FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 6, 2016

 

INDEPENDENT WOMEN'S FORUM REMEMBERS PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY

A Fearless, Indomitable Leader and Defender of Family and American Values

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The conservative movement has lost a fearless and indomitable leader with the passing of Phyllis Schlafly, founder of the Eagle Forum, author, and defender of the family and American values, who has died at the age of 92.

"Mrs. Schlafly personified the spirit of independence and fearlessness," said IWF Executive Director Sabrina Schaeffer. "We mourn the passing of a woman who never flinched from fighting for what she believed, and who, no matter the odds, more often than not prevailed. She did all this wearing pearls and heels, which just made her much more infuriating to her feminist adversaries."  

Schaeffer pointed out that in the 1970s when Schlafly belatedly joined the fray against the Equal Rights Amendment, which Schlafly regarded as a threat to the family, passage of the amendment seemed a sure thing.

ERA supporters, however, had reckoned without Schlafly, who quickly mounted an unprecedented grassroots campaign, enlisting thousands of women who had never before participated in politics, and handily defeated the ERA, stunning her adversaries and making Schlafly, who had been a conservative activist and author since the 1950s, a household name.

As author Jessica Gavora once observed, with the ERA, Mrs. Schlafly had taken a ragtag grassroots movement and "brought it the center of American power and institutions." She has been a powerful force in American politics since, having gone on to found the 80,000-strong Eagle Forum in 1972. She was also a newspaper columnist and author of the 1964 book A Choice, Not an Echo, which became a blueprint for the Barry Goldwater candidacy. 

We shall not see her like again. Our sincere condolences to the Eagle Forum and Mrs. Schlafly's family.

 

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Independent Women's Forum works to improve the lives of Americans by increasing the number of women who value free-markets and personal liberty. 

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