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Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff.

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Speaker 1: Mom never told you a protection of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: For today's classic. We are talking about someone that's come

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Speaker 1: up a lot in the news lately and in a

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Speaker 1: couple of our recent podcast and that is Phyllis shaff

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Speaker 1: Lee Laughlee, somebody I always struggle pronunciation of her name.

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Speaker 1: I feel like every time we talked about her, we do.

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Speaker 1: I look at you and I was like, I don't

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Speaker 1: think that's maybe maybe that's how yes, um, yeah, and

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Speaker 1: I think her name is it's suit sir. No offense

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Speaker 1: to any Slaughleys out there that are not like her, um,

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Speaker 1: but yeah. Because of the movement and continue debate around

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Speaker 1: the Equal Rights amendments, she has been coming up a lot.

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Speaker 1: And in this month of International Women's Day or National

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Speaker 1: Women's Month, I thought that it was appropriate to bring

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Speaker 1: her back in this very appropriately titled episode that Kristen

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Speaker 1: Caroline did a pass host um the ghost of Phyllis Laughley,

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Speaker 1: because it feels like we're still dealing with it in

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Speaker 1: her work is still haunting us. It very much is.

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Speaker 1: So Yes, I loved it. I loved it. Yeah, please enjoy,

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Speaker 1: learn learn in this In this classic episode. Welcome to

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Speaker 1: Stuff Mom Never Told You from how stupp works dot com. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline,

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Speaker 1: and today we are talking about Phillis Laughley. This episode

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Speaker 1: has been a long time coming, but ever since she

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Speaker 1: died on September five, we've been talking amongst ourselves, Caroline

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Speaker 1: and I about how we should do an episode on Phyllis.

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Speaker 1: We've heard from a number of listeners asking whether we're

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Speaker 1: going to do with Phyllis Schlapley episode and how could

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Speaker 1: we not? How could we not? Especially after my Twitter

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Speaker 1: response to her passing, UM brought men out of the

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Speaker 1: woodwork to tell me that I was a monster. So

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Speaker 1: what what? What did you tweet? Um? I tweeted a

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Speaker 1: Zendia gift where Zendia was just going by and that

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Speaker 1: was it. And conservative gentleman did not appreciate that and

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Speaker 1: called me a fat feminist monster. Oh no, they called

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Speaker 1: you fat. Wasn't that the worst thing a woman can

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Speaker 1: be called? Totally? How did you even survive it? I

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Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know. Eating even more feminism, eating

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Speaker 1: eating all the feminists. Yea, Well, it's also apropos to

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Speaker 1: talk about Laughley because in a lot of ways, she

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Speaker 1: paved the way for Donald Trump being the Republican nominee

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Speaker 1: for president this year. Yeah, and and I would argue

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Speaker 1: that her star was definitely rising at the same time

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Speaker 1: that the Republican Party was veering more toward the regunification,

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Speaker 1: you know, aligning with the religious right, um than uh

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Speaker 1: it previously had been. Yeah, I mean that's how she

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Speaker 1: made her name was definitely by essentially ushering helping usher

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Speaker 1: what was this fringe right wing group of Republicans sort

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Speaker 1: of like we think of the Tea Party today into

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Speaker 1: the mainstream because for a long time they were just

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Speaker 1: sort of off in the corner, uh and not really

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Speaker 1: taken all that seriously. But then, as will talk about more,

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Speaker 1: Philish Laughley showed America that these right wing conservatives could

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Speaker 1: win in the polls. But I don't want to get

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Speaker 1: to ahead of ourselves. Let's talk a little bit more

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Speaker 1: about who this woman is, because for I feel like

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Speaker 1: you either absolutely know who she is because she's the

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Speaker 1: arch nemesis of second wave feminism, or you probably never

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Speaker 1: heard of her. So let's give a quick primer of

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Speaker 1: who this Slaughley. Who's this Slaughly lady is who's this dame? Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you're right, she's absolutely considered one of the

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Speaker 1: most polarizing figures in American public political life. And she's basically,

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Speaker 1: I don't know what would she's an author, she's a

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Speaker 1: politician to a degree, um, and she is best known

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Speaker 1: for her war against the Equal Rights Amendment in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventies. Yeah, I mean she is the grassroots conservative

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Speaker 1: political organizer who is now considered an icon among you know,

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Speaker 1: ultra right wing Republicans, Donald Trump included. And we read

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Speaker 1: her obituary in both The New York Times, obviously more liberal,

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Speaker 1: some might call it the lamestream media. They're Shlafley fans.

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Speaker 1: And then we read her oh bit in the National Review,

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Speaker 1: which is ultra conservative, of course, and The New York

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Speaker 1: Times described her as quote a self described housewife who

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Speaker 1: displayed a moral ferocity reminiscent of the axe wielding prohibitionist

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Speaker 1: Carrie Nation. So she's a tough cookie, real jeff cookie.

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Speaker 1: And then the National Review described her, meanwhile, as one

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Speaker 1: of the original all happy warriors, funny, gracious, and grittier

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Speaker 1: than one might expect. And it's astonishing to trace back

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Speaker 1: our political climate today and everything that we are now

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Speaker 1: witnessing in terms of Donald Trump's supporters and the types

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Speaker 1: of white dudes who came after you on Twitter, for instance,

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Speaker 1: And trace that all the way back to this woman

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Speaker 1: in the Midwest who in a lot of ways started

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Speaker 1: out almost like Hillary Clinton. She was from a relatively

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Speaker 1: like working class background, although Hillary Clinton came from a

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Speaker 1: well slightly wealthier middle class family. But she laughlely, you know,

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Speaker 1: it was scrappy, and she was smart, and she was ambitious,

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Speaker 1: and then you know, the any similarity she might have

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Speaker 1: too Hillary Clinton just ends right there. Well. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: I mean they both initially supported very Goldwater too before

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Speaker 1: before Hills went the other direction. But yeah, and I

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Speaker 1: mean you can look at the fact that nowadays Catholics

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Speaker 1: and Evangelical Christians work together when they are on the right. Um,

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Speaker 1: you can trace that back to Philish Lafly as well.

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Speaker 1: She was Catholic, um, devoutly Catholic. But through and we'll

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Speaker 1: get to this more in a second, but like through

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Speaker 1: all of her grassroots efforts, she brought more women of

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Speaker 1: different faiths and different denominations into the political fold to

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Speaker 1: try to combat this sort of what she viewed as

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Speaker 1: you know, liberalization, the downfall of American society, and in

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Speaker 1: a lot of ways, she is a difficult woman, she summarized,

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Speaker 1: because she's kind of a basket of contradictions, because she

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Speaker 1: is this very ambitious, self so efficient woman in a

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Speaker 1: lot of ways, who said that from the get go

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Speaker 1: when she was growing up, she knew that she would

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Speaker 1: need to take care of herself. And in her political

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Speaker 1: career she was extremely visible. She wrote twenty books. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the woman never stopped, and yet publicly she always said

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Speaker 1: that she was a housewife first and that politics was

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Speaker 1: just a hobby because she has six children at home

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Speaker 1: and her husband, FREDS. Laughley, is king essentially, and she

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Speaker 1: does whatever he allows her to do, even though like

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Speaker 1: in the same breath she'll also say, you know, but

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Speaker 1: I can do whatever I want. Um And she relished

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Speaker 1: starting this organization called stop e r A, which was

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Speaker 1: um intended to stop the Equal Rights Amendment. Well yeah,

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Speaker 1: and stop UP was actually an acronym for stop taking

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Speaker 1: Our Privileges, which is when I when I learned about

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Speaker 1: that acronym was also my my brain exploded a little

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Speaker 1: bit about just how how blatant the intention is, right

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Speaker 1: there of privileges, stop taking our privileges, because I mean

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Speaker 1: Philish Laughly would be like, yeah, I mean I love

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Speaker 1: white privileges terrific. Yeah. I Um. When I was researching

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Speaker 1: her life and and activism and politics, my brain just

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Speaker 1: kept collapsing on itself because to me, as a liberal

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Speaker 1: feminist and one who cares about having equal rights for

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Speaker 1: people of all backgrounds, none of it made sense because

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Speaker 1: I'm like, why would you want to stop the e

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Speaker 1: r A when oh wait no, but you only want

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Speaker 1: the privileges for you and yours. Well, okay, so I

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Speaker 1: was I take back what I say that she would say.

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Speaker 1: She would be all about her white privilege because what

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Speaker 1: Philish Laughly did and Donald Trump does. She would deny

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Speaker 1: that privilege even exists in the same way that she

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Speaker 1: denies that denied that sexism even exists. Well, privilege in

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Speaker 1: the way that we talk about it now and on

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Speaker 1: our podcast. But I mean she actively talked about the

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Speaker 1: privileges afforded to women, right in the sense of chivalry.

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Speaker 1: Almost right. Yes. So, her latest book, A Conservative Case

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Speaker 1: for Trump, came out just after her death, and she

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Speaker 1: describes in it Trump as a quote old fashioned man

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Speaker 1: grounded in his two great priorities hard work and family,

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Speaker 1: and a man who in other respects has led a

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Speaker 1: remarkably clean LFE. Okay, So I mean this is this

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Speaker 1: is the the viewpoint that we're dealing with. This is

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Speaker 1: the kind of choose your own reality that Philish Laughly

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Speaker 1: was able to mold into a startlingly powerful career for herself.

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Speaker 1: And it makes sense that right before her death at

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Speaker 1: ninety two years old, she came out, uh, stumping for

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Speaker 1: Trump because she was all about populism, she was all

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Speaker 1: about demagoguery, and she was all about, you know, galvanizing

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Speaker 1: this hyper conservative evangelical religious right that has similarly flocked

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Speaker 1: to Trump. Well, and regardless of whether you, as the

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Speaker 1: politicians she was stumping for were hyper Republican or whatever,

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Speaker 1: she just hated the establishment. That's like some of the

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Speaker 1: same rhetoric you hear a lot right now, and and

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Speaker 1: she saw Trump as an answer to those establishment politics.

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Speaker 1: And she was really she harped for decades on kingmakers,

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Speaker 1: the idea of like a secret group of rich liberal

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Speaker 1: elite kingmakers who sat around appointing politicians around the world. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, because that right there is a core tenet

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Speaker 1: of populism, where the belief is that almost conspiratorially, that

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Speaker 1: it's just a group of powerful people who are making

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Speaker 1: all the decisions. So power to the people, let's overthrow them.

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Speaker 1: And she told Breitbart in January of this year sixteen

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Speaker 1: that quote Trump is the only hope to defeat the

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Speaker 1: kingmakers because everybody else will fall in line. So, I

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Speaker 1: mean she really believed in this kingmaker business to her death,

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Speaker 1: and I mean that's that's all all. So something to

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Speaker 1: keep in mind as we talk about Philish Laughley, and

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Speaker 1: something that was impressed upon me reading about her timeline

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Speaker 1: is how she has not changed in her political viewpoints

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Speaker 1: at all. She still tells the same anecdotes that she did,

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Speaker 1: you know in the sixties. So how did Phillis happen? Um, Well,

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Speaker 1: let's give a little bit of biographical background real quick.

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Speaker 1: She was born in August ninety four as Phillis McAlpin

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Speaker 1: Stewart in St. Louis. I did have a moment of

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Speaker 1: concern because a lot of my people are from St. Louis,

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Speaker 1: and I did wonder, like, oh, she came up in St.

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Speaker 1: Louis around the same time as my grandmother. I wonder

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Speaker 1: if they were friends. Um, she was the oldest of

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Speaker 1: two daughters to Odeal Dodge, who was her mother, and

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Speaker 1: John Bruce Stewart. And what's really interesting is that, I mean,

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Speaker 1: by all accounts, her mother was also a very hard worker.

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Speaker 1: She worked outside the home. She was a teacher with

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Speaker 1: two college degrees, and that's not shabby at all for

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Speaker 1: a woman who was born at the end of the

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century. Her mother, not phyllis right, I mean, and

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Speaker 1: and o'deal ended up being the breadwinner because her dad,

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Speaker 1: John Bruce Stewart, was a Westinghouse machinist and an industrial

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Speaker 1: equipment salesman, and after he lost his job in the

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Speaker 1: Great Depression, o'deal had to become the breadwinner. And she hustled.

