Phyllis Schlafly To Time: "The Feminist Movement Is Not About Success For Women"

Anti-feminist lawyer and activist Phyllis Schlafly really doesn’t like being victimized by feminists trying to make victims out of women or get her gay son to advocate for his own civil rights.

In an interview with Time‘s Andrea Sachs, Phyllis says she’s super-proud of her work in limiting women’s rights in America. She’s just not super-clear about why.

It would have given vast new powers to the federal courts because the Equal Rights Amendment did not define the operative words, which were sex and equality. So what does sex mean? Is it the sex you are, or the sex you do? What does equality mean? Does it mean equality of individual people like the Fourteenth Amendment, or does it mean the equality of a group?

So, basically, Schlafly’s argument, such as it is, is that the Supreme Court might have defined “sex” in the Equal Rights Amendment as not gender but intercourse? And that there are no other laws that define groups of people as equal?

Also, can you “do” sex?

Anyway, according to Schafly, the problem with the institution of marriage is not its infiltration by The Gheyz, but what feminists have done to it.

My own belief is that the problem [facing] marriage is maybe only 5% a problem with gay activism, and 95% a problem with feminist activism. [Feminists] have given us divorce, millions of fatherless children and the idea that it’s O.K. to be a single mom. I’m not talking about women who lose a husband for one reason or another. We’re talking about the idealization of a single mom. I believe that the worst thing the liberals did in this country was the Lyndon Johnson welfare system, which broke up millions of marriages by funneling taxpayers’ money solely to the woman. That made the father and husband irrelevant.

(Men, you see, have nothing to do with leaving their wives or getting anyone pregnant.)

Schlafly also says she wants to correct the impression that she’s opposed to women working; she’s just opposed to them working while they have children at home (are you listening, Sarah Palin?).

Well, that’s ridiculous because obviously I’ve had a wonderful life and I’m an example that women can do whatever they want to do. I’ve had it all, but I’ve had it at different times in my life. I spent 25 years without any income, a separate income, raising my six children. And after that I had time to go out and engage in politics.

Yes, I have no doubt that Schlafly was not doing well financially.

But, you see, the feminist movement doesn’t honor Republican women who are successful, because if we note that there are 3 or 4 successful women in the world, then our argument that the other 3.5 billion women in the world deserve equality and need help getting it will be negated.

The feminist movement is not about success for women. It is about treating women as victims and about telling women that you can’t succeed because society is unfair to you, and I think that’s a very unfortunate idea to put in the minds of young women because I believe women can do whatever they want. Feminists don’t honor successful women. You never hear them talking about Margaret Thatcher. Take Condoleezza Rice. She’s a remarkable, successful woman. You don’t hear the feminists talk about her or Carly Fiorina or Jeanne Kirkpatrick. They don’t talk about them because they are just determined to preach this idea that women are unfairly treated in our society and they need legislation and government and taxpayers’ money in order to get them a fair break.