Characters / Mrs America The Main Characters

Main Character Index | The Main Characters | Schlafly Family | STOP ERA | Feminists | Families And Lovers | Other Characters

The main cast of Mrs. America. Beware of spoilers.

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STOP ERA

Phyllis Schlafly

Phyllis Schlafly

Played By: Cate Blanchett

A former candidate for Congress, a devout mother of six, founder of the Eagle Forum, and Right Wing figure and activist who starts the counter-movement to the Women's Liberation Movement to further her own ambitions.

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• '50s Hair: From what we see of Phyllis's old book cover of A Choice, Not An Echo, she had this style in 1964.
• '60s Hair: Has a hairdo that is a cross between an artichoke and beehive, think Joan Holloway if she was a religious right-winger.
• '70s Hair: Her hair still carries a bit of the 1960s beehive updo, although slightly frizzled and over-sprayed.
• The Ace: Phyllis is accomplished, educated (a Master's degree at the beginning of the series), knowledgeable about foreign policy, savvy, well-connected in contrast to the less confident and naive housewives she has befriended.
  Alice: We met at a parent-teacher conference years ago. Our sons were in the same class. I could still remember when Phyllis came in, she looked so different from the rest of us and maybe not different, just a better version, if you know what I mean.
• Alpha Bitch: As Alice described Phyllis in the above quote, she is very impressive compared to the women in her circles and she does prefer being around women who are much more meeker, submissive, and ignorant rather than women who are equally intelligent, confident, or savvy, this is especially evident when she fumes after her friend Ann tells her about how she helped get the ERA rejected in Oklahoma "thanks to your little letter" as if she can't believe that Ann would outperform her.
  • Academic Alpha Bitch: Along with her snooty attitude and domineering femininity, Phyllis was also a excelling student and has both a Master's degree and a law degree in contrast to the other women who have Bachelor's degrees (Lottie Beth and Rosemary) or married out of high school (Pamela and Alice).
• Ambition is Evil: She wants more influence in foreign policy but her male colleagues don't take her seriously enough despite she being as knowledgeable, if not more, and takes on fighting the ERA as a cause to be taken seriously by her sexist colleagues and any attention she gets she will dismiss the concerns of "her ladies" in favor of gaining influence. At the end, after giving the Reagan campaign her mailing list and winning the White House, she is rejected from any position in the administration.
• The Beautiful Elite: Tall, classy, beautiful, "teeny teeny like Cheryl Tiegs", and wealthy enough to have a maid and cook to take care of the house while she works and maintains an exercise regimen to maintain a bikini-ready figure.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Taken up to eleven in the finale. By this time she has turned away from everyone from political allies (like Phil Crane when working for Reagan), the image of a traditional wife (when she contradicts Fred in front of Reagan's men to get a position), from friends (Rosemary is no longer friendly with her, Alice has turned away from Phyllis altogether, Phyllis encouraged Pamela to stay in an abusive marriage, and Lottie Beth was more her enemy's enemy), and her sister-in-law (who she snubs in public when boasting about her six kids she claimed to have raised when Eleanor did most of the nurturing and supervision). She doesn't achieve her goal in the end.
• Education Mama: Played with and Deconstructed. In "Phyllis & Fred & Brenda & Marc" she is pushing her sons, especially Bruce, to take the LSATS for law school so they follow in their father's footsteps. It is more obvious that she wants to achieve her ambitions vicariously through them and later takes law school classes herself (given that she took Bruce's LSATS).
• False Friend: Phyllis acts as this to Alice, Pamela, and Rosemary and it's clear she likes being around women who follow her lead and make her feel superior (as most of them are less educated and ambitious than she). She manipulates Alice into confronting a racist follower and makes her look foolish and she openly makes references to Rosemary being ridiculous.
• Female Misogynist: As Aron Kay said before he pied her in the face, she's "a traitor to your sex" who works against the progression of women's legal and social rights and has a negative view of working women, victims of harassment and rape, and battered women (like Pamela). She also goes for insulting women for not being married or beautiful and prefers to be around women who aren't likely to challenge her.
