Q&A with Phyllis Schlafly: Feminism and the ideal wife

Home News Q&A with Phyllis Schlafly: Feminism and the ideal wife

Phyllis Schlafly is a lawyer, syndicated columnist and a leader in the pro-family conservative movement. She was named one of the 100 most important women of the 20th century by Ladies’ Home Journal. She is also the author or editor of 20 books including “The Power of the Positive Woman,” “Feminist Fantasies,” and “Kissinger on the Couch.” She served on the Commission of the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution under President Ronald Reagan.

What do you think about Obama and the Health and Human Services mandate?

I think it’s not only wrong, it’s dumb, and I think his political advisers must be telling him that. But it proves that the feminists are in control of the Obama administration. They demanded it, and they won’t let him retreat. And what he announced yesterday is not a compromise. He calls it an “accommodation,” which really doesn’t get us anywhere, or get him anywhere. He has alienated a lot of people. It’s a religious liberty issue. But it’s also an issue that shows if you let government control health care, they’re going to tell you what you get and what you don’t get.

Years ago, you fought very strongly against the Equal Rights Amendment. Why did you oppose that and how are today’s feminists connected with it?

Well the Equal Rights Amendment is a big subject, and it had absolutely no benefit for women, so it was a fraud. In 10 years of fighting, they were never able to show any benefit that it would give women whatsoever. At the same time, it was a big takeaway of rights women then had. At the time it came out of Congress we had a military draft, we were in a war, and I had sons and daughters about 20 years old. They thought it was the dumbest thing they ever heard that you say you’re giving women a new Constitutional amendment and the first thing is they have to sign up for the draft like their brothers. If the Equal Rights Amendment had been ratified, we would have had same-sex marriage 25 years ago, because the word in the amendment was “sex,” it was not “women.”

The feminists, as Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield has written, are anti-men, anti-masculine, anti-morality, and anti-motherhood. In their peculiar view of society, they think American women are second-class citizens because they’re oppressed by the patriarchy. One of the examples of oppression is that mothers are expected to look after their babies. That should be a societal responsibility. That’s why they’re for government-financed daycare.

Do you believe that children should be raised in a traditional, Judeo-Christian, one-man, one-woman family, dedicated for life?

That’s certainly the best plan, that children will be raised by their own mother and father, married to each other.

What was behind  the baby boom, the marriage boom, and the decline in the divorce rate that happened in the ’50s? 

A lot of us attribute that to the change in the income tax laws. That was not due, in one way or the other, to the New Deal. The good income tax change came in 1948, passed by the Republican Congress over Harry Truman’s veto. It gave the joint income tax return, which treated the family as a unit. If the husband was the principle money-earner and his wife was a full-time home-maker, they could file a joint income tax return as two people because the family was treated as a unit. That was a great pro-family tax change in the income tax law. It may or may not be a cause, but it was a beginning to the so-called baby boom.

In the panel at CPAC, you mentioned how fiscal and social conservatism cannot be separated. Is the family essential to a well-working economy?

The main reason for that is that you have to ask, “What are we spending the money on? Why do we have these deficits, and why are we piling up the debt? What are they spending it on?” Well, we’re spending nearly a trillion dollars a year on the problem of broken marriage — of marriage absence. It used to be that the husband and father supported his family. Well, if you’ve got 21 percent illegitimacy in this country — which we do now — the mothers are going to look to Big Brother government to support them. The government is supporting the children — the illegitimate children — and, well, it’s terribly costly. You simply can’t separate the fiscal problem of the money that our country is putting out for fatherless children. It is a tremendous issue.

If you had one piece of advice for young conservatives, what would it be?

Well, I think, work marriage into your life plan. Unfortunately, in the women’s studies courses and all the courses that the girls take in college, they’re encouraged to plan a life that has no space for marriage and family. Ten years, 20 years later, they’re sorry. They can’t live their life over. And, of course, the guys aren’t planning marriage either. But marriage is a wonderful way to live. Sure, it’s got its problems, so does everything else.

And women can still achieve a lot in the political and working world?

Yes, of course. Of course. When I got married, all I wanted was a dryer, so I didn’t have to hang up my diapers. And now everybody has washers and dryers and dishwashers and all kinds of conveniences — which makes the work in the house very limited compared to what it used to be, even 20 to 30 years ago. But be careful who you pick for a wife. Don’t pick a feminist. Feminists are the source of most problems today.