Mrs America: From Phyllis Schlafly to Shirley Chisholm, the campaigning women who inspired the TV show

At the dawn of the Seventies, America’s Equal Rights Amendment seemed like a guaranteed win for feminists.

It was even endorsed by President Nixon. But decades later this legislation, which guarantees equal rights regardless of sex, is yet to be ratified. Yes, you read that right. And the campaign against it was led by a woman.

Mrs America, BBC Two’s terrifyingly timely new miniseries, grapples with the complex legacy of Phyllis Schlafly, the proudly anti-feminist activist who mobilised legions of housewives to take a stand against gender equality just as Second Wave feminism was at its zenith. Along with Schlafly, we meet an all-star feminist gang led by Gloria Steinem (Rose Byrne), who are battling not just for the ERA but also for the right to legal, safe abortion. Sound familiar?

With her pastel twinsets and unwavering belief in retro gender roles, it’d be easy to dismiss Schlafly, played by Cate Blanchett in her first major TV role, as a Right-wing relic, a Stepfordian throwback to a less enlightened era. Except that the show’s creator, Davhi Waller (Mad Men, Halt) has written a period piece that couldn’t be more relevant. Schlafly, who got thousands of American women to object to their own agency through her endless campaigning, arguably paved the way for Trump.

Nearly four years into his presidency, women’s rights (and their agency over their own bodies) are increasingly precarious in the US — and the fault lines lead back to Schlafly. Her campaigning (done while her sister looked after her six kids — so much for the champion of homemakers) opened up the Republican Party to the religious far Right, the driving force behind the recent spate of attempts to ban or limit abortion in several states. Her willingness to play fast and loose with facts while spitting out polemic is a reminder that fake news is nothing new.

Watching Blanchett’s nuanced portrayal, it’s hardly a surprise Schlafly endorsed Trump before her death in 2016 (he spoke at her funeral, honouring “a true patriot” and noting, oddly: “Phyllis was there for me when it was not at all fashionable.”), nor that so many white women voted him in.

As Mrs America kicks off with a double bill on BBC Two tonight, here’s a primer on the real women whose ceaseless campaigning inspired the series.

Phyllis Schlafly - Cate Blanchett

What she said: “A woman should have the right to be in the home as a wife and mother”

“A right-wing nut from Illinois.” That’s how Phyllis Schlafly (Blanchett) is dismissively referred to by one feminist activist in the first episode of Mrs America. Schlafly, who spearheaded the movement against the Equal Rights Amendment and eventually helped Christian fundamentalists establish themselves at the core of the Republican Party, was certainly right-wing - but the series presents her in a far more nuanced light.

After an unsuccessful congressional run in 1970, Schlafly switched her focus to grassroots campaigning and managed to drum up formidable support for her STOP ERA movement, arguing that the amendment meant women could lose social security benefits, gender-specific bathrooms and their exemption from the draft.

Though she positioned herself in direct opposition to the likes of Steinem and Friedan, Schlafly was a contradictory figure. A staunch defender of traditional gender roles - she’d even infuriate her feminist counterparts by thanking her husband at the start of each speech - she still enjoyed many of the freedoms and benefits her adversaries supported, travelling around the country and enjoying a successful career herself.

Gloria Steinem - Rose Byrne

What she said: “Women have two choices: either she’s a feminist or a masochist”

Gloria Steinem surely needs no introduction - but her paparazzi-flanked debut in Mrs America is a reminder of her status as the undisputed rock star of second-wave feminism.

Rose Byrne’s take on the iconic campaigning journalist is rarely without her pale blue aviators and boasts a flowing, dip-dyed Seventies mane, a more groomed version of the un-style many of us have inadvertently acquired during lockdown - though she’s painfully aware that her ‘pretty face’ makes her more acceptable to the media, while also giving opponents an easy way to dismiss her politics.

Episode two charts her struggle to place abortion at the top of the political agenda at a time when most politicians would not dare to even say the word on the House floor. It’s a battle that feels especially resonant as reproductive rights seem ever more precarious for American women.