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Speaker 1: She was a department store saleswoman. She was an elementary

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Speaker 1: school teacher and a librarian at that St. Louis Art Museum.

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Speaker 1: And in her spare time, how she had spare time,

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure, she wrote a book on the history

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Speaker 1: of St. Louis. Yeah. So like the constantly busy work

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Speaker 1: work work ethic of Philish Laughly could absolutely be seen

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Speaker 1: in her mother as well. Yeah. But and also her

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Speaker 1: politics though comes straight from her dad. Her dad was

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Speaker 1: seventeen years older than o'deal, which is going to be

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Speaker 1: a similar age gap that we'll see in Phillis Lafley's

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Speaker 1: own marriage. And her dad was a staunch Republican who,

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Speaker 1: even though they fell on such hard times during the

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Speaker 1: Great Depression, he hated FDR and hated the New Deal

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Speaker 1: and wanted nothing to do with that. And so from

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Speaker 1: a very young age, Phyllis was groomed, you know, to

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Speaker 1: be a very conservative Republican. Yeah, And I think that

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Speaker 1: there's also the emotional aspect of Yes, she had a

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Speaker 1: really smart, really hard working, really busy mother, but she

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Speaker 1: also grew up in addition to hearing her father rail

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Speaker 1: against the New Deal, heard her mother being filled with

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Speaker 1: regret at having to work those jobs, her mother wanted

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Speaker 1: to stay home with the kids in the house and

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Speaker 1: do the cooking and all of that stuff and be

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Speaker 1: the traditional housewife. And so she's being raised with these

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Speaker 1: ideas about traditional family and traditional politics. And because of

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Speaker 1: their financial situation at home, Phillis realized that she was

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Speaker 1: going to have to make her own way. It's not

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Speaker 1: like her parents could just pay for her to go

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Speaker 1: to college, and so she worked really hard. She was

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Speaker 1: always at the top of her class, and in four

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Speaker 1: she received her bachelor's degree from Washington University, and in

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Speaker 1: a maker's interview, she talks about how she paid her

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Speaker 1: way through college by working. She says forty eight hours

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Speaker 1: a week as a night shift gunner testing thirty and

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Speaker 1: fifty caliber ammunition at a St. Louis munitions plant. And

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Speaker 1: that is absolutely true. I mean she not only tested,

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Speaker 1: uh these guns, she would also um like document their

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Speaker 1: trajectories and do all of this stuff, which she was

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Speaker 1: like again very appropriate, uh resume item for someone who

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Speaker 1: ended up leading right wing Republicans. Well, I mean, but

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Speaker 1: also one thing we skipped over is that she graduated

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Speaker 1: at nineteen, right, she finished college in three years and

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Speaker 1: graduated at nineteen like some people don't even enter college

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Speaker 1: until nineteen like she was. I Mean, this woman was

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Speaker 1: so driven and was from the outset not going to

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Speaker 1: let anything stand in her way. But at this point

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Speaker 1: she doesn't necessarily want to go into politics. She ends

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Speaker 1: up in receiving her master's degree in political science from Radcliffe,

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Speaker 1: which was the sister university to Harvard at the time,

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Speaker 1: because while Harvard had started letting some women from Radcliffe

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Speaker 1: take colleges with the Harvard men. Uh, they wouldn't fully

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Speaker 1: allow women to the school. And apparently she ended up

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Speaker 1: in Polly Csy because it was one of the only

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Speaker 1: things that she could study and do it at Harvard,

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Speaker 1: so she could do it in those mixed gender classrooms,

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Speaker 1: because it meant a lot to her to go to

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Speaker 1: Harvard and not Radcliffe. And if you listen to any

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Speaker 1: interviews with her, whenever she talks about her master's scree,

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Speaker 1: she loves talking about, you know, her bootstrapping of her education.

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Speaker 1: And she always says she went to Harvard, but in

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Speaker 1: fact her degree is from Radcliffe. And I realized that

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Speaker 1: that's kind of a minor detail, but I think it

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Speaker 1: still says a lot about how she sort of just

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Speaker 1: her reality to fit this concept of a sexism free

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Speaker 1: world that needs no feminism, because, as she would tell,

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Speaker 1: you know, audiences usually of filled with women. Well, when

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Speaker 1: I went to school, there was no sexism. I had

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Speaker 1: no trouble getting into college. I was able to study

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Speaker 1: alongside the boys. I don't know what these feminists were

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Speaker 1: talking about. And it was my blood pressure. Um and yeah,

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Speaker 1: and and just as she didn't necessarily set out to

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Speaker 1: be a polysy major. She also did not set out

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Speaker 1: to be a hyper conservative right wing Republican either. She

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Speaker 1: was pretty moderate, but she quickly shifted more conservative after

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Speaker 1: she did face barriers, and she would not admit necessarily

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Speaker 1: that they were barriers, but used it more to illustrate

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Speaker 1: that she was able to sort of shift course as

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Speaker 1: needed and find her niche that allowed her to, I

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Speaker 1: don't know, gain power, to really become Phyllis. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: that definitely gain power for sure. And her post college

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Speaker 1: career path also hints as to why she has so

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Speaker 1: much animosity toward big government. Because after she graduates from

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Speaker 1: matriculates from Radcliffe, you know, the war is ending and

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Speaker 1: a lot of jobs are being reserved, specifically for veterans,

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Speaker 1: most of whom are men. So Phillis wants to get

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Speaker 1: a job in the federal government. She's like, I want

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Speaker 1: to work on policy. This is my thing. I got

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Speaker 1: really into this policy class work, and I'm good at it.

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Speaker 1: She graduated at the top of her class, but she

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Speaker 1: couldn't find a job in the federal government because they

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Speaker 1: were like, noopeh we got to save these for veterans.

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Speaker 1: So big Brother didn't allow Phillis to fulfill her dream,

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Speaker 1: so she ends up at the far more conservative think tank,

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Speaker 1: private think tank of the American Enterprise Institute. So, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's it's incredible to see all of these signposts along

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Speaker 1: the way. Yeah, but like here's me, you know, ghost Caroline,

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Speaker 1: who's not alive yet. Like no, but Phyllis, look at

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Speaker 1: what you can fight. You can fight sexism that prevents

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Speaker 1: women from going to the schools and getting the jobs

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Speaker 1: they want. But she wouldn't blame not getting that federal

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Speaker 1: government job on sexism because they weren't telling her you

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Speaker 1: couldn't get it because you're a woman. You couldn't get

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Speaker 1: it because you're not a veteran. So her ire would

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Speaker 1: be pointed toward the government. Okay, Well, in she marries

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Speaker 1: Fred French Laughley, who is a devoutly Catholic and politically

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Speaker 1: active lawyer. And what I what made me stop in

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Speaker 1: my tracks is a line about her wedding vows. And

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Speaker 1: this is a line that would be very much at

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Speaker 1: home in an article about some uh you know, devout

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Speaker 1: feminist getting married, perhaps in the New York Times. Uh

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Speaker 1: they write in the New York Times, at the ceremony

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Speaker 1: Mrs s Laughley said she did not promise to obey,

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Speaker 1: only to cherish, and that does not sound much like

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Speaker 1: what she would say in her nineties seventies anti e

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Speaker 1: er A campaign. It was all about obeying Fred because

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Speaker 1: she was a good housewife. Yeah, and so this, this

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Speaker 1: this little bone that we keep picking at is the

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Speaker 1: same bone that feminists have picked for decades because they

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Speaker 1: say phillis Philly laugh laugh laugh, old girl laughs. You

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Speaker 1: you are so active and driven on behalf of yourself

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Speaker 1: basically and making sure that you get the opportunities that

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Speaker 1: you want. But what about all of the other women?

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Speaker 1: Who does that sound like? Though? Who has similarly intense hair?

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Speaker 1: You know? I mean Donald Trump does a very as

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Speaker 1: a very similar approach to this, where your your reality

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Speaker 1: is moves with the wind, whatever you know best serves

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Speaker 1: you at that time and will most elevate you. Then

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Speaker 1: then that's truth. That's your fact, whether it is actually

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Speaker 1: fact or not. And uh, she though peace laugh is

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Speaker 1: essentially coated in teflon. And it's kind of incredible to

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Speaker 1: see how she does just constantly deflect any criticism. And

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Speaker 1: it seems like she she enjoyed as receiving this criticism.

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Speaker 1: I mean she's a total troll. Oh yeah, just a

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Speaker 1: little like run off of her she once said, she

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Speaker 1: told the New York Times actually in two thousand six,

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Speaker 1: in the scale of liberal sins, hypocrisy is the greatest,

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Speaker 1: and they've always considered me a hypocrite. And I'm going

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Speaker 1: to say how she defends herself by saying, you know,

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Speaker 1: I never told women that they shouldn't or couldn't work

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Speaker 1: outside the home. Quote. I simply didn't believe we needed

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Speaker 1: a constitutional amendment to protect women's rights. But did did

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Speaker 1: she not advocate for housewives? Be that being the reality? Well,

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Speaker 1: she certainly advocated for housewives, but she would continually say, well,

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Speaker 1: I'm not telling you you have to be a housewife.

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Speaker 1: I'm just saying that we don't need to devalue housewives,

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Speaker 1: and that feminists are trying to undercut and destroy the

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Speaker 1: role of housewives. Even though, and this is a whole

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Speaker 1: other podcast unto itself, Caroline, even though, right before old

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Speaker 1: Phyllis sunk her claws into the Equal Rights Amendment, a

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Speaker 1: woman and I'm forgetting her name right now because I've

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Speaker 1: really worked up A woman from the National Organization for

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Speaker 1: Women started this like relatively successful outreach, feminist outreach. Two

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Speaker 1: housewives and divorced women who suddenly found themselves, you know,

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Speaker 1: not really knowing how to support themselves or not really

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Speaker 1: know how to how to grapple with their personal politics

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Speaker 1: and their domestic situation. So it's like, so that's another

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Speaker 1: myth you know, she just kind of makes up this

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Speaker 1: mythology as she goes. Well, mythology that's still repeated. Oh definitely, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that feminists want to destroy the home and destroy a family. Hi,

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Speaker 1: I know, many a feminist who has her own family

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Speaker 1: and children even and washes the dishes. I mean, like

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Speaker 1: the idea, and you know, of course that's a silly

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Speaker 1: thing to say, but my point being the like the

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Speaker 1: idea that feminists are as like a monolithic army, are

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Speaker 1: trying to destroy the family and the home. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's it's insane, but it's clearly an effective tactic. It's

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Speaker 1: clearly effective rhetoric. Oh yeah, because it's all about stoking fear,

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Speaker 1: you know, that is that's really the name of the

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Speaker 1: game with all of this. And in two, she's just

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Speaker 1: twenty seven years old when her political aspirations get a

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Speaker 1: kick in the pants because a group of Republicans. Local

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Speaker 1: Republicans come over to her in Fred's house to come

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Speaker 1: over to the chefts, and they encourage Fred to you

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Speaker 1: run for Congress, say there's an open seat in there,

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Speaker 1: like Fred, you're the guy, you should do it, and

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Speaker 1: Fred's like, listen, I'm not really interested. And as the

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Speaker 1: story goes, at one point, one of these gentlemen jokingly says, hey, Phillis,

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Speaker 1: you should run, and Phillis is like, okay, damn straight,

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Speaker 1: I should run. And she's off from there. I mean,

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Speaker 1: she really sees is this opportunity and she runs and

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Speaker 1: wins the primary, which was huge, but of course she

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Speaker 1: loses in the general election. Yeah, she was in a

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Speaker 1: really democratic area, way more liberal, and I think she

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Speaker 1: was against an incumbent too. Yeah she's yeah, she was,

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Speaker 1: And we read that by the end of that race,

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Speaker 1: her opponent, her Democratic opponent, was so livid with the

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Speaker 1: rhetoric she used about him being this liberal monster that

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Speaker 1: he would not even shake her hand. He was so

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Speaker 1: mad at the stuff that she had stirred up about him.

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Speaker 1: And she wasn't even yet thirty already stirring that political pot.

