First Person Singular by Wendy Braitman

filed in Myths and stereotypes

Are Unmarried Women Looking for a Free Ride?

July 29, 2010 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

I’m stoked with partisan fury a lot of the time. My policy is not to share it here, because do you really want to hear me kvetching about politics? But every once in awhile, a story comes along that’s too much fun to ignore. Enter Phyllis Schlafly.

Back in the 20th century, I would get enraged by her relentless campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment and her anti-feminist tirades, since she would not have been able to vote, go to college, earn a living, keep her children in the case of a divorce, sign a contract, inherit or own property, use contraception (which she probably didn’t care about), sit on a jury or wear pants, were it not for the warrior women she railed against. But honestly, I didn’t even realize she was still alive until reading this today:

“Unmarried women, 70% of unmarried women, voted for Obama, and this is because when you kick your husband out, you’ve got to have big brother government to be your provider.”

My hilarious and knowing friend, Jerry, summed it up, “she sounds like some Mad Men character scolding Betty Draper. Her rhetoric is awful and at the same time archaically quaint. The old gal (who will be 86 next month) is clearly past her expiration date.”

• Home
• About
• about-site
• archives
• Art Seen
• Contact
• Subscribe