--- title: Phyllis Schlafly Dead: Who She Was and How Her Legacy Echoes description: The conservative activist has died at the age of 92—but many of the ideas she held will likely be debated throughout the election season canonical: https://time.com/4480208/phyllis-schlafly-election-history/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-09-06T18:03:02.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T00:25:01.691Z article:section: History og:title: Who Was Phyllis Schlafly? og:description: The conservative activist has died at the age of 92 og:url: https://time.com/4480208/phyllis-schlafly-election-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta9abb7113213fe38/6988a4f0524fc04863df9643/schlafly.jpeg?branch=production&width=665&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 665 og:image:height: 374 og:image:alt: Phyllis Schlafly og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Who Was Phyllis Schlafly? twitter:description: The conservative activist has died at the age of 92 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta9abb7113213fe38/6988a4f0524fc04863df9643/schlafly.jpeg?branch=production&width=665&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What You Should Know About Phyllis Schlafly > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. by [Ryan Teague Beckwith](https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/) ## Ryan Teague Beckwith Sep 6, 2016 6:03 PM UTC  Phyllis Schlafly speaks on Apr. 25, 1981 Phyllis Schlafly speaks on Apr. 25, 1981 Dave Buresh—Denver Post / Getty Images by [Ryan Teague Beckwith](https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/) ## Ryan Teague Beckwith Sep 6, 2016 6:03 PM UTC Phyllis Schlafly famously argued for “a choice not an echo,” but there are echoes of her legacy as a grassroots conservative firebrand on both sides of the 2016 presidential campaign. In one of her final political moments, the founder of the conservative Eagle Forum, who [died Monday](http://time.com/4479636/obit-phyllis-schlafly/) at the age of 92, [endorsed Republican nominee Donald Trump](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/03/11/phyllis-schlafly-endorses-trump-in-st-louis/) at a rally in St. Louis in March, [leading to an internal fight](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/04/11/phyllis-schlafly-endorses-trump-then-faces-coup/) with some of her successors. At the same time, Schlafly’s biography might sound familiar to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. A daughter of the Midwest with a law degree, once called “the first lady of the conservative movement,” she was heavily criticized by her opponents, who saw her as coasting on her husband’s success. As TIME pointed out in a 1978 [profile](http://time.com/vault/issue/1978-07-03/page/20/), she put herself through college with a job testing machine guns before getting a master’s at Radcliffe and a job editing a conservative paper. She married a wealthy lawyer and became involved in politics, [attracting early attention from TIME Magazine](http://time.com/vault/issue/1967-05-12/page/29/) in 1967 when she ran unsuccessfully for presidency of the National Federation of Republican Women. Her opponents took notice of her six children, noting “with quiet satisfaction, any responsible mother with all those children ought to be home with her family.” She wrote the bestseller _A Choice Not an Echo,_ in support of Barry Goldwater’s 1964 run for the presidency, and ran for Congress unsuccessfully. But it was her opposition to the [Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)](http://time.com/4010569/womens-equality-day-equal-rights/), the ill-fated attempt to guarantee female equality in the Constitution, that really made her famous, as TIME [reported](http://time.com/vault/issue/1973-02-19/page/30/) in 1973: --- > “” --- Her reasoning? The amendment, she argued, would have hurt women rather than helping them, by eliminating such protections as the right to alimony and exemption from the draft. “Women already enjoy superior rights,” she [was known](http://time.com/vault/issue/1977-04-25/page/115/) to say. [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter) That 1978 [profile](http://time.com/vault/issue/1978-07-03/page/20/) noted what some saw as the contradiction in Schlafly campaigning against equal rights for women while leading a less-than-traditional life, a view that Schlafly herself did not share: --- > “” --- No matter what her detractors said, her work paid off: the window to ratify the ERA closed without enough states signing on. And even in victory, Schlafly kept her knives sharp, as a 1982 [piece](http://time.com/vault/issue/1982-07-12/page/42/) on the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment noted: she rejoiced that the ERA was “dead for now and forever in this century” and called the amendment’s supporters “con men” and “vicious people.” Throughout the rest of her life, she would continue to campaign, [against](http://time.com/vault/issue/1987-03-23/page/28/) programs like safe-sex instruction in schools, the [gay rights movement](http://time.com/vault/issue/1993-04-26/page/25/) (even after her son came out) and anti-harassment measures. “Sexual harassment on the job is not a problem for virtuous women,” she [said](http://time.com/vault/issue/1981-05-04/page/37/) in 1981, one of her many lines that could have fit neatly in a tweet, if such a thing had existed at the time. One of those digs, a line she used back in 1967 against her older opponent for the leadership of the National Federation of Republican Women, is perhaps most fitting today, as her campaign ends but her [legacy](http://time.com/vault/issue/1967-05-12/page/29/) continues. “Old war horses,” she was quoted as saying, “must fade away as old soldiers do, and give in to the younger ones.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4480208/phyllis-schlafly-election-history/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4480208/phyllis-schlafly-election-history/"},"headline":"What You Should Know About Phyllis Schlafly","datePublished":"2016-09-06T18:03:02.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T00:25:01.691Z","description":"The conservative activist has died at the age of 92","url":"https://time.com/4480208/phyllis-schlafly-election-history/","keywords":["politics","remembrance","People"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta9abb7113213fe38/6988a4f0524fc04863df9643/schlafly.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ryan Teague Beckwith","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta9abb7113213fe38/6988a4f0524fc04863df9643/schlafly.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Phyllis Schlafly","caption":"APR 25 1981, APR 26 1981; Phyllis Schlafly; A leading advocate against the passage of the ERA.;","creditText":"Dave Buresh—Denver Post / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/politics/","name":"politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4480208/phyllis-schlafly-election-history/","name":"What You Should Know About Phyllis Schlafly"}}]}] ```