After a Generation of Extremism, Phyllis Schlafly Still a Leading General in the War on Women [View all]

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http://www.alternet.org/election2012/155090/after_a_generation_of_extremism%2C_phyllis_schlafly_still_a_leading_general_in_the_war_on_women_/

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On a damp spring evening in Washington, DC, a general in the Republican war on women was dispatched to deny its existence. "The real war on women," Phyllis Schlafly told a gathering of the Young America's Foundation at George Washington University, "is by the feminists who demean women who choose the career path of homemaker, and mislead young women into believing...that a job in the workforce will be more significant and rewarding than marriage and motherhood."

With that, all of the young women in the front row marched up the center aisle and the out of the room, holding protest signs with slogans like, "Stop Sexism," "Stop Bigotry," "Stop Homophobia."

"Oh, I'm so sorry you're not going to stay around and let me convince you that you're wrong," Schlafly said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

A 40-Year War

For all of the shouting about a Republican war on women, you'd think it was a bright, new, shiny phenomenon. But Schlafly's celebrity was born of her brutal and shameless tactics in that theater of war some 40 years ago, when she mobilized the fearful and bigoted against the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment which, but for her efforts, would likely be the 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Today, at 87, Schlafly is still on the warpath, gracing any podium that will have her with a font of barbed quips, bad facts and bitter resentment of women who seek to change a social order that she herself navigated in its most unyielding form, with the help of no one, as she sees it, thank you very much.