Shirley Chisholm - Uzo Aduba

What she said: “I am and always will be a catalyst for change”

“Unbought and unbossed” - that was Shirley Chisholm’s campaign slogan when she became the first black woman to seek the presidential nomination for a major party in 1972. Played by Orange Is The New Black’s Uzo Aduba in the series, Chisholm had previously made history just four years before, as the first black woman to be elected to the US Congress.

Chisholm was known as ‘Fighting Shirley’ thanks to her relentless campaigning - she introduced more than 50 pieces of legislation during her political career - and the third episode of Mrs America focuses on her battle to win the Democratic nomination. Scenes showing leading ‘libbers’ like Bella Abzug encouraging her to cede to the more ‘electable’ (white, male) George McGovern are a damning reminder of just why intersectional feminism is so important.

Betty Friedan - Tracey Ullman

What she said: “No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor”

As the author of The Feminine Mystique, the groundbreaking survey of female dissatisfaction in 50s and early 60s America, Betty Friedan (played by Tracey Ullman) is widely credited with jump-starting feminism’s second wave.

Released in 1963, her book gave voice to women who felt stifled by their lot in life and yearned to be seen as more than just homemakers and mothers. It became a bestseller, and Friedan went on to become a leading light of the women’s movement, co-founding and leading the National Organisation for Women.

By the 70s, though, Friedan was often out of step with her more progressive fellow feminists - she famously did not welcome lesbians into the movement, referring to them as the ‘lavender menace’ - and could be something of a loose cannon, especially when it came to her rivalry with Steinem, who she seemed to view as a more glamorous and media-friendly usurper.

Flo Kennedy - Niecy Nash

What she said: “Don’t agonise, organise”

“The biggest, the loudest and indisputably the rudest mouth on the battleground” is how People magazine described lawyer, civil rights advocate and feminist activist Flo Kennedy, played in the series by Niecy Nash, back in 1974.

Kennedy was a crucial mentor for Steinem, joining her on speaking tours around America (the pair were in a car together when, so the story goes, the old lady driving told them that “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament” - a slogan they’d both go on to use while campaigning).

She represented the Black Panthers in court - as well as defending Valerie Solanas when she was tried for the attempted murder of Andy Warhol - and took part in early class action attempts to repeal New York’s strict abortion laws. Her idiosyncratic sense of style was legendary, instantly recognisable in her pink sunglasses, cowboy hat and ‘Daffy Duck’ eyelashes.

Bella Abzug - Margo Martindale

What she said: “Women have been trained to speak softly and carry a lipstick. Those days are over.”

“This woman’s place is in the house - the House of Representatives” might sound like the sort of slogan you saw at the women’s marches a few years back, but it was first uttered by ‘Battling’ Bella Abzug in the 70s.

An indefatigable campaigner for feminist issues and civil rights, Abzug, played on Mrs America by veteran character actress Margo Martindale, started her legal career in the 40s, famously defending Willie McGee, a black man accused of raping a white woman, in a much-publicised case. She went on to become an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War, and was one of the first members of Congress to support gay rights.

On screen, Abzug is portrayed as a no-nonsense and often irascible elder stateswoman of the feminist movement, rarely without one of her trademark huge hats - which she first started wearing as a young lawyer in a bid to be taken seriously by her male colleagues.

Jill Ruckelshaus - Elizabeth Banks

What she said: “No one should have to dance backward all their lives”

Elizabeth Banks’ Jill Ruckelshaus doesn’t get as much airtime as her more radical counterparts in the early episodes of Mrs America but, as a pro-choice Republican feminist, she’s proof that the women’s movement contained multitudes.

Sometimes disparagingly referred to as ‘the Gloria Steinem of the Republican Party,’ Ruckelshaus co-founded the National Women’s Political Caucus (a grassroots organisation dedicated to increasing female participation in government) along with the more liberal likes of Kennedy, Chisholm, Friedan, Abzug and of course Steinem.

Her pro-abortion stance and unapologetic feminism made her an anomalous - not to mention controversial - figure in her party in real life. Ruckelshaus (who goes head to head with Schlafly in a later episode) opposed the infiltration of the Republicans by hyper-conservative and fundamental Christian fringe groups, attempting to stop her party veering off to the far-right.

Mrs America begins tonight (July 8) on BBC Two at 9pm