In the newspaper on July 3, The New York Times tried to play Historian in a series of little profiles under the headline:
These 8 Americans Shaped History.
The Debate Over How Continues.
You could see the obvious contrast in the modern subjects: Phyllis Schlafly vs. Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Times reporter Jeremy Peters was pro-Ginsburg, except she took too long to retire. He began: “Ruth Bader Ginsburg had attained folk hero status as the notorious R.B.G. for her lifetime of legal work dismantling gender bias in the law. But her decision not to retire has put an asterisk on her legacy.”
Times reporter Vivian Yee complained "anti-feminist" Schlafly “slayed” the so-called Equal Rights Amendment, but the cultural Left was winning:
By 2016, much of American life had turned nightmarish for someone like her.
Gay marriage: widely accepted. Abortion: legalized. Gender-neutral bathrooms: commonplace on many campuses. Many women no longer measured their success in marriage and children, but in financial independence and personal fulfillment.
In these eight profiles, Times reporters used “conservative” 12 times. There were no words like “liberal” or “left-wing” or “progressive” for Ginsburg. But Yee complained Schlafly “tarred feminists as radicals, just as her heirs do now.” The Left’s positions on abortion on demand, gay marriage, and biological males in women’s sports are never “radical.”
And then, Yee suggested Schafly was “divisive” – and somehow Ginsburg wasn’t?? They also accused Schafly of hypocrisy:
The political divisions that defined those 1970s debates “only got more pronounced over the years,” leading to today’s hyper-polarization, said Marjorie J. Spruill, the author of Divided We Stand. “And Schlafly’s tone had a lot to do with it.”
Schlafly’s victories came wreathed in paradoxes: She presented herself as a model wife and mother, breastfeeding all six of her children, yet she had resources (her husband, a lawyer, came from wealth) and a housekeeper that allowed her to run political campaigns and churn out books, newsletters and commentary. While exalting homemaking, she lobbied (unsuccessfully) for a top post in the Reagan administration.
NewsBusters acquired an unpublished letter sent to the editor of the New York Times from Anne Schlafly, Phyllis’s daughter:
America's 250th anniversary was an opportunity to reflect honestly on the men and women who shaped our nation. Instead, The New York Times has chosen to spotlight the shortcomings of eight influential Americans while giving comparatively little attention to the accomplishments that earned them a place in history.
Among those featured is my mother, Phyllis Schlafly, who is portrayed as a hypocrite because she championed the importance of mothers and homemakers while remaining active in public life. But that ignores an important fact: she raised her six children before devoting herself fully to politics, often saying that homemaking and public service came at different seasons of her life. Women do not surrender their voice when they have children, and mothers have every right to help shape the public policies that affect their families.
Without ever holding public office and while living in a Midwestern town of just 35,000 people, my mother inspired millions of American women to become engaged citizens. A decade after her death, Americans are still debating her ideas. That enduring influence is why she deserves to be remembered as one of our nation's most consequential figures, not reduced to a caricature.
Anne Schlafly told NewsBusters: “Why is The New York Times so reluctant to engage with competing viewpoints on issues like feminism? A publication that prides itself on open debate should be willing to examine whether the promises of modern feminism have matched the lived experiences of women, or whether alternative perspectives deserve a fair hearing.”
Feminists suggest they want women to have choices, but they really don’t believe it. They mock their choices if it’s being a housewife (God forbid being a “tradwife”) or working in conservative politics. Yee wrote "feminist never tire" of leveling the hypocrisy charge today, against conservative women like Erika Kirk and Katie Miller.
