Byrne’s feminist awakening star is one of the power women to watch on Australia’s new streaming service

powerhouse cast includes Orange Is The New Black’s Uzo Aduba (as Shirley Chisholm), Pitch Perfect’s

Elizabeth Banks (as Jill Ruckelshaus), The Americans’ Margo Martindale (as Bella Abzug), Mad Men’s John Slattery (Fred Schlafly), Tracey Ullman (Betty Friedan), and American Horror Story’s

Sarah Paulson, who plays a composite character on Team Schlafly.

Arguably, without Steinem and her partners in crime – including fellow ‘rebels’ Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm, Jill Ruckelshaus, and Bella Abzug, known as the second wave of feminism – today’s #metoo movement would probably never have come into being.

Byrne agrees, telling News

Corp Australia: “without the movement, spearheaded by those women chronicled in Mrs America, there would be no third-wave feminism, there would be no #metoo or #timesup movement. It was a complex, broad, huge achievement of those women during that time,” she says.

“So I was tickled to be part of this show, and to play this woman who was a true force of nature.”

Byrne admits she came late to the party in terms of discovering the feminist movement: “Yes, it wasn’t until my early 20s when I first read The Feminine Mystique, the Betty Friedan book, which really opened my eyes to the second-wave feminist movement,” she says. “That was my introduction to some of Gloria Steinem’s writings. So the experience of making Mrs. America was very educational for me, especially since I wasn’t familiar with Phyllis Schlafly, (whose journey) is obviously what the show is about. It was extraordinary what she did, single-handedly and along with her movement, in stopping the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment).”

Schlafly was one of the most prominent activists in the conservative movement from the 1970s until her death in 2016, championing pro-life and pro-traditional American values. Interestingly, Schlafly can be seen in footage at the tail-end of Trump’s presidential campaign.

“I don’t think there would be Trump without a Phyllis Schlafly,” Byrne offers. “Mrs. America is a very clever unravelling of history. It informs everything, and really tries to give a nuanced portrait of what was going on at the time. Through watching the series you can see the roots of this third wave of feminism, as well as the (genesis of the) right-wing personalities who now dominate and give the majority of people in America their news, like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.”