Phyllis in a TV interview in her later grassroot conservative organisers interested in women’s politics at all. Rights Amendment. orientation. It passed in the lower life. “The Equal Rights Amendment I think this country has ever seen,” She campaigned in Illinois for a place Incredibly, a version of the ERA house in 1971 and was ratified in the was presented as something that says Cate Blanchett, who has admitted in Congress in both 1952 and 1970, was first talked about in Congress as upper house in 1972. But under the should benefit women. The truth was that she knew little of the activist losing both times. Her interest was early as 1923. It didn’t succeed then, US constitution, it then had to be it was a big take away of the rights before she was sent the script by national defence. She had a Masters but with the rise in the women’s ratified by a minimum of 38 state women then possessed, such as the creator Dahvi Waller (also a writer in Political Science from Harvard movement in the 1960s the legislatures to be adopted. By the time right to be exempt from the military on the uber-stylish, award-winning University and wrote five books on amendment was dusted off and Phyllis came on board, 28 states had draft and to be exempt from military series, Mad Men). “Phyllis galvanised the thorny topic of national defence. reintroduced in 1971. already approved the amendment and, combat; the right of a wife to be Top: Feminist author Betty Friedan had a thousands upon thousands of Phyllis knew a great deal about By this time, it seemed unthinkable looking back, the fact that she managed supported by her husband, and have TV debate with Phyllis. Above: Tracey housewives who felt marginalised by nuclear armaments, was fiercely that anyone would have issue with IMAGES. GETTY FOXTEL/FX. ALAMY. to turn the tide is mind-blowing. her children supported by her husband.” Ullman plays Betty Friedan in the series. 42 The Australian Women’s Weekly | JUNE 2020 JUNE 2020 | The Australian Women’s Weekly 43 Equal rights in 1963 and it changed a lot of Right: Gloria Steinem speaks at the women’s lives. So she became a big National Press Club. star and a campaigner and activist. In 1970 she had made Struggles that the feminists went a ground-breaking through then have become apparent speech supporting again today. Women are still fighting the reintroduction of for true equality.” the ERA. Below: Rose Even though she may not personally Byrne plays Gloria. support Phyllis’s views, Tracey applauds the show’s representation of both sides of the argument. “We have to stop all this tribal political bias which is destroying us, and I think this “WHY SHOULD show is trying to listen to everyone’s point of view and it’s understanding WOMEN ACCEPT that women are not a monolith, Initially, Gloria Steinem and her associates dismissed Phyllis. Top right: there are different factions, different THIS PICTURE OF A Stop ERA supporters demonstrate in thoughts for all of us.” front of the White House. Below right: In the series, Cate Blanchett’s Phyllis HALF-LIFE INSTEAD The National Women’s Political Caucus. says: “You’re never just a housewife. There’s no more important job for a OF A SHARE OF woman … We want the right to be a mother, the right to be a wife. The HUMAN DESTINY.” libbers want to create a sex-neutral feminist totalitarian nightmare.” Phyllis didn’t pull her punches and her whole of human destiny.