The National Federation of Republican Women infamously used dirty tactics to push Phyllis Schlafly out in 1967 for being a fearlessly authentic conservative. Biographer Carol Felsenthal recounted how at the time of Phyllis’s bid for the coveted position of NFRW president, “Schlafly was better known nationally than any other woman in the Federation. She had been traveling all over the country making speeches at the rate of three a week. The typical NFRW woman – a conservative – loved her.” Yet, because of Phyllis’s groundbreaking contribution to the candidacy of Barry Goldwater in 1964, the men of the RNC conspired with liberals in the women’s organization to silence Phyllis.
All these years later, the National Federation of Republican Women is once again disgracing our conservative movement. This time, they are doing so by allowing biological men to join their ranks. A bylaw amendment was proposed by the grassroots to require that membership be extended only to actual women, not to men who claim to be women via transgenderism. Much like the candidacy of Phyllis Schlafly, this grassroots effort was denied by NFRW leadership.
NFRW president Eileen Sobjack explained that the National Federation of Republican Women can’t be just for women, because that would open the organization up to a lawsuit. We must ask ourselves the same question Phyllis must have been asking herself in 1967: If Republicans won’t stand for truth, who will? If even the party’s official ladies’ auxiliary trembles in fear before leftist bullies, how can conservatives expect school districts, churches, states, and businesses throughout the country not to do the same?
There is still hope in the midst of this troubling turn of events. The 1967 stonewalling of Phyllis Schlafly brought about the Phyllis Schlafly Report, the flagship publication that for many years was the sole voice for the conservative grassroots activist in a sea of hostile media. She became a grassroots champion more powerful than the NFRW ever was or ever has been. Good can come from even the worst of circumstances, but it is up to us to think like Phyllis and always bounce back.