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Speaker 1: And one thing that's really interesting though, is we were

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Speaker 1: reading about how her rhetoric and the way that she

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Speaker 1: positioned herself as a woman in politics really sort of echoed,

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Speaker 1: uh the suffragists and women in the progressive era who

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Speaker 1: were in women's clubs, part of the women's club movement,

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Speaker 1: because you know, remember back then women didn't have the vote,

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Speaker 1: so if they wanted to agitate and be activists for

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Speaker 1: any causes and help women in any way each other,

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Speaker 1: they had to join these clubs and and banned together

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Speaker 1: for things like I don't know, like daycare, um or

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Speaker 1: other other causes that could potentially help emilies and their communities.

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Speaker 1: And so uh, one thing that she had in common

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Speaker 1: with those early women who were being political even if

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Speaker 1: they could not be in politics was that she positioned

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Speaker 1: herself as a woman who would clean up the dirty

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Speaker 1: mess of politics and it needed cleaning up because it

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Speaker 1: was run by men. And so here she is positioning

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Speaker 1: herself as I'm a woman, and therefore, with my natural

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Speaker 1: womanly abilities, um, I'll be a better candidate for you, right,

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Speaker 1: Because that was a suffragist argument of why we should

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Speaker 1: have um voting rights and political involvement because of the

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Speaker 1: domesticity Victorian era idea of woman as the moral center

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Speaker 1: of the home. So let's let the moral compasses and

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Speaker 1: their vaginas come into the political process, Fellows, so we

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Speaker 1: can clean up after you. Um. We also have to

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Speaker 1: remember too that she was fiercely anti communist and extremely

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Speaker 1: hawkish on foreign policy, to the point that she was

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Speaker 1: like Joe McCarthy level and maybe even more so anti communists.

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Speaker 1: And that's really where her focus, um resided for a

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Speaker 1: long time, well before she sets her sights on the

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Speaker 1: e r A. And even after that defeat though in

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Speaker 1: ninety two, she gets right up and keeps going. You

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Speaker 1: can tell that this kind of lit a fire for

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Speaker 1: her because she starts stumping around Illinois on behalf of

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Speaker 1: the Daughters of the American Revolution that she remained super

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Speaker 1: active in, and from ninety six to nineteen sixty four

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Speaker 1: she was president of the Illinois Federation of Republican Women.

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Speaker 1: So you can see her starting to gradually rise through

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Speaker 1: these organizational ranks. But now we're also seeing her diverted off,

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Speaker 1: sort of to the women's auxiliary side of things. And

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Speaker 1: in the meantime, in nineteen fifty eight, she and Fred

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Speaker 1: started the Cardinal mind Zenti Foundation, which was named for

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Speaker 1: the Roman Catholic leader who had been tortured and imprisoned

427
00:31:13,600 --> 00:31:18,520
Speaker 1: by Hungarian communists in an effort to educate Catholics on

428
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:21,920
Speaker 1: the dangers of communism, and she and Fred were hyper

429
00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:27,040
Speaker 1: focused on international communism, less so on the threat of

430
00:31:27,160 --> 00:31:31,479
Speaker 1: Red's in America like McCarthy was. And a lot of

431
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:33,360
Speaker 1: that stems from the fact that she had been so

432
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:38,600
Speaker 1: heavily focused on foreign policy and foreign politics in college.

433
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 1: And soon after that she gets a platform. In nineteen

434
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:47,480
Speaker 1: sixty two, she hosted a fifteen minute radio show on

435
00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:52,479
Speaker 1: national security called America Wake Up, and it was carried

436
00:31:52,520 --> 00:31:56,440
Speaker 1: by twenty Illinois stations, so she was like a lady

437
00:31:56,480 --> 00:32:02,239
Speaker 1: Bill O'Reilly in the radio days on Post And the

438
00:32:02,360 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 1: same year her religious conservatism really ignites further following the

439
00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:14,160
Speaker 1: Supreme Court decision prohibiting state sponsored prayer in public schools,

440
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:20,280
Speaker 1: which is still a massive lightning rod for religious conservatives obviously. Yeah,

441
00:32:20,400 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 1: I mean it's almost like she's just kind of gathering

442
00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:25,840
Speaker 1: up all of her platforms, you know, in the in

443
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 1: the fifties and sixties, and then in nineteen sixty four,

444
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:33,440
Speaker 1: phillis Is Starr takes off. Yeah, she referred would refer

445
00:32:33,520 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 1: to this later as her most productive year of her

446
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:41,959
Speaker 1: life period, and that's saying a lot considering, you know,

447
00:32:42,040 --> 00:32:43,840
Speaker 1: like we said, by the age of twenty seven, she

448
00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:47,840
Speaker 1: was already hyper political, so so what more could Phillis

449
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:51,720
Speaker 1: be doing? Well? She was talking to the New York

450
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:56,880
Speaker 1: Times is Gina Bellefonte about how in nineteen sixty four

451
00:32:57,240 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 1: she was, as we mentioned, president of Illinois Federation of

452
00:33:01,320 --> 00:33:06,960
Speaker 1: Republican Women. She went to the Republican Convention, and she

453
00:33:07,080 --> 00:33:11,040
Speaker 1: was also stumping on behalf of a Republican candidate for

454
00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:19,560
Speaker 1: presidential nomination, Barry Goldwater. And Goldwater made his name really

455
00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:23,719
Speaker 1: by voting against the Civil Rights Act because it was

456
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 1: desegregation at the time that was freaking all of the

457
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:30,200
Speaker 1: conservative white people out. And finally here comes Barry Goldwater

458
00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:34,280
Speaker 1: who's like, you know what, folks, I'll take a stand

459
00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:41,320
Speaker 1: against this. And Phyllis was like, big old you, my dude,

460
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:45,160
Speaker 1: And she wrote this book more of a pamphlet really.

461
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 1: She wrote this book though, called a Choice not an Echo,

462
00:33:48,600 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 1: about how Barry Goldwater is the dude that you gotta

463
00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:57,480
Speaker 1: put all of your Republicans support behind, and also how

464
00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:02,600
Speaker 1: he's the only person who can affectatively combat that international

465
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:06,800
Speaker 1: communist threat. She self publishes this book, and as she

466
00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:11,080
Speaker 1: will brag for the rest of her life, she always

467
00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:15,359
Speaker 1: says that she sold three million copies out of her garage. Um.

468
00:34:15,400 --> 00:34:19,200
Speaker 1: And whether or not that number is accurate, it is.

469
00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:28,040
Speaker 1: It definitely galvanized this group of similarly white, religious conservative

470
00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:34,640
Speaker 1: Republicans and particularly Republican women. Yes, and it helped launch

471
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:38,440
Speaker 1: Barry Goldwater into the presidential race. He got the Republican

472
00:34:38,480 --> 00:34:45,680
Speaker 1: nomination to run unsuccessfully against Democrat LBJ And Um, you know,

473
00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:48,520
Speaker 1: I was curious about what was in the book? Is

474
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:50,839
Speaker 1: it a biography of him? Is it some sort of

475
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:56,799
Speaker 1: inspirational tract of literature talking about Barry Goldwater's background. While

476
00:34:56,840 --> 00:35:03,000
Speaker 1: according to Elizabeth Culbert's uh not a Fan characterization from

477
00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:07,359
Speaker 1: two thousand five, she wrote that a choice not an

478
00:35:07,400 --> 00:35:11,960
Speaker 1: echo was a mixture of fact sensational accusations, common sensical truths,

479
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:15,520
Speaker 1: and elaborate conspiracy theories that is brought together in a

480
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:21,719
Speaker 1: compelling but evidently bogus narrative. But it's a narrative that

481
00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:28,359
Speaker 1: still uh still remains today because it poses these very

482
00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:34,520
Speaker 1: conspiratorial questions, um, that still stoke a lot of angst

483
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:37,400
Speaker 1: um among a lot of people, you know, on either

484
00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:42,560
Speaker 1: side of the political spectrum, really um. At the beginning

485
00:35:42,640 --> 00:35:45,480
Speaker 1: of the book A Choice on an Echo, she bullets

486
00:35:45,520 --> 00:35:48,879
Speaker 1: out these questions for readers to think about of who

487
00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:53,520
Speaker 1: really picks the president, because, according to Beach Laugh, it's

488
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:57,000
Speaker 1: a secret cabal of powerful white dudes. She also asks,

489
00:35:57,360 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 1: how are political conventions stolen? Who are the secret kingmakers?

490
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:07,200
Speaker 1: And how do hidden persuaders and propaganda gimmicks influence politics.

491
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:12,560
Speaker 1: I mean, if you think that the whole lamestream media, uh,

492
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:17,520
Speaker 1: Fox News, hatred of the New York Times, etcetera is

493
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:20,200
Speaker 1: a new thing, no, no, no, no. Peach Laugh in

494
00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:23,799
Speaker 1: A Choice not an Echo was calling out all of

495
00:36:23,800 --> 00:36:29,800
Speaker 1: those newspapers, including the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Yeah, as being

496
00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:35,920
Speaker 1: in on this group of kingmakers, Okay, and they would

497
00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:43,040
Speaker 1: selectively report on the party knowing full well, I guess

498
00:36:43,160 --> 00:36:47,120
Speaker 1: that you know who was really pulling the strings. And

499
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:51,160
Speaker 1: that's kind of at the core of this right wing

500
00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:54,520
Speaker 1: populism of saying, you know what they're these they're these

501
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:57,759
Speaker 1: secret meetings going on, and they just they're going to

502
00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:02,040
Speaker 1: turn our country into you assess pool pool of of

503
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:07,279
Speaker 1: secular welfare nonsense. If they haven't already because of the

504
00:37:07,320 --> 00:37:10,160
Speaker 1: New Deal, you know, they're already terrified about the new Deal.

505
00:37:10,320 --> 00:37:13,239
Speaker 1: If you and I take the podcast on tour anytime soon,

506
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:16,960
Speaker 1: it should just be called what did you say, secular nonsense?

507
00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:21,759
Speaker 1: Secular cesspool of nonsense. But I mean, in this in

508
00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:25,000
Speaker 1: this election cycle, we've heard similar refrains from the left,

509
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:27,760
Speaker 1: you know, so like there are plenty of people who

510
00:37:28,400 --> 00:37:33,160
Speaker 1: are as fed up as as peache laugh about kingmakers

511
00:37:33,200 --> 00:37:36,560
Speaker 1: in the establishment right as fed up, and also as

512
00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:43,520
Speaker 1: borderline and slash full blown conspiratorial. Um. But something else

513
00:37:43,600 --> 00:37:45,560
Speaker 1: that jumped out to me in a choice on an

514
00:37:45,560 --> 00:37:48,719
Speaker 1: echo is how sh laughly describes herself. How she kind

515
00:37:48,719 --> 00:37:51,960
Speaker 1: of lays out her author credibility at the beginning of

516
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:55,880
Speaker 1: the book, and she says that she's devoted thousands of

517
00:37:55,960 --> 00:38:00,000
Speaker 1: hours to the Republican Party, which is probably true, um.

518
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:02,759
Speaker 1: And she talks about how she did this at a

519
00:38:02,800 --> 00:38:07,840
Speaker 1: great sacrifice to her family because she has six kids,

520
00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:10,640
Speaker 1: and although she's still at the point I don't think

521
00:38:10,640 --> 00:38:14,000
Speaker 1: she has six yet, she's still having babies, um, but

522
00:38:14,080 --> 00:38:18,520
Speaker 1: she's on her way to six. And this is in

523
00:38:18,600 --> 00:38:23,000
Speaker 1: direct contrast to what she'll be saying in the seventies,

524
00:38:23,600 --> 00:38:26,399
Speaker 1: where there is no sacrifice all of a sudden, it's

525
00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:29,680
Speaker 1: just what she did just as a hobby. Yeah, it's

526
00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:32,200
Speaker 1: just easy for me. I don't worry. I still managed

527
00:38:32,239 --> 00:38:35,200
Speaker 1: to be a fabulous housewife and mother. Did we employ

528
00:38:35,320 --> 00:38:39,239
Speaker 1: a full time housekeeper, Yes, but she always bragged that

529
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:43,440
Speaker 1: they did not employ a nanny, right, and that she

530
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:46,640
Speaker 1: him schooled each of her six children until they were seven,

531
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:49,879
Speaker 1: and that she breast fed all of them, which I'm

532
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:52,640
Speaker 1: surprised she even said the word breast Maybe she didn't.

