Who was Phyllis Schlafly?

First and foremost a wife and mother, Phyllis Schlafly has become an icon of evil for the politically progressive.

Born in 1924 in St. Louis, Missouri, Phyllis McAlpin Stewart was one of two daughters. Raised during the Great Depression, the family reportedly faced economic hardship when her father was unemployed. Schlafly’s mother worked as librarian and teacher.

Schlafly attended college early, earning a B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis in 1944. According to her bio on the Eagle Forum website, “She worked her way through college on the night shift at the St. Louis Ordnance Plant testing .30 and .50 caliber ammunition by firing rifles and machine guns and as a laboratory technician investigating misfires and photographing tracer bullets in flight.” This begins to paint the picture of the tough-as-nails character Schlafly would become in the public eye.

She went on to earn a Master’s in Government from Harvard University, which every feminist blogger will immediately amend to say the masters was from Radcliffe College, one of the coordinating institutions for Harvard, which at the time was all-male. After raising her children, Schlafly earned a law degree from Washington University Law School.

In 1949, Schlafly married Fred Schlafly, whom she remained married to for 44 years until his death in 1993. Together, they had six children. Schlafly was not shy about the fact that she breastfed all six of her children and taught them to read before they entered school. These points seem particularly to incite the ire of feminists.

Schlafly came into national public consciousness with her book A Choice Not an Echo in 1964, which is a story for another day. She rose to infamy with her opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, which was ultimately defeated. For this unforgivable sin in the eyes of progressives, Schlafly has been marked. Her Wikipedia entry reads like a rap sheet of politically incorrect statements and unpopular opinions.

There are many reasons to remember Phyllis Schlafly. People more well versed in her career and personal accomplishments have drawn attention to her life and work. However, such allies are not the ones leading the cause to remember Schlafly. Oddly, it is her political opponents who will not let her legacy rest.

Even in her lifetime, it was someone who disagreed with Schlafly politically who wrote a detailed biography. Carol Felsenthal apparently pursued writing the book Sweetheart of the Silent Majority with the intent of digging for dirt on Schlafly. After spending time in Schlafly’s home, interviewing her family, and investigating every rumor of racism and impropriety, Felsenthal reportedly concluded that Schlafly was sincere in her beliefs and lived according to them.

In the years since Schlafly’s death in 2016, progressives have become obsessed with Schlafly as a key to understanding the retrograde women who, in their view, pretend to enjoy a Christian lifestyle. While conservatives seem only to become aware of Schlafly’s impressive legacy when they feel called upon to defend it, the progressives cannot cease bringing her up.

According to the fantasies of progressive, empowered feminists, Schlafly was “trapped in a domestic hell of her own making,” absent any information that she disliked her lot in life. For the feminist there is “something spiritually visceral in hating Phyllis Schlafly — a soothing affirmation that we as feminists are morally superior, that despite her sharp intellect and ambition, Schlafly lost in the end.”

The aspect of Schlafly that seems to unsettle her critics so much was her unflappable calm. This maturity is seen as evidence of an icy heart and a calculated persona. From this, people who despise her have invented worlds in which she suffered anguish and longed for power. It seems only a person of immaturity who lacks self-control would think it possible to maintain such a stunning dichotomy of public image and private person.

Moreover, it shows how limited and unhelpful the militantly feminist worldview is. For many women, the joy of home and family life, tedious as they are at times, are where they wish to focus their energy. If this is such a threat to feminism, then perhaps feminism doesn’t have a leg to stand on.