• Feminine Women Can Cook: Zig-zagged. One of her boasts against the Feminist Movement, as she poses as a traditional housewife, and she can cook but prefers to have Willie prepare meals (and it's implied that she had Willie bake the anti-ERA breads and prepared the jams). At the end of the series after being rejected by Reagan, she dejectedly starts to prepare dinner and is last seen peeling apples.
• Historical Beauty Upgrade: The pleasant-looking suburban matron Phyllis Schlafly is depicted here by Ms. Fanservice Cate Blanchett.
• Hypocrite: She is a right wing woman who believes that women should stay in their traditional roles and looks down on women making progress in their legal and social rights but is very educated with a Master's degree (even going to school for a law degree) and an accomplished lobbyist and political candidate.
• Irony: An accomplished woman who campaigns against an amendment that would help different women for the sake of traditional values, is ambitious and deals with sexism from the men she wants to join or have them take her seriously.
• It's All About Me: She becomes more and more selfish throughout the series. First her involvement against the ERA was to gain more clout amongst the mostly-male circle of ultra-right wingers in politics and then she starts disregarding her friends, allies, and even her husband.
• Lady in a Power Suit: When she is in Washington or conducting STOP ERA business, she is often wearing a structured two piece suit with a high neckline blouse (often with a pussy bow) in different colors.
• Not Like Other Girls: She is a middle-aged version of this that is deconstructed. She is more educated and knowledgeable about nuclear arms, the military, and politics than the average housewife which is a source of pride for her. She scoffs at how women complain about their experience with sexism as "not trying hard enough" despite dealing with discrimination herself and knowing that she, for all her brilliance, wouldn't have been allowed to attend most Ivy League colleges in her youth because of her gender.
  They would have made an exception for me.
• Nothing Nice About Sugar and Spice: She is noted to fit the ideal of femininity (beautiful, slim, a sometimes housewife, blonde, well-dressed in ruffles and skirts and pearls) and proud of it, but she reveals a very ugly, selfish, bigoted Anti Hero streak throughout the show.
• Obnoxious Entitled Housewife: Whoo boy. She is egocentric, frustrated in her unfulfilled ambition, a Moral Guardian, very critical of women who don't fit her narrow worldview, and explains her actions as "defending the American Family".
• Pink Is Feminine: She often wears this color in many shades, like "Dusty Rose" or Salmon or a pastel color. Phil Crane lampshades this when he scoffs about how Phyllis wouldn't fit in with the feminists in D.C. because she is wearing a dress and it's pink.
• Psychological Projection: After debate practice with Fred where he makes Phyllis so nervous that she starts crying, she then takes her frustrations out on the aquaphobic Anne, forcing her to jump into the pool with her claiming she won't let her daughter give into fear.
• Stepford Smiler: As Alice pointed out, anytime someone confronts her on her actions or behavior she avoids it, even choosing to make the other person feel small and silly. Phyllis is all about maintaining a picture-perfect image of respectability and beauty, even boasting that she can still fit into her wedding dress even after having six children.
• Troubled Sympathetic Bigot: Aside from the series deliberately leaving aside her pre-series support of segregationist domestic laws, Phyllis is a homophobic misogynist who feels self-righteous in her Catholic faith. She is also shown to struggle with sexism from her husband and male peers in right wing politics and possibly traumatized by her mother needing to step up as a breadwinner when her father couldn't (or wouldn't) work or accept government assistance.
• True Blue Femininity: She wears this color about as often as pink, like when she starts recruiting housewives for her anti-ERA campaign or goes to the Illinois capitol and even she hears from Ronald Reagan that he won't be appointing her to his cabinet and she starts preparing dinner sadly.
• With Friends Like These...: She is friends with Ann and Rosemary but clearly doesn't respect them while she prefers Pamela and Alice to be unquestioning of her and invalidates their objections or feelings. She can also be quite rude and controlling with them, like with Alice before the "Pro Family" rally.
  Phyllis: You should fix your face.
• Wrench Wench: During World War II, she was a gunner and ballistics technician during her school nights.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: A non-lethal example. For all of the support she showed Ronald Reagan during his campaign, he's told that having someone like her in his cabinet team would hurt his image in the eyes of female voters, so he ditches her the minute he wins the election.