533
00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:56,600
Speaker 1: Maybe she just pointed to her boobs and winked, pointed

534
00:38:56,640 --> 00:39:02,160
Speaker 1: at her kids these Yeah, it is uh. That was

535
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:05,920
Speaker 1: something else that comes up in pretty much every profile

536
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:10,560
Speaker 1: of her. And she breastfed her six children, like okay, okay,

537
00:39:10,719 --> 00:39:14,120
Speaker 1: what you know. But that's part of her whole perfect

538
00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:20,440
Speaker 1: housewife image that she cultivated. But even though a choice

539
00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:25,440
Speaker 1: on an echo was very successful in getting very Goldwater

540
00:39:25,560 --> 00:39:29,640
Speaker 1: to be that year's Donald Trump, essentially um and it

541
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:35,640
Speaker 1: was very successful for spotlighting the potential influence of Philish

542
00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:45,120
Speaker 1: laughlely because Goldwater lost so starkly to lb J, the

543
00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:51,440
Speaker 1: GOP establishmant hashtag, dudes, we're like, you know what, uh,

544
00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 1: your white right wing ultra conservative movement stuff like stay

545
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:59,080
Speaker 1: in the corner, Like, obviously you're not going to help

546
00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:01,800
Speaker 1: the party as a whole, so we're gonna steer things

547
00:40:02,080 --> 00:40:05,880
Speaker 1: back more moderate and peach laugh like, we're not going

548
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 1: to give you like a position or anything because you're

549
00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:12,919
Speaker 1: a woman, So just keep doing your your woman ing thing.

550
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:17,160
Speaker 1: So she did really get like the sexiest shaft from

551
00:40:17,200 --> 00:40:21,640
Speaker 1: the GOP, not surprisingly, So you're saying that ch Laugh

552
00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:24,799
Speaker 1: got the shaft. Yes, she laugh got the shaft, but

553
00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:28,160
Speaker 1: then she laugh would turn around and shaft us. Oh yeah,

554
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:30,719
Speaker 1: in the seventies. But we're not even there. We're not

555
00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:35,839
Speaker 1: even there yet. Because that's the thing. Most people's recollection

556
00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:38,640
Speaker 1: of Philish laugh lely just starts with the E R A.

557
00:40:39,160 --> 00:40:41,040
Speaker 1: But you got to know all this stuff leading up

558
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:46,320
Speaker 1: to it to make it all makes sense. So what's happened?

559
00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:55,040
Speaker 1: What has happened? So peace Laugh has gotten snubbed? Essentially,

560
00:40:55,480 --> 00:40:59,719
Speaker 1: she ran for presidency of the National Federation of Her

561
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:02,759
Speaker 1: Looking Women, because you know, she had been running a

562
00:41:02,840 --> 00:41:07,279
Speaker 1: state level organization. She went for the national position and

563
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:10,520
Speaker 1: they were like, na, girl, you wrote that book in

564
00:41:10,560 --> 00:41:15,759
Speaker 1: your garage. Good for you, but your candidate loss. So no,

565
00:41:16,520 --> 00:41:19,320
Speaker 1: and that was a huge burn for her. Oh yeah,

566
00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:23,600
Speaker 1: that was a huge burn. And she manages though to

567
00:41:23,920 --> 00:41:27,320
Speaker 1: pull a lot of the women in the National Federation

568
00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:31,960
Speaker 1: of Republican Women away to support her because she starts

569
00:41:31,960 --> 00:41:38,719
Speaker 1: publishing in nine seven this weekly newsletter, the Schlafley Report UM,

570
00:41:38,840 --> 00:41:43,880
Speaker 1: and it started out with just about three thousand subscribers,

571
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:45,759
Speaker 1: and a lot of those were women that she had

572
00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:50,239
Speaker 1: met in this UM National Federation of Republican Women, as

573
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:53,560
Speaker 1: well as women from her other organization that she had

574
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:57,520
Speaker 1: been leading UM. But as we'll talk about in the

575
00:41:57,560 --> 00:42:01,080
Speaker 1: second half of the podcast, she does pull some amazing

576
00:42:01,160 --> 00:42:06,520
Speaker 1: political and religious based maneuvering to massively raise the number

577
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:12,200
Speaker 1: of subscribers. Yeah, and just in the background politically, we

578
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:15,839
Speaker 1: got to mention that in nineteen sixties six, even though

579
00:42:15,880 --> 00:42:22,560
Speaker 1: just two years earlier, hyper conservative racist Barry Goldwater, you know,

580
00:42:22,719 --> 00:42:26,880
Speaker 1: lost so famously to lb J, but that year you

581
00:42:26,920 --> 00:42:32,640
Speaker 1: start to see conservative Republicans winning some significant congressional and

582
00:42:32,719 --> 00:42:40,760
Speaker 1: gubernatorial races, including one Ronald Reagan becoming governor of California.

583
00:42:41,320 --> 00:42:44,960
Speaker 1: So Shlaughlee, you know, launching her newsletter the next year

584
00:42:45,440 --> 00:42:51,440
Speaker 1: is really banking on the rise of this conservative movement,

585
00:42:51,640 --> 00:42:55,279
Speaker 1: which up until then had had been this kind of

586
00:42:55,400 --> 00:42:58,959
Speaker 1: niche pocket of people. Um. But she's starting to see

587
00:42:58,960 --> 00:43:02,920
Speaker 1: it Maine stream because really just because like white people

588
00:43:02,960 --> 00:43:07,320
Speaker 1: were getting really scared about black people and feminists. Um.

589
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:11,960
Speaker 1: And three years after Peace laugh launches this sh Laughley Report,

590
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:18,440
Speaker 1: she runs for Congress again and fails again. But despite

591
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:23,520
Speaker 1: her faltering start, Phyllis is about to bust out and

592
00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:25,920
Speaker 1: never look back. That's right, And we're going to talk

593
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:28,400
Speaker 1: about that when we come right back from a quick break.

594
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:42,560
Speaker 1: And now back to the show. So in the early seventies,

595
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:46,960
Speaker 1: even though the Equal Rights Amendment had been around for

596
00:43:47,160 --> 00:43:52,160
Speaker 1: about fifty years, um, she really claims she wasn't aware

597
00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:55,440
Speaker 1: of it. Um, she didn't was not aware of any

598
00:43:55,480 --> 00:43:59,320
Speaker 1: massive movement behind it. And it wasn't until she says,

599
00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:03,080
Speaker 1: a friend says, hey, you should check out this whole

600
00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:05,600
Speaker 1: e r A thing. You might be interested in it.

601
00:44:05,880 --> 00:44:09,799
Speaker 1: That she reads it and like all of the light

602
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:13,080
Speaker 1: bulbs go off above her head and she says, Aha,

603
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:18,319
Speaker 1: here is the enemy. And for those of you not

604
00:44:18,400 --> 00:44:21,640
Speaker 1: familiar with the e r A as, I really wasn't

605
00:44:22,120 --> 00:44:25,359
Speaker 1: until doing research for stuff I've never told you. It

606
00:44:25,440 --> 00:44:30,000
Speaker 1: was first introduced in by Alice Paul at the Seneca

607
00:44:30,040 --> 00:44:33,239
Speaker 1: Falls Convention, and the e r A, which would have

608
00:44:33,239 --> 00:44:37,680
Speaker 1: been the amendment if it had gone through. It's very

609
00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:41,520
Speaker 1: simple in its language. It just states equality of rights

610
00:44:41,640 --> 00:44:45,239
Speaker 1: under the law shall not be denied or abridged by

611
00:44:45,239 --> 00:44:48,600
Speaker 1: the United States or by any state on account of sex.

612
00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:54,080
Speaker 1: So essentially, it would render gender based discrimination illegal on

613
00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:59,000
Speaker 1: a federal or state level across the board. Um and

614
00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:02,440
Speaker 1: people today say it, if the e r A had

615
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:08,280
Speaker 1: been passed and had been ratified, I should say that

616
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:11,319
Speaker 1: all of the cobbling together that women have to do

617
00:45:11,719 --> 00:45:16,760
Speaker 1: today between Title nine and other state laws and stuff

618
00:45:16,760 --> 00:45:20,640
Speaker 1: like that, there would not be any of this maneuvering

619
00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:23,359
Speaker 1: around that we would have to do in light of

620
00:45:23,560 --> 00:45:27,719
Speaker 1: gender based or sexual discrimination because the e r A

621
00:45:28,360 --> 00:45:32,239
Speaker 1: would have just, in very simple language, accounted for all

622
00:45:32,239 --> 00:45:37,480
Speaker 1: of that. But pH laugh was not gonna let that happen.

623
00:45:37,840 --> 00:45:42,839
Speaker 1: Even though the ARRA was widely supported, like across the aisle, Yeah,

624
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:46,399
Speaker 1: by Democrats and Republicans alike, women, men, everybody's like yeah,

625
00:45:46,440 --> 00:45:50,080
Speaker 1: sure of course. Even George Wallace from Alabama, who was

626
00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:54,560
Speaker 1: about as racist as they come, was chill with the

627
00:45:54,800 --> 00:45:58,960
Speaker 1: r A. Yeah, I know, well, because I think a

628
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:03,480
Speaker 1: lot of people saw it as like, well, we already

629
00:46:03,800 --> 00:46:08,359
Speaker 1: have language in these other various laws and amendments that

630
00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:11,640
Speaker 1: you know, we shouldn't discriminate against women, Like sure, why

631
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:15,000
Speaker 1: not throw this on the pile. I think it was

632
00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:20,200
Speaker 1: seen as as kind of not toothless, but just like acceptable,

633
00:46:20,480 --> 00:46:23,000
Speaker 1: give this to the ladies, Yeah, let them, let them

634
00:46:23,080 --> 00:46:26,560
Speaker 1: have it. Well, you know who was not having it

635
00:46:26,600 --> 00:46:30,279
Speaker 1: was Old P. Schlaugh And in nineteen seventy two she

636
00:46:30,400 --> 00:46:33,479
Speaker 1: writes about it in the Schlaughlely Report dedicates a whole

637
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:37,480
Speaker 1: issue too, and in fact, and this is what starts

638
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:43,200
Speaker 1: the anti feminist campaign against the e r A. And

639
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:47,720
Speaker 1: boy did she have some ideas about what that simple

640
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:52,640
Speaker 1: sentence really meant. Oh god, oh god. Yeah, she said

641
00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:55,520
Speaker 1: that the e r A was going to eliminate sex

642
00:46:55,600 --> 00:47:01,719
Speaker 1: segregated public restrooms. We still hear that panic today. It's

643
00:47:01,760 --> 00:47:05,600
Speaker 1: going to force women into the draft. Wasn't that just

644
00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:09,920
Speaker 1: in the news. It's going to dissolve sex crime laws.

645
00:47:10,920 --> 00:47:15,359
Speaker 1: I got nothing up. It's going to remove men's financial

646
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:20,840
Speaker 1: responsibilities to be breadwinners or the payers of child support.

