Cate Blanchett Talks Phyllis Schlafly and Producing 'Mrs. America' for Harper's Bazaar UK
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Armani Privé dress, Van Cleef & Arpels ring. Cate Blanchett by Tom Munro for Harper’s Bazaar UK December 2019.
Australian actor Cate Blanchett covers the December 2019 Harper’s Bazaar UK ‘Women of the Year’ issue, dressed exclusively in Armani Privé . Blanchett is lensed by Tom Munro and interviewed by Lydia Slater about her work as a “powerful advocate for the rights of women around the world, be they underrepresented film-makers or refugee mothers.”
Blanchett Plays Phyllis Schlafly in Mrs. America
In a role that’s certain to disturb millions of women across America including me, Blanchett spent the summer in Toronto, producing and starring in ‘Mrs. America’. Blanchett plays Phyllis Schlafly, the anti-feminist campaigner who literally stopped the ratification of America’s Equal Rights Amendment in its tracks. Schlafly argued that the ERA would remove special privileges enjoyed by women, forcing us to use co-ed bathrooms and be drafted into the military.
Slater writes: “Schlafly’s campaign is said to have profoundly damaged the women’s liberation movement; as for the Amendment itself, it is yet to be passed.” (Slater is correct, but we expect final ratification and a Supreme Court court fight soon, now that the state of Virginia swung heavily to the Democrats in their November 2019 state house elections. This final ratification exceeds the comparatively short amount of time allocated to pass it decades ago. Now the US Supreme Court will be called upon to decide the fate of the ERA, and AOC will issue a separate update.)
Armani Privé SUIT, CARTIER JEWELRY.. Cate Blanchett by Tom Munro for Harper’s Bazaar UK December 2019.
Slater shares a similar response about Schlafly:
It seems an unexpected choice of part, given Blanchett’s long-standing commitment to promoting women’s rights. She has spoken out about the #MeToo and Time’s Up campaigns, and as president of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival last year, led a protest of 82 women in the industry – including Emma Watson and Kristen Stewart– representing the total number of female directors whose work has been screened in competition there (compared with more than 1,600 men). "I’m never interested in portraying myself," Blanchett tells me, when I finally manage to catch up with her at New York Fashion Week, where she is attending an event. "For me, selfishly, it’s always about trying to understand someone else’s perspective. Often the further from my own experience and my set of values, the more fascinating it is. And the only way we can move forward is to learn from history."
Reflecting on the success of Phyllis Schlafly in derailing the ERA, Blanchett ponders the complexity around making ‘Mrs. America’: "I was fascinated as to why the women’s movement burst through onto the streets," she says. "You felt the world was expanding and growing and changing, and voices that had previously been dismissed were being heard in the corridors of power. But why did that bubble burst in the 1980s and this amazing backlash happen? I’ve always been interested in that area of history. I think it’s really important to fold in the lessons learnt from second-wave feminism."
Armani Privé dress, Van Cleef & Arpels Jewelry. Cate Blanchett by Tom Munro for Harper’s Bazaar UK December 2019.
Blanchett articulates the very issues that haunt many of us — especially those of us who worked ourselves to the bone in the 2016 presidential election — only to see the electoral college elect Donald Trump as president. Small, rural states in America have a disproportionate amount of political influence, so that a vote in Kentucky is worth more than a vote in New York state. (Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.1%, just shy of 3 million votes. Phyllis Schlafly’s memory looms large in Trumplandia, creating the fault-line between today’s Republican and Democratic women.
"We’re still talking about same-sex restrooms, we’re still talking about women in the military, we’re still talking about reproductive freedom. And how many years ago was that? It really has been Groundhog Day,” Blanchett reflects about the bitter truth among American women.
Blanchett digs deeper still in her Harper’s UK interview. Read on.
Sign the petiton here
Such a simple, straightforward statement: Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” If race, were substituted for ‘sex’, meaning gender — presumably a human being deemed to be female — most Americans would think twice about refusing to support this amendment.
