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'I've been described as a tough and noisy woman': The real people behind Mrs America

L-R: Margo Martindale, Elizabeth Banks and Uzo Aduba - FX
L-R: Margo Martindale, Elizabeth Banks and Uzo Aduba - FX

Was Phyllis Schlafly as icy as Cate Blanchett’s ice-cream coloured cardies? Who was the first black woman to run for President? Did Gloria Steinem really wear those glasses (and where can I buy them)?

Beneath the luscious, Kinks-laden soundtrack and glossy production values, Mad Men writer Dahvi Waller’s new hit show sticks closely to the events at the heart of the battle to pass the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), one of the most contentious issues in American politics during the Seventies. These are the real-life women involved:   

Phyllis Schlafly

Played by: Cate Blanchett. 

Born: August 15, 1924.

Died: September 5, 2016.

Who was she? A political conservative and self-described housewife whose writing and grassroots activism against Communism, abortion and the ERA made her both a highly influential and deeply polarising figure. Schlafly argued the ERA, which would have guaranteed equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex, would dismantle gender-specific privileges then enjoyed by women, including separate bathrooms and exemption from the military draft. She is believed to have had a considerable influence in preventing its ratification (by two states short of the required 37) in 1979.

Cate Blanchett (right) plays Phyllis Schlafly - Bettmann/FX
Cate Blanchett (right) plays Phyllis Schlafly - Bettmann/FX

After the ERA battle: Schlafly founded the Eagle Forum, an action group dedicated to “traditional” family values, and remained CEO until her death.   

Surprising fact: In a departure from the domestic role she championed, Schlafly worked as a ballistics gunner and technician during the Second World War.

Key quote: She liked to begin speeches by thanking her husband for permission to speak: “because I know it irritates women’s libbers more than anything else.”

Gloria Steinem

Played by: Rosa Byrne.

Born: March 25, 1934.

Age: 86.

Who is she? A journalist and prominent second wave feminist who drew attention to women’s issues, including abortion and the availablity of contraception. She came to national prominence in 1969 on the publication of her article “After Black Power, Women’s Liberation” in New York magazine. She was one of the founders of the National Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC), alongside Betty Friedan and Shirley Chisholm but was also criticised by some of her contemporary feminists as being the acceptably glamorous face of a radical movement.

Rosa Byrne (right) plays Gloria Steinem - Getty/FX
Rosa Byrne (right) plays Gloria Steinem - Getty/FX

After the ERA battle: Steinem has remained at the forefront of the feminist movement, endlessly campaigning, writing and lecturing on abortion rights, violence against women and other social justice issues.   

Surprising fact: As a young journalist, Steinem went undercover at the New York Playboy Club in order to expose its exploitative working conditions. The article infamously included a picture of Steinem as a Bunny, for which she was widely criticised.

Key quote: “We’ve begun to raise daughters more like sons … but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters.”

Betty Friedan

Played by: Tracey Ullman.

Born: February 4, 1921.

Died: February 4, 2006.

Who was she? An activist famous for her 1963 seminal work of second wave feminism The Feminine Mystique – a searing critique of the confinement of American women to domestic roles, which sold more than a million copies in the first year of publication. In 1966, Friedan co-founded the first major feminist organisation in the US, the National Organization for Women (NWO), which lobbied successfully for civil rights, equal pay and became the principal engine behind the campaign for the ERA.

Tracey Ullman (right) as Betty Friedan - Getty/FX
Tracey Ullman (right) as Betty Friedan - Getty/FX

 After the ERA battle: Friedan remained active in politics until the late 1990s and wrote six more books, but was criticised for focusing too much on white, middle-class, heterosexual women.   

Surprising fact: Friedan’s given name was “Bettye” – she thought the final “e” affected and dropped it in college.

Key quote: “Each suburban [house]wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries … she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question — ‘Is this all?’”

Shirley Chisholm

Played by: Uzo Aduba

Born: November 30, 1924

Died: January 1, 2005

Uzo Aduba (right) plays Shirley Chisholm - Corbis/FX
Uzo Aduba (right) plays Shirley Chisholm - Corbis/FX

Who was she? Chisholm’s was a career of firsts: the first black woman elected to Congress (she represented New York’s 12th congressional district for seven terms from 1969 to 1983), the first person of colour and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party’s (or any major party’s) nomination for President. Known in Congress as “Fighting Shirley”, she introduced more than 50 pieces of legislation with a particular focus on racial and gender discrimination, combating poverty and ending the Vietnam War. She was a founding member of both the NWPC and the NOW, alongside Steinem and Friedan. She was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

After the ERA battle: Chisholm retired from Congress in 1982 and became an academic at Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts – an all-female college.

Surprising fact: The inscription on her tombstone reads: “Unbought and Unbossed” (which is also the title of her autobiography).

Key quote: To her students: “If you don’t accept others who are different, it means nothing that you’ve learned calculus.”

Bella Abzug

Played by: Margo Martindale

Born: July 24, 1920

Died: March 31, 1998

Margo Martindale (right) plays Bella Abzug - AP/FX
Margo Martindale (right) plays Bella Abzug - AP/FX

Who was she? The gritty, practical face of feminism in *Mrs America*, Bella Abzug was a lawyer and another co-founder of the NWPC. Called to the bar in the late 1940s, when practising women attorneys were rare, she focused on civil rights and labour law. A vocal opponent of the Vietnam War, she founded Women’s Strike for Peace in 1961, before being elected to the House of Representatives in 1971, where she pursued the ERA, abortion rights and child-care legislation.

After the ERA battle: Abzug left Congress in 1976. She never held elected office again but wrote two successful books, Bella: Ms Abzug Goes to Washington and The Gender Gap.   

Surprising fact: Abzug was an early environmental campaigner, organising the World Women’s Congress for a Healthy Planet, held in Miami in 1991.

Key quote: “I’ve been described as a tough and noisy woman, a prizefighter, a man-hater, you name it. They call me Battling Bella.”