647
00:47:22,080 --> 00:47:27,200
Speaker 1: More women are becoming breadwinners. These days, and she basically

648
00:47:27,560 --> 00:47:31,080
Speaker 1: considered women as we as we touched on earlier in

649
00:47:31,120 --> 00:47:35,160
Speaker 1: the episode, she basically considered women to be this privileged,

650
00:47:35,280 --> 00:47:39,960
Speaker 1: protected class who would lose those privileges and protections if

651
00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:42,160
Speaker 1: the e r A went through. And that's why my

652
00:47:42,239 --> 00:47:45,239
Speaker 1: brain was just collapsing last night as I was researching

653
00:47:45,280 --> 00:47:49,359
Speaker 1: this stuff, because it's like, well, no, but if we

654
00:47:49,520 --> 00:47:54,160
Speaker 1: if we're protected under the law through the e r

655
00:47:54,239 --> 00:47:56,600
Speaker 1: A in the way that the e r A spells out,

656
00:47:57,719 --> 00:48:00,600
Speaker 1: we won't have to worry about these so called privileges

657
00:48:00,600 --> 00:48:05,600
Speaker 1: and protections and what I would call benevolent sexism. Oh yeah,

658
00:48:05,640 --> 00:48:08,640
Speaker 1: but if you aren't stoking worry and fear, how are

659
00:48:08,640 --> 00:48:11,960
Speaker 1: you going to start this movement? Al's peach laugh gonna,

660
00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:16,239
Speaker 1: you know, galvanize her gals and galvanize the gal she does,

661
00:48:16,360 --> 00:48:20,480
Speaker 1: because the subscriptions to her newsletter shoot up from about

662
00:48:20,520 --> 00:48:24,480
Speaker 1: three thousand to thirty five thousand thanks to all of

663
00:48:24,520 --> 00:48:27,360
Speaker 1: this fear stoking that she does not only among women

664
00:48:27,440 --> 00:48:30,960
Speaker 1: like herself, you know, good Catholic housewives, but also among

665
00:48:31,080 --> 00:48:35,759
Speaker 1: the Evangelical Christian housewives like ladies, ladies, ladies like we

666
00:48:35,880 --> 00:48:39,640
Speaker 1: have a lot to worry about in terms of losing

667
00:48:40,080 --> 00:48:43,480
Speaker 1: those cushy lives that we know. And this is something

668
00:48:43,640 --> 00:48:48,200
Speaker 1: that I read all the time in stuff I've never

669
00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:54,319
Speaker 1: told you, YouTube comments from men's rights activisty trolls who

670
00:48:55,400 --> 00:49:01,320
Speaker 1: claim a feminists are just victimizing themselves because in Peache laughs,

671
00:49:01,440 --> 00:49:04,760
Speaker 1: terms like your privileged class people take you out for dinner,

672
00:49:04,880 --> 00:49:09,360
Speaker 1: you get discounts, happy hours, and you know you have

673
00:49:09,440 --> 00:49:12,600
Speaker 1: an affirmative action, You get whatever you want. If you

674
00:49:12,719 --> 00:49:16,319
Speaker 1: paid me equally, then maybe I wouldn't need a discount

675
00:49:16,440 --> 00:49:22,440
Speaker 1: exactly for your happy hour. Um. And this the thing is,

676
00:49:22,440 --> 00:49:24,440
Speaker 1: though she's starting this, she kind of is starting it

677
00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:27,239
Speaker 1: out of her garage. She's writing her own newsletter, she's

678
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:31,760
Speaker 1: sending it out. It's very grass rootsy, and that becomes

679
00:49:32,120 --> 00:49:37,719
Speaker 1: really the source of her political influence. And it's her brand. Yeah,

680
00:49:37,719 --> 00:49:39,960
Speaker 1: oh yeah, it's solely her brand. The peach Laught brand

681
00:49:40,040 --> 00:49:43,080
Speaker 1: is all about the grassroots. She has this newsletter base

682
00:49:43,560 --> 00:49:50,680
Speaker 1: largely comprised of fellow conservative housewives, and once she stirs

683
00:49:50,760 --> 00:49:55,560
Speaker 1: them up, they start fundraising, They start sending out mailers,

684
00:49:55,840 --> 00:50:00,319
Speaker 1: they start hosting anti e r A press conferences, end

685
00:50:00,520 --> 00:50:07,000
Speaker 1: importantly lobbying their state legislatures. They would go carrying loaves

686
00:50:07,560 --> 00:50:11,799
Speaker 1: of homemade banana bread and apple loaves and things like that,

687
00:50:12,160 --> 00:50:15,919
Speaker 1: little goodies and deliver them to all of the politicians

688
00:50:15,960 --> 00:50:17,759
Speaker 1: who are going to vote on the e r A

689
00:50:18,320 --> 00:50:21,520
Speaker 1: that day and say, oh, we don't we don't need

690
00:50:21,560 --> 00:50:26,480
Speaker 1: that good sir, have a little apricot. What was in

691
00:50:26,520 --> 00:50:33,080
Speaker 1: the bread? Did they put something in it? Drugging their legislators,

692
00:50:33,520 --> 00:50:37,120
Speaker 1: And then Phillis teams up with North Carolina Democratic Senator

693
00:50:37,200 --> 00:50:42,520
Speaker 1: Sam Irvin no relation in the past couple of generations

694
00:50:42,560 --> 00:50:46,560
Speaker 1: at least um who opposed the e r A. And

695
00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:51,200
Speaker 1: this allows her whole stop e r A movement to

696
00:50:51,280 --> 00:50:55,200
Speaker 1: cross party lines. Yeah um. And keep in mind too

697
00:50:55,600 --> 00:51:00,760
Speaker 1: that in three just a year after uh laughly starts

698
00:51:00,800 --> 00:51:05,560
Speaker 1: going after the e r A, Rovi Wade happens, and

699
00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:09,799
Speaker 1: so this is of course stirring up even more angst

700
00:51:10,280 --> 00:51:16,520
Speaker 1: among conservatives. So then in nineteen we see her take

701
00:51:17,320 --> 00:51:23,000
Speaker 1: her success with developing this stop r A group and

702
00:51:24,080 --> 00:51:29,879
Speaker 1: transitioning it into the Eagle Forum. And this is essentially

703
00:51:30,400 --> 00:51:37,040
Speaker 1: the women's auxiliary of the conservative right wing UH contingent

704
00:51:37,239 --> 00:51:41,400
Speaker 1: of the Republican Party at the time. UM and the

705
00:51:41,480 --> 00:51:48,120
Speaker 1: Eagle Forum, which was twenty thousand strong in lobbied politically

706
00:51:48,160 --> 00:51:56,480
Speaker 1: lobbied four Conservatism, alongside sister groups like how Happiness of

707
00:51:56,520 --> 00:52:00,799
Speaker 1: Women and Aware which stood for America and women are

708
00:52:00,960 --> 00:52:06,360
Speaker 1: richly endowed. Phyllis is beside herself, although I don't know

709
00:52:06,400 --> 00:52:09,080
Speaker 1: if you could describe someone who is as cool, calm

710
00:52:09,120 --> 00:52:11,879
Speaker 1: and collected as Phillis as ever beside herself because she's

711
00:52:11,960 --> 00:52:15,000
Speaker 1: very calculating. She knows what she's doing. Yeah, oh for sure.

712
00:52:15,120 --> 00:52:20,560
Speaker 1: And so her major beef, though, with the growing contingent

713
00:52:20,640 --> 00:52:25,239
Speaker 1: of feminists in the US, is all about how they

714
00:52:25,280 --> 00:52:28,279
Speaker 1: are messing with the natural order of things. That goes

715
00:52:28,320 --> 00:52:31,880
Speaker 1: back to her assertion that feminists are trying to destroy

716
00:52:31,920 --> 00:52:37,520
Speaker 1: the family. Yeah. Um, so she wrote one of many

717
00:52:37,600 --> 00:52:44,200
Speaker 1: columns in which she says feminism is incompatible with human nature.

718
00:52:44,800 --> 00:52:48,239
Speaker 1: The premise of the feminists is that God goofed in

719
00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:52,000
Speaker 1: making us two different sexes, and that our laws should

720
00:52:52,000 --> 00:52:56,080
Speaker 1: remedy his mistake. And I guess, okay, I'm gonna make

721
00:52:56,080 --> 00:52:58,440
Speaker 1: this a little personal for a second, Like, I guess

722
00:52:58,440 --> 00:53:02,600
Speaker 1: that's why so any of her arguments and similar arguments

723
00:53:02,600 --> 00:53:04,319
Speaker 1: don't make sense to me, because I am not a

724
00:53:04,360 --> 00:53:10,160
Speaker 1: person who is religious or uh has God as a

725
00:53:10,200 --> 00:53:16,680
Speaker 1: former very inappropriate boss of mindset um to me one time. Uh, so,

726
00:53:16,760 --> 00:53:19,320
Speaker 1: like things like that don't make sense to me, saying

727
00:53:19,360 --> 00:53:22,439
Speaker 1: that there is a natural order in the way that

728
00:53:23,480 --> 00:53:27,520
Speaker 1: the biological sexes have to be or the genders have

729
00:53:27,760 --> 00:53:31,440
Speaker 1: to be. Yeah, And I'm sitting here across from you

730
00:53:31,760 --> 00:53:35,600
Speaker 1: not surprised at all, because a large part of my

731
00:53:35,800 --> 00:53:42,160
Speaker 1: childhood was spent in evangelical churches, and while the pastors

732
00:53:42,239 --> 00:53:48,759
Speaker 1: weren't railing against feminism every Sunday, there was definitely concerned,

733
00:53:48,800 --> 00:53:54,920
Speaker 1: particularly over the homosexual agenda, because that definitely violated in

734
00:53:55,040 --> 00:53:59,640
Speaker 1: quotes nature. And so that's like a whole other aspect

735
00:54:00,040 --> 00:54:06,920
Speaker 1: of right wing activism and pushes behind their their politics

736
00:54:06,920 --> 00:54:10,160
Speaker 1: that that I simply, as a person on the left,

737
00:54:10,200 --> 00:54:13,239
Speaker 1: do not have because I just it's not part of

738
00:54:13,280 --> 00:54:18,040
Speaker 1: my worldview. But it was. It's so shaped hers. Oh definitely,

739
00:54:18,160 --> 00:54:21,799
Speaker 1: I mean, and and part of that too is attached

740
00:54:21,880 --> 00:54:28,279
Speaker 1: to her uh familiar distaste for East Coast elitists and

741
00:54:28,400 --> 00:54:32,960
Speaker 1: liberals and um. One thing that she really goes on

742
00:54:33,040 --> 00:54:35,319
Speaker 1: and on about in a choice on an Echo is

743
00:54:35,320 --> 00:54:38,960
Speaker 1: how Barry Goldwater is the person that you should vote

744
00:54:38,960 --> 00:54:45,080
Speaker 1: for because he has simple ideas, simple solutions, whereas LBJ

745
00:54:45,200 --> 00:54:49,400
Speaker 1: and all these liberal Democrats, they just have these convoluted

746
00:54:49,520 --> 00:54:53,799
Speaker 1: theories and bureaucratic structures and they just want to muck

747
00:54:53,880 --> 00:54:58,640
Speaker 1: everything up, whereas you know, it's just it's just nature,

748
00:54:59,120 --> 00:55:02,960
Speaker 1: it's just man and wife, it's this and that. You know,

749
00:55:03,040 --> 00:55:07,359
Speaker 1: it's a very black and white worldview. And that's It's

750
00:55:07,360 --> 00:55:10,600
Speaker 1: a similar thing that we see today where there is

751
00:55:10,640 --> 00:55:18,520
Speaker 1: this distaste among right wing, right wing conservatives for non

752
00:55:18,560 --> 00:55:25,120
Speaker 1: simplistic answers because that challenges their worldview in a terrifying way.

