This post is part of a series about my new book Shortlisted: Women in the Shadows of the Supreme Court, co-authored with Hannah Brenner Johnson. The first post offered an overview of the book. The second shed some light on how we found the women profiled in the book. The third examined what it means to be "shortlisted." And now I turn to a shortlisting featured in the new FX show "Mrs. America."
Are you watching “Mrs. America”? If not, you should, if for no other reason than to enjoy the star-studded cast that includes Cate Blanchett as Phyllis Schlafly, Niecy Nash as Flo Kennedy, Rose Byrne as Gloria Steinem, Uzo Aduba as Shirley Chisholm, Tracey Ullman as Betty Friedan, Margo Martindale as Bella Abzug, and more. As my University of Houston colleague, the historian Leandra Zarnow, recently wrote in the Washington Post:
Covid-19 has denied political junkies the daily twists and turns of a typical presidential race, and left Americans scrambling for entertainment. This has helped turn the FX show “Mrs. America,” currently streaming on Hulu, into the latest quarantine hit. “Mrs. America” resurrects the dramatic final chapter of the protracted battle to secure an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, first introduced in 1923. It carries viewers from the heady moment when the ERA passed both houses of Congress in 1972 through the unexpected failure to ratify the amendment by a 1982 deadline. Conservative crusader Phyllis Schlafly is the figure driving “Mrs. America.” Creator Dahvi Waller dreamed up the show thinking former secretary of state Hillary Clinton would be well established in the West Wing by the time it aired, and a show about Schlafly would be a study of a vanishing force in U.S. politics. Clinton’s unexpected loss, however, created a series in which the anti-hero is the conqueror.
The series reminds us of forgotten moments in the women’s rights movement and illustrates how the politics of the 1970s are still very much at play today. Spoiler alert—you might not want to keep reading if you haven’t seen the series finale yet. (Otherwise, continue on to read about a shortlisting of Schlafly and to see some gems I uncovered while researching presidential archives.)
Recent Comments