Mrs America (BBC Two) will either kill or cure you. On the one hand, this miniseries about the fight between reactionary author and activist Phyllis Schlafly and the great and good of second-wave feminism will evoke a time when optimism infused the land and progress seemed unstoppable. On the other hand, it reminds us that Schlafly stopped such progress.
An oversimplification, obviously, but this basic duality runs through the nine-part drama and hits the fragile 2020 psyche harder, perhaps, than its makers ever planned. Mrs America – the first concentrated account of Schlafly’s story on screen, I think, and certainly in recent times – shows just how, and why, she managed to mobilise an army of fellow homemakers across the nation against the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA, which is still unpassed 50 years on), a piece of legislation that would have offered women protection from discrimination. That it manages to do so without making her either villainous or venal is testimony to the sophistication of the script (at least once it gets past its early, exposition-heavy stages) and the production’s intent. Like its spiritual predecessor Mad Men (one of whose writers, Dahvi Waller, created this series), its heart lies in showing how we got from there to here, rather than praising or damning individuals.
Schlafly, played by Cate Blanchett – whose air of brittle-edged serenity works perfectly here – is a privileged, frustrated defence and nuclear policy expert, author-turned-model wife, and mother to six children. Despite an unsuccessful bid for Congress, she is still keen to further her political ambitions. Her expertise and connections get her into a meeting with the men seeking to dissuade President Nixon from signing up to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, where they interrupt her contribution to ask that she takenotes instead. It is then that she realises the best – the only – way to get a foot in the door is via an “appropriate” issue for her sex, and pivots to working against the ratification of the ERA. “Some women,” she explains smilingly, “like to blame sexism for their failures instead of admitting they didn’t try hard enough.”
Schlafly’s story, in this telling at least, is an anatomisation of the well-worn tendency of power, or the seeking of it, to corrupt; and more particularly, of what happens to talent and drive when it’s not allowed its full and natural expression. How much anger and overcompensation went into the creation of her Stop (Stop Taking Our Privileges) ERA campaign? And how might the US (and others’) political landscape look today if her appeal to emotion and willingness to extrapolate wildly from germs of fact and truth hadn’t opened up a whole new conservative playbook? It is a question for the ages. Schlafly alienates her beloved sister-in-law, an unhappily unmarried and childless older woman, as she builds support by exulting the status of wife and motherhood, then alienates others when she fails to expel racist Stop chapter leaders who assume the group’s anti-feminism should include anti-black sentiment too.
Alongside Schlafly’s evolution into hardened ideologue is ranged the story of the women and the movement at odds with her. Gloria Steinem (Rose Byrne) is rising through the ranks, while Betty Friedan (Tracey Ullman) is 10 years on from writing The Feminine Mystique and wondering where her momentum went. Bella Abzug (Margo Martindale) is trying to keep her eye on the prize, Jill Ruckelshaus (Elizabeth Banks) is the single rightwing feminist in the inner circle, a heartbreakingly bizarre anomaly, and Shirley Chisholm (Uzo Aduba) is the woman aiming to become the first black, female president of the US.
Their advent, which comes at the end of the first episode, does make the series slightly overwhelming. You long for a red button option that, instead of giving us, as Waller does, an episode or so on each, provides each woman with a whole series. But to long for more from everyone is hardly a criticism of Mrs America as it stands.
It marshals its abundant material brilliantly, reflecting all the besetting sins we still suffer from and for. The divisions that distract the left while the steely-eyed Schlafly and her supporters maintain steady focus on their goal. The temptation to settle for scraps from the rich man’s table rather than try and overturn it. Misogyny in all its forms, internal and external. The complicating factors of class and race, and the blindness – wilful and otherwise – to them. All endure. But Mrs America has a generous heart and is at all times infused with the optimism of the era. But as I say – this, currently, may either kill or cure.
• This article was amended on 9 July 2020 because an earlier version misnamed Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique as The Feminist Mystique.