753
00:55:25,480 --> 00:55:28,960
Speaker 1: And I mean, I also say this from the perspective of,

754
00:55:29,800 --> 00:55:32,840
Speaker 1: you know, being very cognizant even at a young age,

755
00:55:32,880 --> 00:55:35,520
Speaker 1: of how a lot of the rhetoric, political rhetoric that

756
00:55:35,640 --> 00:55:40,759
Speaker 1: I heard in conservative churches, um, that my parents attended

757
00:55:42,160 --> 00:55:45,799
Speaker 1: was just so fear stoking. You could feel it in

758
00:55:45,840 --> 00:55:51,759
Speaker 1: the room, you know, and it was powerful enough to

759
00:55:52,080 --> 00:55:55,760
Speaker 1: get Slaughly where she wanted to go. And in addition

760
00:55:55,840 --> 00:55:59,520
Speaker 1: to her argument about feminism being incompatible with human nature,

761
00:56:00,640 --> 00:56:04,799
Speaker 1: she also kind of suggested that feminism was out to

762
00:56:04,960 --> 00:56:12,200
Speaker 1: replace husbands with government big brother right, So look at you,

763
00:56:12,400 --> 00:56:15,719
Speaker 1: dumb feminist, You're just trying to get rid of the home,

764
00:56:15,840 --> 00:56:17,799
Speaker 1: get rid of the family structure, get rid of the

765
00:56:17,880 --> 00:56:21,759
Speaker 1: husband who can provide for you. They can be the

766
00:56:21,800 --> 00:56:25,120
Speaker 1: breadwinners if you just let them. But instead you want

767
00:56:25,120 --> 00:56:27,239
Speaker 1: to get rid of all that and have the government

768
00:56:27,320 --> 00:56:30,880
Speaker 1: give to you. Have the government be your breadwinner and

769
00:56:30,960 --> 00:56:35,600
Speaker 1: your husband, and accept welfare and public assistance and things

770
00:56:35,640 --> 00:56:39,600
Speaker 1: like that. And it doesn't this sound like frustrated just

771
00:56:39,719 --> 00:56:43,360
Speaker 1: out of college Phillis who can't get a job in

772
00:56:43,360 --> 00:56:46,200
Speaker 1: the government because big brother has saved all the other

773
00:56:46,280 --> 00:56:51,520
Speaker 1: jobs for other brothers. Essentially um and and the way

774
00:56:51,600 --> 00:56:54,480
Speaker 1: she puts it, though in one column it might have

775
00:56:54,520 --> 00:56:59,480
Speaker 1: been the same that same column from she she go

776
00:56:59,640 --> 00:57:04,040
Speaker 1: she to sarcasm in rhetorical questions a lot, So she

777
00:57:04,280 --> 00:57:07,560
Speaker 1: sneers need a job, Big brother will get you an

778
00:57:07,600 --> 00:57:12,080
Speaker 1: affirmative action quota position. You don't meet the physical requirements,

779
00:57:12,360 --> 00:57:15,560
Speaker 1: Big brother will gender norm the test results and give

780
00:57:15,600 --> 00:57:18,960
Speaker 1: you a high score. Not satisfied with your salary, the

781
00:57:19,040 --> 00:57:21,760
Speaker 1: Comparable Worth Commission will order your employer to give you

782
00:57:21,800 --> 00:57:24,760
Speaker 1: a raise. And if you want a promotion, the Glass

783
00:57:24,760 --> 00:57:27,840
Speaker 1: Ceiling Commission will force your employer to give it to you.

784
00:57:28,720 --> 00:57:31,880
Speaker 1: So it's just this idea that we are making up.

785
00:57:32,440 --> 00:57:36,360
Speaker 1: These problems, and through this group of kingmakers, we you know,

786
00:57:36,400 --> 00:57:43,200
Speaker 1: the government then establishes these committees that just uh, you know,

787
00:57:43,720 --> 00:57:47,640
Speaker 1: give magically give women raises. Well, I mean, all of

788
00:57:47,640 --> 00:57:52,080
Speaker 1: her rhetorical questions there go back to her emphatic assertion

789
00:57:52,120 --> 00:57:54,960
Speaker 1: that there is no such thing as this patriarchy that

790
00:57:55,000 --> 00:57:59,040
Speaker 1: oppresses women, that women are not oppressed. And then her

791
00:57:59,520 --> 00:58:04,920
Speaker 1: asserts are directly tied to today's conversations around women are

792
00:58:04,920 --> 00:58:08,920
Speaker 1: making themselves victims. Well, and this next quote about how

793
00:58:08,920 --> 00:58:12,440
Speaker 1: she describes the relationship between feminism and the federal government

794
00:58:12,920 --> 00:58:16,400
Speaker 1: is so reminiscent of what you hear today among women

795
00:58:16,440 --> 00:58:20,800
Speaker 1: against feminism and or anti feminists, whichever way you want

796
00:58:20,800 --> 00:58:24,400
Speaker 1: to put it. Where she says, our societal policy should

797
00:58:24,400 --> 00:58:26,960
Speaker 1: be to let women make their own decisions about marriage

798
00:58:26,960 --> 00:58:32,120
Speaker 1: and career without the interference of taxpayer funded gender equity

799
00:58:32,160 --> 00:58:37,240
Speaker 1: federal busybodies. Well, so she's trying to have both at

800
00:58:37,240 --> 00:58:41,680
Speaker 1: the same time. You know, she's trying to to say

801
00:58:41,680 --> 00:58:45,600
Speaker 1: that we don't need feminism, but you know, not because

802
00:58:46,440 --> 00:58:49,000
Speaker 1: you know, we don't want the best for women, but

803
00:58:49,120 --> 00:58:51,640
Speaker 1: just because we don't think that anyone should be telling

804
00:58:51,640 --> 00:58:54,400
Speaker 1: women what to do. So isn't feminism telling women what

805
00:58:54,520 --> 00:58:57,520
Speaker 1: to do? And so that's why you know, women shouldn't

806
00:58:57,640 --> 00:59:02,280
Speaker 1: be for feminism. And yes it does make you, and

807
00:59:02,360 --> 00:59:07,560
Speaker 1: I do mean you, Caroline and myself want to slowly

808
00:59:07,600 --> 00:59:11,640
Speaker 1: bang our heads against the desk, and ditto Betty for

809
00:59:11,760 --> 00:59:15,680
Speaker 1: Dan and many other you know, second way feminists of

810
00:59:15,720 --> 00:59:21,360
Speaker 1: the day. Oh Betty, Yeah. Teflon Phyllis managed to infuriate

811
00:59:21,960 --> 00:59:26,000
Speaker 1: frequent debate opponent Betty for Dan to the point where

812
00:59:26,080 --> 00:59:32,040
Speaker 1: Betty told her that she should burn at the steak. Yeah.

813
00:59:32,120 --> 00:59:37,720
Speaker 1: And Phyllis, the troll loved it. Loved it, oh yeah,

814
00:59:37,720 --> 00:59:40,120
Speaker 1: because she was like, oh, I'm so glad you said that,

815
00:59:40,440 --> 00:59:44,640
Speaker 1: because it just goes to show how nasty you feminists are.

816
00:59:45,400 --> 00:59:49,280
Speaker 1: And of course laughly had her opinions about Betty for

817
00:59:49,440 --> 00:59:54,040
Speaker 1: Dan as well. She said, I reject all her ideology,

818
00:59:54,520 --> 00:59:57,400
Speaker 1: She said, I reject all her ideology, most of it

819
00:59:57,520 --> 01:00:00,280
Speaker 1: based on the absurd notion that the whole is a

820
01:00:00,360 --> 01:00:05,360
Speaker 1: comfortable concentration camp and that the suburban housewife is oppressed

821
01:00:05,360 --> 01:00:09,680
Speaker 1: by her husband and by society. And she loved calling

822
01:00:09,720 --> 01:00:14,280
Speaker 1: feminists fat, ugly and unlikable, which again I'm telling you,

823
01:00:14,360 --> 01:00:18,720
Speaker 1: like reading about Peache laugh is just kind of like

824
01:00:18,800 --> 01:00:21,360
Speaker 1: reading about Donald Trump in a lot of ways the

825
01:00:21,400 --> 01:00:25,400
Speaker 1: reality TV shows. Yeah, it goes back to my college

826
01:00:25,400 --> 01:00:28,520
Speaker 1: sociology class in which we were talking about feminism and

827
01:00:28,720 --> 01:00:30,960
Speaker 1: a fellow student of mine, and I've told the story

828
01:00:31,000 --> 01:00:34,880
Speaker 1: on the podcast before, but a fellow classmate um raised

829
01:00:34,880 --> 01:00:37,880
Speaker 1: her hand and basically said, but if we like men

830
01:00:38,080 --> 01:00:41,160
Speaker 1: and want to get married, shouldn't we not agree with

831
01:00:41,200 --> 01:00:45,120
Speaker 1: any of this stuff? And it's like that whooshing sound

832
01:00:45,200 --> 01:00:51,080
Speaker 1: is the point completely going over your head, Um, Because Yeah,

833
01:00:51,200 --> 01:00:53,920
Speaker 1: like the worst thing to some people is to be

834
01:00:54,000 --> 01:00:58,880
Speaker 1: considered or just called fat or ugly or unlikable. Oh

835
01:00:58,920 --> 01:01:02,040
Speaker 1: and definitely, you know, if we're talking about the seventies,

836
01:01:02,600 --> 01:01:05,520
Speaker 1: you know, our society is still I would not say

837
01:01:05,600 --> 01:01:10,720
Speaker 1: is woke, but it was certainly less woke in the seventies. Um.

838
01:01:10,800 --> 01:01:14,320
Speaker 1: But as much as I really hate to keep quoting

839
01:01:14,360 --> 01:01:19,160
Speaker 1: Philish laughly, because it's never a pleasant thing that you

840
01:01:19,200 --> 01:01:23,439
Speaker 1: will have to say, I do think it's worth highlighting

841
01:01:23,640 --> 01:01:30,400
Speaker 1: a few of her positions on feminist issues. Yeah, she

842
01:01:30,440 --> 01:01:33,760
Speaker 1: didn't think that marital rape was a thing. She said,

843
01:01:33,760 --> 01:01:36,480
Speaker 1: by getting married, the woman has consented to sex. And

844
01:01:36,560 --> 01:01:42,280
Speaker 1: I don't think you can call it rape. On sexual harassment, uh, no,

845
01:01:42,400 --> 01:01:46,960
Speaker 1: big surprise. She hated Anita Hill, and she just thought

846
01:01:46,960 --> 01:01:51,440
Speaker 1: that that woman was just ranking that honorable Clarence Thomas

847
01:01:51,480 --> 01:01:54,320
Speaker 1: over the coals unnecessarily because she's a feminist and was

848
01:01:54,360 --> 01:01:56,600
Speaker 1: just sad that he wouldn't take her out on a date.

849
01:01:57,200 --> 01:02:02,360
Speaker 1: So on sexual harassment, Shlaughley said, quote non criminal sexual

850
01:02:02,400 --> 01:02:04,920
Speaker 1: harassment on the job is not a problem for the

851
01:02:05,040 --> 01:02:09,040
Speaker 1: virtuous woman except in the rarest of cases. Yeah, so

852
01:02:09,680 --> 01:02:14,600
Speaker 1: insert victim blaming here. Well, if you're a virtuous woman,

853
01:02:15,000 --> 01:02:19,440
Speaker 1: you should have nothing to worry about. What were you wearing? Uh?

854
01:02:19,480 --> 01:02:23,840
Speaker 1: And uh domestic violence. Uh. She said that when marriages

855
01:02:23,880 --> 01:02:27,960
Speaker 1: are broken by false allegations of domestic violence, US taxpayers

856
01:02:28,040 --> 01:02:31,040
Speaker 1: fork up an estimated twenty billion a year to support

857
01:02:31,080 --> 01:02:33,840
Speaker 1: the resulting single parent welfare dependent families. And I'm like,

858
01:02:34,320 --> 01:02:42,320
Speaker 1: that's your concern, Like a woman who falsely accuses a

859
01:02:42,400 --> 01:02:46,840
Speaker 1: man of domestic violence and then is single as a result,

860
01:02:47,160 --> 01:02:49,920
Speaker 1: Because then who's going to have to pay for that,

861
01:02:50,080 --> 01:02:54,120
Speaker 1: big brother, the taxpayers. You know, we're we're having to

862
01:02:54,240 --> 01:02:58,840
Speaker 1: fund this welfare state. And really, I mean pointing out

863
01:02:59,200 --> 01:03:02,720
Speaker 1: her horrific stances on these kinds of issues is to

864
01:03:03,560 --> 01:03:09,760
Speaker 1: illustrate how she was not just responsible for stopping the

865
01:03:09,760 --> 01:03:12,560
Speaker 1: e r A and its tracks, which she and Stop

866
01:03:12,600 --> 01:03:16,880
Speaker 1: the r A and the Eagle Forum absolutely did, but

867
01:03:17,040 --> 01:03:24,880
Speaker 1: also in essentially building what is today the ultra right

868
01:03:25,040 --> 01:03:30,400
Speaker 1: wing policy platform. It's as if she wrote the script

869
01:03:31,000 --> 01:03:35,640
Speaker 1: for women to continue to be demeaned and not believed

870
01:03:36,520 --> 01:03:39,640
Speaker 1: when it comes to some of these awful issues. Right.

871
01:03:39,640 --> 01:03:43,720
Speaker 1: But I mean, these are but these are like political platforms. Now.

