“An understanding of the enemy makes it possible to discover specific means to fight it”, wrote, in 2015, the essayist Tzvetan Todorov, calling not to “dehumanize” those who we want to defeat. While Hollywood the Democrat is still deeply marked by the victory of Donald Trump and the rise of the far right in the United States, that could well be the point of Mrs. America, a series broadcast since April 16 on Canal + Séries, which explores the figure of the anti-feminist activist Phyllis Schlafly, played with marvelous coldness by Cate Blanchett. Phyllis Schlafly fought in the 1970s to prevent the ratification of the amendment aimed at guaranteeing equal rights between the sexes, the Equal Rights Amendment. And she succeeded, with the nose and the beard of a movement however powerful, which took a long time to realize the danger.
The interest of the series is also to show the variety of a part of the feminist movement. Recognized figures like Betty Friedan, who wrote a major work in the history of feminism, The Mystified Woman, and whose series shows the declining star during these years. Popular as Gloria Steinem, founding journalist of Ms. Magazine and author of a recent My life on the road, who here learns the harsh reality of the political struggle. But also forgotten, erased, such as Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman elected to Congress in 1968, candidate for the Democratic nomination for the American presidential election of 1972, played with ardor and determination by actress Uzo Aduba.
Points in common with Donald Trump
But it is the brilliant and devious figure of Phyllis Schlafly who is at the center of this story, asserting that women are “made to bear children” and that feminists “hate life”. The activist, however, was not very pleased at the start at the idea of getting involved against the women’s liberation movement. But since her husband refuses her the right to emigrate to Washington DC, and her party gives her little credit on nuclear deterrence issues, which interest her more, the very right-handed author will feel that there is has a place to be made if it wins the battle against the ERA.
And for that, she does not hesitate to lie, claiming that feminists want men and women to be the same or that they demand a unisex toilet, which was perfectly false. “It was a common practice, when we quoted her figures which contradicted what she was saying, she dared to say that she was just a simple housewife”, explains Judith Ezekiel, professor emeritus in feminist studies and African American. A point in common with Donald Trump, who also called Schlafly heroin at the time of his death.
Mrs. America, a metaphor to talk about today? Definitely, for Judith Ezekiel. “There is a direct common thread between 1972 and the current state,” she told us by phone, confined in Ohio, a state where fervor for Donald Trump was manifested very early. “In 1972, the movement cared very little about ERA, it was believed that it was going to pass and that it was not the most important question. Few people saw the rise of this extreme right, we said to ourselves that it was a hint of the past, we did not think that it was a breach that would lead to the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 … », Continues the researcher. A blindness which also suffered the American left, at the time of the rise of Donald Trump …
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