Phyllis Schlafly and the Women of the Religious Right

Schlafly’s most lasting contribution to American politics may be the most underappreciated aspect of her biography. As a committed Catholic who found her greatest political success by tapping into cultural and social grievances about loosening sexual mores and changing attitudes about women and the family, Schlafly envisioned and articulated the “family values” politics that would come to dominate the Republican Party in the Reagan years and after. Schlafly’s moralized politics, her strident, even self-righteous sermonizing on moral decay, national sin, and God’s righteousness — accompanied by her prim dresses, pearls, and overly-styled hair — all fit squarely within the cultural worlds of the religious conservatives she courted, particularly conservative evangelicals.