872
01:03:44,160 --> 01:03:46,240
Speaker 1: You know, if you turn on if you spend some

873
01:03:46,280 --> 01:03:49,040
Speaker 1: time on bright Bart News, Actually, don't spend some time

874
01:03:49,040 --> 01:03:52,040
Speaker 1: on Brightbart News, and you'll see all of these similar

875
01:03:52,080 --> 01:03:54,800
Speaker 1: things going on. Ps A Bright Bart guy was one

876
01:03:54,840 --> 01:03:58,320
Speaker 1: of the men who came after me on Twitter. Oh

877
01:03:58,400 --> 01:04:02,360
Speaker 1: really would bright Bart rep order? Oh I'm not surprised.

878
01:04:02,640 --> 01:04:11,680
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised. Um. But in we see another contradiction

879
01:04:11,880 --> 01:04:17,280
Speaker 1: to her career housewife claim because she goes to law school.

880
01:04:17,800 --> 01:04:19,480
Speaker 1: I mean and in a way like if she were

881
01:04:19,520 --> 01:04:21,520
Speaker 1: anyone else, you and I would be like good for

882
01:04:21,560 --> 01:04:24,720
Speaker 1: her mother of six After the kids grow up, she

883
01:04:24,800 --> 01:04:27,200
Speaker 1: goes back to law school, and that's what she argues, like, well,

884
01:04:27,240 --> 01:04:29,680
Speaker 1: I waited until my children were grown they could take

885
01:04:29,720 --> 01:04:31,320
Speaker 1: care of themselves. I had breastfed all of them. Did

886
01:04:31,320 --> 01:04:33,880
Speaker 1: I tell you I breastfed all of them? I really did.

887
01:04:34,800 --> 01:04:39,240
Speaker 1: UM And she completes her law degree at Washington University.

888
01:04:39,680 --> 01:04:42,320
Speaker 1: When she goes to take the bar, her public profile

889
01:04:42,400 --> 01:04:46,680
Speaker 1: was already like significant enough that she took it in

890
01:04:46,680 --> 01:04:49,000
Speaker 1: a disguise. She wore a black wig in order to

891
01:04:49,000 --> 01:04:51,800
Speaker 1: take her exam, and she passed it well. And her husband,

892
01:04:51,960 --> 01:04:53,720
Speaker 1: you know, and this is another anecdote that she would

893
01:04:53,720 --> 01:04:55,680
Speaker 1: tell over and over again over the years that her

894
01:04:55,720 --> 01:04:58,400
Speaker 1: husband at first did not want her to go to

895
01:04:58,480 --> 01:05:01,320
Speaker 1: law school and didn't understand why she felt the need

896
01:05:01,320 --> 01:05:06,400
Speaker 1: to UM, and then so she withdrew her application to

897
01:05:06,560 --> 01:05:08,560
Speaker 1: law school, and then a couple of weeks later he

898
01:05:08,640 --> 01:05:10,520
Speaker 1: changed his mind. And it's like, you know what, it

899
01:05:10,520 --> 01:05:13,640
Speaker 1: would actually having a law background would actually help with

900
01:05:13,680 --> 01:05:16,560
Speaker 1: a lot of the public policy work. And uh e

901
01:05:16,720 --> 01:05:19,880
Speaker 1: r a fights that you do well. And I mean,

902
01:05:20,000 --> 01:05:23,640
Speaker 1: her relationship with Fred is really fascinating and something that

903
01:05:23,760 --> 01:05:27,040
Speaker 1: I wish we knew more about, because I think that's

904
01:05:27,320 --> 01:05:31,160
Speaker 1: one of the most frustrating things about UM reading up

905
01:05:31,200 --> 01:05:35,320
Speaker 1: on phyllis is that you know that you're not learning

906
01:05:35,360 --> 01:05:37,920
Speaker 1: about the real phillis. You know that there's stuff going

907
01:05:37,920 --> 01:05:41,520
Speaker 1: on in the background, because this is an image that

908
01:05:41,600 --> 01:05:46,640
Speaker 1: she cultivated for political purposes, whereas before she has this

909
01:05:46,960 --> 01:05:52,480
Speaker 1: shift um against feminism in the nineteen seventies, she talks

910
01:05:52,520 --> 01:05:58,560
Speaker 1: about how during her early marriage with Fred, like they

911
01:05:58,760 --> 01:06:02,160
Speaker 1: would stay up and till all hours, just brainstorming and

912
01:06:02,200 --> 01:06:06,720
Speaker 1: talking politics, like they courted each other, but through through letters,

913
01:06:06,800 --> 01:06:11,760
Speaker 1: mailing each other, poetry, and essentially like many policy briefs,

914
01:06:12,280 --> 01:06:16,840
Speaker 1: there were like a couple of walks, but she played

915
01:06:16,880 --> 01:06:22,440
Speaker 1: it all down in order to conform to a more palatable, interesting,

916
01:06:22,680 --> 01:06:26,400
Speaker 1: submissive image that would fit into which also sounds very

917
01:06:26,440 --> 01:06:31,520
Speaker 1: house of cards, Yeah, which fit into this mold, you know,

918
01:06:31,600 --> 01:06:35,840
Speaker 1: that could then elevate her um to the platform that

919
01:06:35,880 --> 01:06:41,440
Speaker 1: she ended up having, which in nineteen eighty she used

920
01:06:41,640 --> 01:06:47,760
Speaker 1: her influence to successfully negotiate with the GOP to remove

921
01:06:48,440 --> 01:06:51,120
Speaker 1: its pro e r a platform plank. And this is

922
01:06:51,120 --> 01:06:54,640
Speaker 1: when we finally see the Republican Party, which previously had

923
01:06:54,640 --> 01:06:56,840
Speaker 1: a lot of the Area supporters in it. It wasn't

924
01:06:56,880 --> 01:07:00,160
Speaker 1: as conservative as it is today by long shot. We

925
01:07:00,240 --> 01:07:05,680
Speaker 1: finally see them turning that corner as Reagan is about

926
01:07:05,760 --> 01:07:15,680
Speaker 1: to take over. Exactly, yeah, exactly, and June two, Phillis

927
01:07:15,720 --> 01:07:19,400
Speaker 1: holds a party because the congressional deadline for states to

928
01:07:19,520 --> 01:07:22,320
Speaker 1: ratify the r A expires and they were what three

929
01:07:22,360 --> 01:07:26,880
Speaker 1: states short of ratification, and so from there she's like cool,

930
01:07:27,160 --> 01:07:31,240
Speaker 1: box checked, done. Now let's make sure that we hinder

931
01:07:31,480 --> 01:07:35,440
Speaker 1: the fight for lgbt Q rights, for welfare, and for

932
01:07:35,560 --> 01:07:38,439
Speaker 1: reproductive rights, which of course she had been harping on

933
01:07:38,800 --> 01:07:42,200
Speaker 1: throughout her anti e r A camp, even though she

934
01:07:42,280 --> 01:07:47,320
Speaker 1: has a gay son. Oh yeah, her gay son was outed.

935
01:07:47,360 --> 01:07:50,720
Speaker 1: I'm not a fan of people outing people at all. Um.

936
01:07:50,960 --> 01:07:56,680
Speaker 1: I understand the attraction to wanting to out Philish Lafley's son, um.

937
01:07:56,800 --> 01:08:00,920
Speaker 1: But yeah, one of her sons who lived at least

938
01:08:00,920 --> 01:08:02,760
Speaker 1: like at the time it was reported, he was still

939
01:08:02,960 --> 01:08:08,200
Speaker 1: living with Fred and Phillis and was still, you know,

940
01:08:08,320 --> 01:08:13,360
Speaker 1: dedicated to the conservative cause. And Phillis kind of had

941
01:08:13,400 --> 01:08:17,240
Speaker 1: to hedge her love for her child and her versus

942
01:08:17,280 --> 01:08:22,760
Speaker 1: her hatred for homosexuals and their agenda. Oh yes, the

943
01:08:22,800 --> 01:08:28,840
Speaker 1: homosexual agenda, Yeah, which I just imagined, like, you know,

944
01:08:29,479 --> 01:08:32,920
Speaker 1: you can buy it at office deepo. I think it smoothie. Yeah.

945
01:08:32,960 --> 01:08:35,519
Speaker 1: They now have an app they get agenda. You can

946
01:08:35,560 --> 01:08:38,240
Speaker 1: just have it on your phone's like a calendar perfect,

947
01:08:38,880 --> 01:08:42,960
Speaker 1: it's really colorful. And she would continue though throughout the

948
01:08:43,000 --> 01:08:47,519
Speaker 1: rest of her life to maintain that women were that

949
01:08:47,840 --> 01:08:55,080
Speaker 1: privileged class, and she offered advice on NPR in two Women, saying,

950
01:08:55,160 --> 01:09:00,920
Speaker 1: just remember American women are so fortunate. Oh yeah, and

951
01:09:00,960 --> 01:09:02,680
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, I mean, I guess relatively in the

952
01:09:02,720 --> 01:09:08,400
Speaker 1: grand scheme of global privileges. Well, her version of fortunate

953
01:09:09,040 --> 01:09:13,320
Speaker 1: is that she always praises men right after she says

954
01:09:13,360 --> 01:09:15,960
Speaker 1: that we're so fortunate because we have all these brilliant

955
01:09:16,000 --> 01:09:20,919
Speaker 1: men who invented all of this brilliant technology that allowed

956
01:09:21,040 --> 01:09:25,480
Speaker 1: us to easily wash our clothes, and we got disposable diapers,

957
01:09:26,000 --> 01:09:29,640
Speaker 1: and you have all these conveniences that I didn't have

958
01:09:29,800 --> 01:09:33,959
Speaker 1: growing up, and so comparatively, women are just so fortunate,

959
01:09:34,000 --> 01:09:36,839
Speaker 1: and you just need to remember that and don't victimize yourself.

960
01:09:37,280 --> 01:09:40,920
Speaker 1: And a few years earlier to The New York Times,

961
01:09:40,920 --> 01:09:43,920
Speaker 1: she had said, feminism has changed the way women think,

962
01:09:44,240 --> 01:09:46,360
Speaker 1: and it's changed the way men think. But the trouble

963
01:09:46,479 --> 01:09:49,160
Speaker 1: is it hasn't changed the attitude of babies at all.

964
01:09:49,560 --> 01:09:52,160
Speaker 1: And so that of course is hearkening to her whole

965
01:09:52,479 --> 01:09:58,639
Speaker 1: feminism violates the laws of nature. Like babies no better babies, boy,

966
01:09:58,680 --> 01:10:05,120
Speaker 1: babies know that they should be baby breadwinners, babies knowing

967
01:10:05,160 --> 01:10:10,240
Speaker 1: on some bread um. And the funny thing that you know,

968
01:10:10,439 --> 01:10:12,160
Speaker 1: if you haven't picked up on the theme of this

969
01:10:12,240 --> 01:10:17,120
Speaker 1: episode yet, the funny thing that former now president Karen

970
01:10:17,160 --> 01:10:22,639
Speaker 1: Dacrow pointed out in night one was that no matter

971
01:10:22,800 --> 01:10:27,040
Speaker 1: the words that came out of Philish Lapley's mouth, she

972
01:10:28,479 --> 01:10:32,880
Speaker 1: was a liberated woman. And as Dacrow says, she sets

973
01:10:32,880 --> 01:10:35,120
Speaker 1: out to do something and she does it. To me,

974
01:10:35,200 --> 01:10:41,639
Speaker 1: that's liberation. Oh yeah, And she also spotted the gender

975
01:10:41,680 --> 01:10:48,519
Speaker 1: inequalities that feminism still seeks to uproot. UM. At one point,

976
01:10:48,560 --> 01:10:53,519
Speaker 1: in response to that really harsh blow that she took

977
01:10:53,680 --> 01:10:57,840
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty seven when she lost her bid for

978
01:10:58,080 --> 01:11:04,320
Speaker 1: the National Federation of her Publican Women presidency um, she said, quote,

979
01:11:04,560 --> 01:11:07,200
Speaker 1: the Republican Party is carried on the shoulders of the

980
01:11:07,200 --> 01:11:10,240
Speaker 1: women who do the work in the precincts, ringing doorbells,

981
01:11:10,280 --> 01:11:14,919
Speaker 1: distributing literature, and doing all the tiresome, repetitious campaign tasks.

