STOP ERA Leadership and Messaging
STOP ERA was Phyllis Schlafly’s organization. She was its founder and President, and she brought extensive political experience to her position including:
- Campaigning and organizing experience from running for political office in Illinois and for president of the National Federation of Republican Women.
- The Phyllis Schlafly Report, a newsletter, and the Eagle Trust Fund, created to receive donations for conservative causes highlighted in the newsletter.
- Annual training conferences to teach her most active followers how to:
- Gain media access
- Plan fundraisers
- Run for public office
- Hold press conferences
- Influence officials
- Set up phone banks
- Testify at hearings
- Write & deliver speeches
Read through this excerpt from The Phyllis Schlafly Report, February 1972, and then answer the questions that follow.
What’s Wrong With “Equal Rights” for Women?
In the last couple of years, a noisy movement has sprung up agitating for “women’s rights.” Suddenly, everywhere we are afflicted with aggressive females on television talk shows yapping about how mistreated American women are, suggesting that marriage has put us in some kind of “slavery,” that housework is menial and degrading, and—perish the thought—that women are discriminated against...It’s time to set the record straight. The claim that American women are downtrodden and unfairly treated is the fraud of the century. The truth is that American women never had it so good. Why should we lower ourselves to “equal rights” when we already have the status of special privilege?
