MRS AMERICA – Review by MaryAnn Johanson

I’ve been trying to get my thoughts on the Phyllis Schlafly–centered FX/BBC miniseries Mrs America to coalesce into something coherent for weeks now. The Amy Coney Barrett fiasco has finally solidified them, and seeing her rushed swearing-in to the US Supreme Court — at night, almost sneakily, the judicial equivalent of a shotgun wedding — has filled me with a clarifying rage.

Fundamentalist Christianity in America is, by default, misogynist, cisheteronormative, and white supremacist, and its rise as a political force in the United States began in the 1970s, with Phyllis Schlafly as one of its most famous faces. I’m too young to remember how, in the 70s, Schlafly scuppered the Equal Rights Amendment, which would have enshrined in the US Constitution legal equality on the basis of gender. (Though more on this below.) But I do recall her presence on the 1980s political scene, and how her antiwoman, antifreedom, anti-American Eagle Forum was an integral part of Ronald Reagan’s fundamentalist conservative movement “Morning in America.” Continue reading…