US ‘antifeminist’ who fought women’s equality law

1924 - 2016

PHYLLIS Schlafly, who has died at the age of 92, was an American conservative activist, lawyer, author and strident antifeminist who in the ’70s was instrumental in halting the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment and helped push the Republican Party further to the right on such issues as the family, religion and abortion.

The Equal Rights Amendment (“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex”) had already been passed by the Congress in 1972 when Schlafly began her campaign to stop its ratification.

Thirty of the 38 state legislatures required to pass the amendment had already ratified it. It was widely supported by women’s groups and by both major political parties.

But Schlafly was undaunted. American women, she said, were already “extremely well treated” by society.

The amendment, she argued, would pave the way for same-sex marriage, abortion, mothers being drafted into the army and unisex toilets in public places. By the spring of 1972 she had set up Stop ERA, which later became Eagle Forum (which continues to operate as a conservative group).

Initially many dismissed Schlafly, but by the middle of 1973 observers were beginning to acknowledge the effect of her campaign. After the US Supreme Court had effectively legalised abortion in January 1973, Schlafly found growing support among conservative churchgoers. Focusing her campaign on the threat the amendment would pose to traditional family values, she travelled across the US, drawing support from evangelicals, Catholics (she retained a strong Catholic faith throughout her life), Mormons and Orthodox Jews.

By the late ’70s the amendment was stalled. It fell three states short of passage and in celebration Schlafly held a “burial” party in Washington. The ERA, she told journalists, “is dead for now and forever in this century”.

Ironically, Schlafly herself had benefited hugely from ’FAMILY VALUES’: Phyllis Schlafly said women were ’extremely well treated’

Schlafly herself had benefited hugely from women’s rights

women’s rights; she was highly educated and taken seriously both as an author and political activist. She was, the Washington Post said in 1974, “a walking contradiction”.

“Her outward demeanour and dress is one of a feminine, bridge-playing, affluent housewife. She smiles a lot, giggles, worries about her appearance and makes polite conversation . . . Yet she is tough and aggressive, totally unlike the role she