982
01:11:15,439 --> 01:11:17,960
Speaker 1: Many men in the party frankly want to keep the

983
01:11:17,960 --> 01:11:20,559
Speaker 1: women doing the menial work, Like if that is not

984
01:11:22,560 --> 01:11:27,559
Speaker 1: something that that should then be followed via a statement

985
01:11:27,560 --> 01:11:31,439
Speaker 1: of feminist support. I don't know what is. And that's

986
01:11:31,479 --> 01:11:36,760
Speaker 1: the confounding thing about philish La. She she encountered sexism,

987
01:11:36,800 --> 01:11:39,040
Speaker 1: and you know she knew it was sexism because she's

988
01:11:39,080 --> 01:11:42,479
Speaker 1: calling it out right there, recognizing that here are the

989
01:11:42,520 --> 01:11:45,760
Speaker 1: women in the trenches doing all of this grassroots organizing

990
01:11:46,120 --> 01:11:52,320
Speaker 1: that ultimately has revolutionized American political culture. Look at Donald

991
01:11:52,320 --> 01:11:57,680
Speaker 1: Trump today. And yet she's saying, but you know, the

992
01:11:57,760 --> 01:11:59,800
Speaker 1: dudes don't want to acknowledge it. They just want to

993
01:11:59,840 --> 01:12:03,160
Speaker 1: keep this in the corner. Yeah, Phyllis is far from stupid.

994
01:12:03,479 --> 01:12:07,799
Speaker 1: This woman is not dumb. She's incredibly brilliant and incredibly driven,

995
01:12:08,040 --> 01:12:14,280
Speaker 1: and she is just driven down a different path. Yeah,

996
01:12:14,360 --> 01:12:16,840
Speaker 1: I mean. And and the moral of this story is

997
01:12:17,880 --> 01:12:22,280
Speaker 1: a remember that women are not a monolith. Smart women

998
01:12:22,520 --> 01:12:26,360
Speaker 1: are not a monolith, you know. And also, as she

999
01:12:27,040 --> 01:12:31,519
Speaker 1: always likes to say, they never took me seriously, Like

1000
01:12:31,560 --> 01:12:34,360
Speaker 1: everyone always underestimated her when she was starting out in

1001
01:12:34,439 --> 01:12:37,960
Speaker 1: her A Choice not an Echo era, when she was

1002
01:12:38,040 --> 01:12:40,479
Speaker 1: just on the fringes with this, you know, this little

1003
01:12:40,560 --> 01:12:45,840
Speaker 1: group of ultra conservatives, and she was like that, you know,

1004
01:12:45,840 --> 01:12:49,439
Speaker 1: they didn't see what was coming. And she's she's proud

1005
01:12:49,479 --> 01:12:53,000
Speaker 1: of that, you know, because she she kind of put

1006
01:12:53,000 --> 01:12:56,200
Speaker 1: one over on us because we were we were so

1007
01:12:56,320 --> 01:13:00,720
Speaker 1: quick too. I think liberals were so quick to ride

1008
01:13:00,760 --> 01:13:04,799
Speaker 1: off all of a sudden this who's this housewife? And

1009
01:13:04,960 --> 01:13:07,280
Speaker 1: look what she did? She was a wolf and housewife

1010
01:13:07,320 --> 01:13:14,360
Speaker 1: clothing who, like you said, completely changed American politics. And

1011
01:13:14,800 --> 01:13:17,720
Speaker 1: I think the final words we have to leave on

1012
01:13:17,960 --> 01:13:22,679
Speaker 1: our Philish Laughley talking to makers saying I always thought

1013
01:13:22,720 --> 01:13:25,919
Speaker 1: I could do whatever I wanted to do. What's the problem?

1014
01:13:27,840 --> 01:13:31,160
Speaker 1: And the what's the problem? Essentially, she's asking that to

1015
01:13:31,240 --> 01:13:34,519
Speaker 1: society of like, where where's the sexism? And that I

1016
01:13:34,600 --> 01:13:36,800
Speaker 1: could do what I wanted to do? And she did.

1017
01:13:37,760 --> 01:13:43,360
Speaker 1: And I think it behooves us to not underestimate the

1018
01:13:43,600 --> 01:13:47,800
Speaker 1: ripple effect that this woman is still having and will

1019
01:13:47,840 --> 01:13:53,760
Speaker 1: continue to have. So listeners, Caroline, by the way, is

1020
01:13:54,040 --> 01:13:56,200
Speaker 1: I think it's going to have to recover from from

1021
01:13:56,240 --> 01:14:00,320
Speaker 1: this episode? Um, because she's a lot to she's a

1022
01:14:00,320 --> 01:14:04,040
Speaker 1: lot to fathom, UM, and she's a she's disappointing, really,

1023
01:14:04,080 --> 01:14:07,920
Speaker 1: I mean she's she's a terribly disappointing woman to read about. Um.

1024
01:14:07,960 --> 01:14:11,400
Speaker 1: If you're sitting where we are, so now, listeners, we

1025
01:14:11,400 --> 01:14:13,400
Speaker 1: want to hear from you. What do you think about

1026
01:14:13,439 --> 01:14:20,400
Speaker 1: Philish laughlely, her influence and her connection to Donald Trump today?

1027
01:14:20,439 --> 01:14:27,120
Speaker 1: And can we ever undo the damage done by Philish Laughly. Honestly,

1028
01:14:27,200 --> 01:14:29,680
Speaker 1: I think the answer is no. But listeners, perhaps you

1029
01:14:29,720 --> 01:14:32,040
Speaker 1: are less cynical than I. Let us know your thoughts.

1030
01:14:32,080 --> 01:14:34,840
Speaker 1: Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com is our

1031
01:14:34,880 --> 01:14:37,439
Speaker 1: email address. You can also tweet us at mom Stuff

1032
01:14:37,479 --> 01:14:40,720
Speaker 1: podcast or message us on Facebook. And we've got a

1033
01:14:40,720 --> 01:14:43,040
Speaker 1: couple of messages to share with you when we come

1034
01:14:43,120 --> 01:14:46,439
Speaker 1: right back from a quick break. And now back to

1035
01:14:46,479 --> 01:14:55,080
Speaker 1: the show. All right, Um well, I have a letter

1036
01:14:55,160 --> 01:15:00,799
Speaker 1: here from Kim in response to our Minstrel Cup episode. Um.

1037
01:15:00,880 --> 01:15:03,280
Speaker 1: She says, I started using the Keeper in two thousand

1038
01:15:03,360 --> 01:15:06,200
Speaker 1: after hearing about it from a coworker in the United

1039
01:15:06,240 --> 01:15:10,000
Speaker 1: States Coast Guard serving on ships. It was difficult to

1040
01:15:10,080 --> 01:15:13,160
Speaker 1: use pads and tampons, as four hour watches did not

1041
01:15:13,400 --> 01:15:16,639
Speaker 1: lend themselves to products lasting more than three or so hours,

1042
01:15:16,720 --> 01:15:19,040
Speaker 1: and not being able to use the restroom in that time,

1043
01:15:19,560 --> 01:15:22,920
Speaker 1: the Keeper was a lifesaver, no pun intended. I had

1044
01:15:22,960 --> 01:15:24,800
Speaker 1: times when I would be on watch for up to

1045
01:15:24,960 --> 01:15:28,040
Speaker 1: twelve hours and not having to worry about an accident

1046
01:15:28,160 --> 01:15:31,479
Speaker 1: was beneficial. I made sure to talk with every woman

1047
01:15:31,560 --> 01:15:35,040
Speaker 1: who was assigned about this wonderful product. It was easy

1048
01:15:35,120 --> 01:15:37,639
Speaker 1: to get over the squick factor after a few times,

1049
01:15:37,680 --> 01:15:40,280
Speaker 1: and not having to carry extra products That up to

1050
01:15:40,360 --> 01:15:44,760
Speaker 1: twelve hours window is the selling point. I used the

1051
01:15:44,840 --> 01:15:49,280
Speaker 1: latex brown version and mine lasted ten years. I replaced

1052
01:15:49,320 --> 01:15:52,479
Speaker 1: it with a silicon version, which, ironically, again no pun intended,

1053
01:15:52,560 --> 01:15:56,960
Speaker 1: turned a similar shade of brown from the blood staining. Anyway,

1054
01:15:57,479 --> 01:16:00,040
Speaker 1: love the podcast, I've learned so much and lad of

1055
01:16:00,240 --> 01:16:03,280
Speaker 1: even more. Keep up the awesome sauce work well thanks

1056
01:16:03,360 --> 01:16:05,920
Speaker 1: Kim so is that why the keeper is brown? Maybe

1057
01:16:05,960 --> 01:16:09,720
Speaker 1: I still maintain it to just be read Well. I

1058
01:16:09,760 --> 01:16:13,519
Speaker 1: have a menstrual cup letter to read from Alison, who wrote,

1059
01:16:14,000 --> 01:16:16,360
Speaker 1: I was so excited to hear your recent podcast on

1060
01:16:16,400 --> 01:16:19,040
Speaker 1: menstrul cups and was fascinated to hear their long and

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01:16:19,120 --> 01:16:22,839
Speaker 1: storied history. I was so disappointed, however, at the comments

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Speaker 1: you received when you posted an article on Facebook about

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Speaker 1: the reasons menstrual cups aren't more popular. There were countless comments,

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01:16:30,400 --> 01:16:33,479
Speaker 1: many for men like gross you. I didn't need to

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01:16:33,479 --> 01:16:35,960
Speaker 1: see that, and I can think of a lot more

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01:16:35,960 --> 01:16:39,640
Speaker 1: than four reasons, and no thanks that made me realize

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Speaker 1: we haven't really come all that far from the days

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Speaker 1: of the red tents. Women's bodies are still seen as dirty,

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Speaker 1: which just makes me sad. And not to get too hyperbolic,

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Speaker 1: but my cup has changed my life. I initially chose

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01:16:52,920 --> 01:16:56,240
Speaker 1: a cup for both environmental reasons and practical reasons. I'm

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Speaker 1: a swimmer and swim instructor, and tampons are just not

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01:16:58,920 --> 01:17:01,280
Speaker 1: always the best choice for long sessions in the pool.

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Speaker 1: I have Endometrios's with severe cramping and was pleasantly surprised

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Speaker 1: to find the cup actually lessened my cramping pretty significantly.

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01:17:11,240 --> 01:17:13,519
Speaker 1: I'm not sure why exactly, but my theory has something

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01:17:13,560 --> 01:17:15,639
Speaker 1: to do with the way the cervix is positioned while

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01:17:15,640 --> 01:17:18,439
Speaker 1: the cup is inserted. To anyone who has tried to

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Speaker 1: cup and not found them to be ideal, please don't

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01:17:21,000 --> 01:17:25,120
Speaker 1: give up. The first cup I tried was too large

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Speaker 1: and too firm, causing painful pressure on both my bladder

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01:17:28,760 --> 01:17:32,040
Speaker 1: and my cervix. I did some research before I bought

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01:17:32,040 --> 01:17:36,639
Speaker 1: my second one, and it's now seriously a perfect solution

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01:17:36,720 --> 01:17:39,240
Speaker 1: to an otherwise painful time of the month for me.

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01:17:39,880 --> 01:17:44,080
Speaker 1: Well thanks for the info, Allison, and yeah, it is

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Speaker 1: always disappointing to see people on social media act like

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Speaker 1: children over something that is a natural bodily function. So listeners,

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01:17:55,280 --> 01:17:57,120
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from you. Mom. Stuff at how

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01:17:57,200 --> 01:17:59,599
Speaker 1: stuffworks dot com is our email address and for links

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Speaker 1: to all of our social media as well as all

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01:18:01,479 --> 01:18:04,200
Speaker 1: of our blogs, videos and podcasts with our sources so

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01:18:04,320 --> 01:18:07,960
Speaker 1: you can learn even more. If you dare about Philish Lapley,

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Speaker 1: head on over to stuff Mom Never Told You dot

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Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

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Speaker 1: VI is it how stuff works dot com