So, building on yesterday's post, which referenced Washington University (St. Louis) and their decision to grant Phyllis Schlafly an honorary degree...
- Yes, I know I misspelled her name. And no, I don't really care. I'll give her back her "L" when she gives me back my personal autonomy and basic civil rights.
- Why does SchLafly even need an honorary degree, especially from Washington University? She's already got a bachelor's and a law degree from there. If you ask me - keeping in mind that I'm the person on the college advancement staff who isn't responsible for bringing in $$$ - making her "more" of an alum shouldn't be necessary. If Washington U. isn't already in her will, this isn't likely to put them there.
Yesterday, when asked about the controversy, Schlafly removed her oxygen mask and popped in her dentures long enough to call the 3,000 members of the opposition Facebook group, et al, "a bunch of bitter women," saying they should "Get a life. Move on. Try to do something with your life." Wow, my mom was right. She really is a mean old snake. Hey, Phyllis, you kiss your grandkids with that mouth?
So, today, protesting students, faculty, non-whackjobs, etc., unveiled a Web site they've developed to spread the word about their displeasure. (I could be wrong, but I think I see a few men in that picket line...I wonder if they're bitter, too? Probably not, because then they'd be in church with their guns.)
It kind of makes me chuckle...if her "Get a life" comments are a true indication of what she's thinking, then she apparently honestly thinks that the main objection to Wash U. slapping a big wet kiss on her stems from her work against the Equal Rights Amendment. "It was 25 years ago that we buried the Equal Rights Amendment and they are still whining about it," she's quoted as saying.
Hmmm. The ERA missed its deadline for ratification in 1982, only after a 1979 deadline had been extended. That's 29 to 26 years, Phyllis, not 25. It's a small thing, I know. And she probably got sidetracked watching "Golden Girls" or something while she was doing the math. I think I'll cut Schlafly about as much slack as she cut Virginia Tech last year, less than a month after the shooting. I'll give her all the consideration she's offered to the 28 percent of women who are sexually assualted every year by a husband or other intimates.
It's amusing to me that Schlafly's getting her feathers ruffled so by the fact that students and others at Washington are organizing in opposition to her. I'm curious to know what, exactly, she would define as a "life," and how she would suggest one goes about attaining one. Maybe we should look at Schlafly's own biography for some clues:
- Her mother, Odile, was a college graduate who worked as a teacher before her marriage to Phyllis' father. During the Great Depression, Odile went back to work as a teacher and librarian to support both her own out-of-work husband and her father, an attorney. None of this is in her official biography, for some reason. Seriously, dropping my natural inclination to snark it up for a moment...did her mother working during her childhood somehow scar Schlafly for life? Personally, my family's precarious financial situation inspired me to get an education and develop a career so that I'd always be able to take care of myself. Schlafly's experience apparently prompted her to do the same...
- ...and then pull the ladder up behind her. I noted this in yesterday's post, so at the risk of repeating myself...Schlafly is obviously brilliant, highly educated (three degrees, not counting the latest BS from Washington U.) and accomplished, and yet she calls herself "America's best-known advocate of the dignity and honor that we as a society owe to the role of fulltime homemaker," something she's never been.
- On that subject...Schlafly has six kids. One son runs something called Conservapedia, which has some fun things to say about homosexuality. Another son came out in 1992. But it's okay, because he doesn't believe in gay marriage, says mommy dearest. And Dick Cheney's relatively nuanced position as an ardently conservative parent of a gay daughter? "I just think that's a blip that's going to pass in the night."
- Oh, yeah, one more thing. I read somewhere earlier this week (and now can't find it anywhere, natch) where no less than Ann Coulter called women who disagree with Schlafly - oh I can't remember, but it was something insulting involving conservative epithets like "Hollywood" and "botox." Anyway, the implication was that anyone who thinks, for instance, that marital rape does in fact occasionally happen is a blazingly brainless syncophant who probably drives a Volvo and doesn't shave her armpits. (Yeah, I know, consider the source.) So I thought the full list of this brilliant intellectual light's published works was interesting. Out of 20 books, Schlafly's own press published nine of them, including her first five.
This 1978 Time magazine article has a nice run-down of Schlafly's political career up to that point, not including the self-published books. But it does have this tidbit: "Her opponents claim that she is using the ERA issue to aid her own career, but she denies having further ambitions for political office. Still, given her record, she seems unlikely to retire to hearth and home."
So, in other words, Schlafly went all George Wallace the legislation that would have helped secure education and advancement for all the people (not just women) who, unlike her, weren't raised by other educated, privileged people.
Yeah, she infuriates me, and so to the other "Aunt Thomasina" women who bash feminism from their high seat at the kiddie table in the Old Boys Club banquet hall. But then I remember, she's going to die soon anyway. I mean that as un-nastily as possible, I really do. It's just that, how relevant is this person, really? Before this week, when was the last time you'd heard about Phyllis Schlafly?
So, what, Phyllis, you kept the ERA from passing before I was even born, good for you. I'm still out here at my job, owning my own home (which is really messy btw - do you mind swinging by and tidying up on your way to St. Louis? kthnx.) and pretty much just living my life as if I'm entitled to everything any man is, and getting it. But I'm not so arrogant that I can ignore the role privilege has played in my life, and that others haven't had a lot of those privileges. That's where I differ with venomous bone-bags like Schlafly.
Well, that, and the whole "I'm not evil" thing.
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