DELEGATES

A Feminine Force, But Don't Call Her A Feminist

Schlafly Is A Conservative Trailblazer And A Happy Warrior Who Keeps Her History Close To Her

by Neil Munro

Monday, Sept. 1, 2008


The story of Phyllis Schlafly's life can be read in the gold charms that dangle from the necklace draped around her neck.

There's the miniature of the machine-gun bullets that she tested for three years during World War II, and a keepsake from Washington University in St. Louis from where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a political science degree in 1944. Between exams and study, the hometown teenager tested thousands of bullets to ensure that others like them would hit their targets in the German and Japanese armies.

She has a charm from Radcliffe, then Harvard University's counterpart for women, which awarded her a master's degree in political science in 1945. Then there's the miniature presidential seal given to her by President Reagan, and another charm celebrating Schlafly's stopping of the Equal Rights Amendment. That one depicts a stop sign overlying 'ERA,' with a remembrance on the reverse, "End of an ERA Gala 1979."

Schlafly is a feminine trailblazer in American politics, yet unlike so many other women of her age and accomplishments, she's a razor-tipped conservative who is unpopular among liberal feminists. "I never became a feminist, because they teach victimhood to young women," she said. "I always thought I could do anything I wanted."

Another small ornament in the form of a book carries pictures of her four boys and two girls -- three lawyers, one doctor, one mathematician, and a businesswoman. She's also got a matching charm for the 14 grandchildren of the 44-year marriage that ended in 1993 with the death of her husband. The good life, she said, "is having a good husband and healthy children." Why six children? "It's more fun.... The women I debated in the 1970s, most of them don't have any grandchildren."

Schlafly is 84, and last week she mobilized her deputies and allies to help shape the Republican platform into the most coherently conservative manifesto ever. She has attended all 15 GOP conventions since 1952. "It's a hobby," she said.

Her Eagle Forum groups are a nexus for conservative allies, employ several activists, and have annual revenues of $1 million. "I encourage people to get involved in our self-government," she said. "Liberals expect government to solve their problems for them," but liberal politicians "are liberal with other people's money and other men's wives."

Her necklace also sports a small seal of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and a pair of tiny little feet that she says represents millions of aborted fetuses since Roe v. Wade.

That memento, she says, is a memorial to a great failure. She and her allies haven't reversed the Supreme Court's 1973 decision, and Schlafly acknowledges that liberal advocates have had other successes as well. "Indeed they have, there's no question about it," she said. "They're very strong in government, academia and the press."

Yet she's still winning fights. Last year, Schlafly allied with other conservatives to derail the immigration bill pushed by John McCain, the White House, the business lobby and Democrats. "It was a great victory," but will likely have to be won again under a McCain administration, she said.

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