Surveys suggest that the vast majority of Americans aren’t refusing to accept the ERA — no matter what right-wing zealots tell us. If reality, most United States citizens believe that women do have equal protection under the law. Boy are they wrong!!! Not only do women NOT have equal protection under the law, but Republicans in Congress are hell-bent on turning back the rights that women have won in the last 40 years.
“Don’t worry,” you say, ” the Supreme Court has already given American women their rights. They can’t be reversed.” Wrong there, too. And several prominent conservative justices remind us that American women have NO rights under the Constitution. Zippo! We were right there with the slaves and American Indians. Kaput on the subject of Constitutional rights! I’ll walk you through that horrifying news in a few.
Anne of Carversville will be covering the Equal Rights Amendment that American women don’t have all week. Why? Because given all the complexities of the Republican War on Women, there is no longer any doubt in the minds of the vast majority of Americans that Republicans intend to send us packing back where we belong. That would be on the original homestead and not hard at work.
Ludicrous, you say? Yes, well it was pretty ludicrous that 10 Republican women launched a bill to make it a felony for a 15 year-old victim of incest who was impregnated by her father to get a legal abortion last week. They weren’t crying foul on the abortion, which remains legal in New Mexico. No, no. The daughter would be destroying evidence needed for the prosecution — even though the vast majority of rapists and perpetrators of incest never see a courtroom.
Time for ERA Action
It’s time to take a stand for the Equal Rights Amendment, and I’m asking you gals and guys to hustle your beautiful, socially-conscious derrieres over to this White House petition and sign it. The petition reads:
Vigorously support women’s rights by fully engaging in efforts to ratify the 1972 Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
I spent about eight hours this weekend, reading legal opinions about the ERA. We’ll address all the issues in the coming days. There is no doubt that if just three more states pass the ERA, there is a VERY STRONG CASE for VICTORY! Will it go all the way to the Supreme Court? Yes. But major legal precedents say that the ERA will hold — no matter what right winger Phyllis Schlafly tells you. When you hear her talk below to the Arkansas state elected officials charged with moving the amendment forward in the state legislature, you will be astounded that this speech turned what was perceived to be a positive ERA tide in Arkansas against ratification.
Sign the petiton here
History of the ERA
In events that demonstrate the determined power of one woman in America, arch social conservative and epic feminist-hater Phyllis Schlafly hit the road, broadcasting the stern message that an Equal Rights Amendment would result in military conscription for 18-year-old girls, homosexual rights and — I am dead serious — co-ed bathrooms.
Having used co-ed bathrooms all over the world without seeing any men peeing in the urinal or their bare butts in plain sight, I found this argument of Schlafly’s to be the most demeaning to human intelligence of all. Seriously — America’s women don’t deserve the status of women in other countries because we would be forced to share bathrooms with men.
ERA Bathrooms, Republicans and Pornography
If you’ll forgive me for saying so, there is something really creepy about a mind that approaches women’s rights within this psychological framework of analysis, BUT it is a hallmark of social conservatives. I’m thinking of L Brent Bozell III, who spends his days examining photos for evidence of pubic hair, so he can call magazines pornographic and raise a big stink.
What adds insult to injury here is that — hands down — conservatives in red states buy more pornography, based on their IP addresses and credit card info. But ideology — not actions — means everything to conservatives who excel at putting up a pious front while shaking their fingers at the rest of us: “naughty, naughty”.
Harvard’s Professor Edelman reported in his porn subscription survey that states that pass anti-gay legislation buy 11% more porn.
So put your wagging finger in your pocket, Mr. and Mrs. right-wing, anti-rights for women, haters of educated women, unionized women and god forbid — anyone who has a civil service job — and let’s talk turkey on women’s rights.
Only in America is education perceived to be a threat to the future security of the nation.
America’s Alleged Christian Tradition of Chivalry
In announcing her opposition to the ERA decades ago, Schlafly argued that it would take away the “special protection” of the “Christian tradition of chivalry” offered to women. Say what??? Schlafly’s opposition to an Equal Rights Amendment is grounded in her beliefs that American women have the “right” to be “supported and protected” by men. You heard me right, guys.