Springfield’s ERA battle stars in new TV series

In 2014, Phyllis Schlafly celebrated 25 years of the “Eagle Forum Live” radio show with her daughter, Anne Schlafly Cori, who was frequently the guest host.

Mrs. America focuses on feminists vs. conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly

By Rachel Otwell

“I’d like to burn you at the stake.” Considered a mother of the women’s liberation movement, Peoria native Betty Friedan spoke those words to Phyllis Schlafly during a 1973 talk show appearance and subsequent debate at Illinois State University in Bloomington. Schlafly’s name still elicits a strong reaction in Illinois and national politics. Love her or otherwise, the conservative icon’s legacy is undeniable. And it’s now a made-for-TV experience.

Women’s rights should be enshrined in the Constitution. On the heels of the 19th Amendment, suffragists made that the premise of another proposed amendment first introduced in 1923.

By 1972, it passed Congress and went to the states for ratification. Many thought it a sure, bipartisan bet. And from there exploded a culture war that was largely won by Phyllis Schlafly and her army of housewives, baking bread to sway Illinois state legislators.

The bread, Schlafly and the Springfield Statehouse are all highlighted in a new miniseries from FX called Mrs. America. Schlafly’s STOP ERA campaign was successful in the 1970s and early 80s. She claimed the Equal Rights Amendment would give too much power to Congress, would ensure abortion rights and would subject women to the draft. A resident of Alton, she made Illinois her battleground, and state ratification stalled for more than four decades before it passed in 2018. Having died in 2016 after a long life of political activism, she is to credit for much of the right’s ideology concerning “family values.”

Anne Schlafly Cori is portrayed as a child in the series, and said it inaccurately portrays her mother as both a harasser and a victim of harassment. Actor Cate Blanchett plays Phyllis. “She got the hair and the wardrobe right,” said Cori. “What she missed was the warmth.”

“She lived in a small town in Illinois. She never was elected to office. She never held a government office, yet she was able to have so much power and influence that four years after her death, Hollywood still wants their version of her story,” said Cori of her mother. “Her life was inspirational to thousands of women, and really started this whole conservative female movement, which hadn’t existed before she created it.”

Betty Friedan also plays a significant part in the series. As author of the 1963 release The Feminine Mystique, she likened suburban life in the home for women as a “comfortable concentration camp.” Both she and Schlafly helped lead movements that some considered on the fringes, yet that still reverberate today. Freidan co-founded NOW, the National Organization for Women, and served as its first president. Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, an offshoot of the STOP ERA campaign, is currently chaired by Cori. Both organizations are still active in the debate around whether or not the Equal Rights Amendment should be codified once and for all.

Springfield native and Alderwoman Kristin DiCenso rallied for ratification at the Statehouse before the resolution narrowly passed in 2018. She cites the desire for equal pay rights and the general desire to see women’s equality acknowledged in the Constitution as factors of her support. DiCenso was born in 1972. “I grew up in a Phyllis Schlafly-loving household, my mom got her newsletter,” she said. A Democrat, she decided to run for public office on the heels of President Trump’s election. “I think it’s what women needed at the time. They needed a win.”

A Republican in her early life, DiCenso moved to southern California for college and her politics evolved. She’s now active in groups such as Women Rising, which focuses on getting progressive female candidates in Illinois elected. She said an interesting facet of Mrs. America is the infighting within the women’s liberation movement that it explores. She said lessons can be learned for today. “As long as everyone’s working together, and coordinates, then we can all get something done.”

The series also hints at Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley’s machine being a force against ratification efforts. University of Illinois Springfield emeritus political studies professor Kent Redfield once wrote of the state’s political culture in the mid-70s: “Legislators, particularly those representing Chicago and the Cook County regular Democratic organization, often derided the League of Women Voters (which fought for the ERA) and good government reform groups as ‘the plague of women voters’ and the ‘goo goos.’ For those legislators, politics … was about winning and losing – not principles.”

As Mrs. America depicts, ERA battle is largely an Illinois story with lasting effects. Schalfly’s daughter Cori suggests viewers explore further by visiting mrsamerica.org – an Eagle Forum website with related writings and videos. The series is five episodes deep as of April 29, with nine promised.

You can contact Rachel Otwell at rotwell@illinoistimes.com and follow her on Twitter:

@MsOtwell.

Read Source: IllinoisTimes