\n<\/p>\n
When Donald J. Trump eulogized Schlafly at her funeral in September 2016, he cast both himself and her as underdogs \u2014 perhaps reasonably. Mr. Trump looked like the most long shot presidential nominee in living memory. Schlafly, who gave him a rare early endorsement, had in the 1970s slayed the Equal Rights Amendment, which sought to give women equality under the Constitution \u2014 a seeming shoo-in, until she got involved. <\/p>\n
By 2016, much of American life had turned nightmarish for someone like her.<\/p>\n
Gay marriage: widely accepted. Abortion: legalized. Gender-neutral bathrooms: commonplace on many campuses. Many women no longer measured their success in marriage and children, but in financial independence and personal fulfillment.<\/p>\n
These days, though, her arguments ring anew in our ears, as a new generation of conservative women challenges feminism\u2019s gains.<\/p>\n
Today, anti-feminists hold powerful roles in Washington. Social media has gone frilly with tradwives. Their reasoning echoes Schlafly\u2019s: Homemakers enjoy special status, protected and provided for by their husbands. Why give it up?<\/p>\n
Decades before battles erupted over unisex bathrooms for transgender people, Schafly warned that the Equal Rights Amendment would spawn co-ed bathrooms. Long before \u201cAmerica First\u201d and \u201cstop the steal,\u201d the ultra-isolationist Schlafly accused shadowy \u201ckingmakers\u201d of conspiring to nominate \u201cAmerica Last\u201d candidates for president. She tarred feminists as radicals, just as her heirs do now.<\/p>\n
To combat the E.R.A., abortion and gay rights, she mobilized formerly apolitical evangelical Christians, helping to build the coalition of religious conservatives that propelled Ronald Reagan to victory and eventually ousted social moderates from the Republican Party.<\/p>\n
The political divisions that defined those 1970s debates \u201conly got more pronounced over the years,\u201d leading to today\u2019s hyper-polarization, said Marjorie J. Spruill, the author of \u201cDivided We Stand.\u201d \u201cAnd Schlafly\u2019s tone had a lot to do with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schlafly\u2019s victories came wreathed in paradoxes: She presented herself as a model wife and mother, breastfeeding all six of her children, yet she had resources (her husband, a lawyer, came from wealth) and a housekeeper that allowed her to run political campaigns and churn out books, newsletters and commentary. While exalting homemaking, she lobbied (unsuccessfully) for a top post in the Reagan administration.<\/p>\n
Calmly, she deflected accusations of hypocrisy, saying that she had raised her children before embracing what she called her \u201chobby\u201d \u2014 politics. Career and homemaking, she said, came \u201cat different times in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Feminists never tire of leveling similar charges today, against women like Erika Kirk, the conservative activist who now leads the influential organization started by her late husband, Charlie Kirk; and Katie Miller, the prominent Republican political operative who promotes motherhood as women\u2019s highest calling.<\/p>\n
Yet many young women are veering further left, and their conservative peers aren\u2019t necessarily sticking to homemaking, either. At a recent Turning Point USA conference for conservative young women, several speakers openly discussed balancing family with high-powered careers. You could see Schlafly\u2019s influence. You could also see feminism\u2019s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Donald J. Trump eulogized Schlafly at her funeral in September 2016, he cast both himself and her as underdogs \u2014 perhaps reasonably. Mr. Trump looked like the most long shot presidential nominee in living memory. Schlafly, who gave him a rare early endorsement, had in the 1970s slayed the Equal Rights Amendment, which sought<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[540,24817,6647,24818,145,9270,7320,811,5118],"class_list":{"0":"post-50529","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-americans","9":"tag-bader","10":"tag-booker","11":"tag-ginsburg","12":"tag-history","13":"tag-ruth","14":"tag-shaped","15":"tag-u-s","16":"tag-washington"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}