Mrs. America

I watched the first three episodes of "Mrs. America" that are available on Hulu and I just LOVED this! Great 1970s vibe in the music & artistic direction & costumes, and I smiled out loud (ha) to see Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan (love Tracey Ullman!), Bella Abzug, and Shirley Chisholm onscreen as characters!
And it is all so relevant to political conversations today, not only abortion and the ERA (fully ratified now but still not passed!), but I especially liked Episode 3 about Chisholm's presidential campaign, calls for "party unity," and the delegates debate leading up to the Democratic national convention in 1972. Chisholm's run was HEROIC in challenging sexism and racism (Does a black woman have any better a chance today? I think we've answered that question.), but Bernie supporters might also definitely relate to that episode... Just sayin'.

Btw, Phyllis Schlafly is not the complete villain here. She is hardly sympathetic in her effort to organize a false battle between housewives and feminism, but she is a complex and paradoxical character, struggling with the limitations of sexism in her own life, marriage, and career, and opportunistically stumbling into anti-ERA activism because that's where people were willing to listen to her. (She aspired to be a foreign policy nuclear arms expert, had a failed Congressional run (but refused to acknowledge that sexism impacted her chances) and when she tells her husband that she also "could have gone to Harvard law school," he reminds her that, No, actually, Harvard didn't admit women at the time Phyllis graduated from college.)

There's a great scene at the end of the third episode that provides a visual of Schlafly's intense desire for stability and security: But it's up to the viewers to conclude whether that is because she's a socially conservative Republican? or because she's a mother of three teenaged sons while the Vietnam War rages on the news every night (her main argument against the ERA was that daughters would also be drafted)? or because she's a woman and a 1970s housewife with no income or power of her own? (In earlier scenes, Schlafly's husband has to sign a credit card application for her (the law at that time), is upset when she flies to Washington and leaves the 6 kids behind *for the day,* and she worries about her own elderly mother running out of money, first dependent on her own husband and now dependent on her son-in-law.)

Watch it!