Alice Macray

Alice Macray

Played By: Sarah Paulson

A sheltered, conservative and religious housewife and longtime friend of Phyllis who fears losing her status as a treasured wife to the advances of the Feminist Movement and the Equal Rights Amendment.

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• '60s Hair: She starts the series with a blown out and shiny, but still flipped hairdo that requires curlers.
• '70s Hair: She starts the series with her hair still in that 1960s flip with a extensive preparation of curlers but it is long and glossy, as fashionable for the decade. She then ends the series with a shorter and less high-maintenance sleek bob as a nod to the decade ending and of her Character Development.
• Absurdly Youthful Mother: She doesn't look to be past her forties and starts the series as the mother of three children, the eldest being away in the armed forces, and ends the series as a grandmother of little boys. Justified as she married at 19 and being a devout Catholic, might have had John by her 21st birthday.
• Armour-Piercing Question: She puts this out to her peers after a night where she wondered around the convention and got involved in several activities with the younger feminists (including a sing-along of Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land"), being exposed to the issues faced by lesbian and minority women, and observing Gloria Steinem's calm and cooperative leadership during a meeting with feminists of color.
  I came here to defend myself, but I have to ask: who is attacking us?
• Armor-Piercing Response: When Alice admits that having a paying job is empowering, Phyllis comments that Alice used to feel empowered by Phyllis promoting the traditional role of homemaker, Alice then replied that "I used to feel scared."
• Beware the Nice Ones: She is a sweet housewife...who fights against the expansion of rights to women and queer people. Phyllis is later found on the receiving end of Alice's Tranquil Fury.
• Book Dumb: She admits she isn't much of a reader, likely due to her disability, but she has a knack for organization and for memorizing speeches and recipes.
• Broken Pedestal: In the beginning she placed Phyllis on a pedestal for being more sophisticated, confident, having outside interests and a career, and educated. Then she saw how Phyllis was so willing to make compromises with virulent racists for her influence, how she is willing to put Alice in positions where she'd be made to look foolish, her cowardice, selfishness, pettiness, and cruelty to unfortunate women like Pamela and calls her out on everything at the gala.
  Alice: When did you get to be so mean?
• Character Development: She starts the series as a shy, sheltered, nice but narrow-minded housewife who fears the changes brought by the Women's Liberation Movement and ends the series more self-assured, more educated and exposed to different people, more sure of her morality, and gets a job.
• The Confidant: Alice and Eleanor serve as this role to Phyllis, even functioning as Phyllis's Morality Pet. Alice also slowly comes to realize Phyllis's more cold-hearted and selfish traits as time goes on.
• Composite Character: Alice is a composite of both Phyllis's housewife supporters and of a neighbor of Phyllis who was disgusted by her counter-movement and joined the Women's Liberation Movement with an office for the ERA HQ right across the street from Fred Schlafly's law office.
• Deadpan Snarker: Is this when they go down to Texas to meet Lottie Beth Hobbs and learn that her group is named "Women Who Want to be Women" or WWWW for short.
  Alice: Is that shorter?
  • Does this when talking about Jacquie with Phyllis about the pink embroidered and lace edged throw pillows, putting the two to her breasts and saying the legislators are supposed to "Think about Jacquie", more likely her figure, making Phyllis laugh.
• Dude Where Is My Respect: She experiences this in Houston with Rosemary dismissing her at first from delivering a speech that Phyllis wrote for her to give at the convention and it's clear that most of Alice's peers in the group regard her as a joke.
• Dumb Blonde: She has long, wheat-colored hair and she is often insecure about her intellect and capabilities and believed that she is only capable of being a stay at home wife and mother. Over time she gains more confidence in her abilities and starts to speak up for herself.
• Easy Evangelism: Averted, while her mind has opened up to finding consensus with feminist activists on issues addressing the status of minorities and minority women, education, and employment she still is a devout Catholic homemaker who helps out at Phyllis's from time to time, and then she quits after Phyllis has proved cruel to Pamela and takes a job, telling Phyllis that she only followed Phyllis because she was scared of change.
• Everyone Has Standards: Alice is horrified at the virulent racism displayed by the Southern members of STOP ERA and calls them out on it; she also grows horrified at how far Phyllis is willing to twist the truth to advance the cause (or rather Phyllis's ambitions).
• Extreme Doormat: Submissive housewife? Check. Shy and afraid to speak up to most people, especially men? Check. Deals with a lot of side comments from Rosemary and other women? Check. Alice learns to speak and think for herself, even standing up for Pamela.
• Female Misogynist: Alice believes, as she was raised, that a woman's proper role is to be a stay-at-home wife and mother and she is often shocked by the more casual and frank attitudes of the younger feminists. This is played sympathetically as she was more driven by fear and insecurity.
• Feminine Women Can Cook: She has quite a recipe for banana bread and has a knack for preparing her grandmother's pecan stuffing for turkey.
• Fish out of Water: The conservative, sheltered, upper-middle class, prom queen Alice gets this when she goes on a Mushroom Samba and interacts with feminists at the National Women's Convention in Houston.
• Foil: To a few characters.
  • To Phyllis: Both are conservative Catholic women but while the kind Alice is open to seeing people (even feminists) for their humanity and developing a consensus with them (along with hanging out with them), Phyllis (although more educated) refuses to develop any consensus and is interested in demonizing. Also ironically Phyllis is last seen doing housewifely duties in her kitchen after being rejected by Reagan while Alice starts working as a 411 operator and is enjoying some economic independence.
  • To Gloria: both are the same age but Gloria is a single, independent, child-free woman devoted to her activism and writing career (and has a background in journalism) and also grew up having to take care of her mother, Alice is a sheltered, suburban traditional housewife with three children (and two grandchildren) who is dependent on people like her mother, husband, and Phyllis to help her navigate the world.
• Fox News Liberal: She becomes this, to her surprise, as having a more open mind (and heart) to the issues faced by lesbian and minority women and she is horrified by virulent racism (while Rosemary and Phyllis are more concerned with being respectable).
• Graceful Ladies Like Purple: She wears a bright lavender dress that is considered her most flattering color, appropriately feminine by her mother or matching nicely with her Pink Lady drink and a significant thing for Gloria Steinem to comment on favorably.
• Heel–Face Turn: Alice doesn't end up being a "libber" but she walks away from Phyllis's cause (also their friendship) and takes a job that makes her feel empowered for having earned money for herself (and wears a pantsuit!).
• Hidden Depths: The timid, church-going Alice reveals a saucy sense of humor in "Gloria", "Betty", and "Houston".
  • She is also a lot more empathetic and friendly than most of her peers.
• High-School Sweethearts: She was a Prom Queen who only dated her husband Buck and ended up marrying him at 19, this is deconstructed as she was severely sheltered well into middle-age and she is insecure about Buck leaving her for another woman (her concerns about women losing rights to alimony if the ERA passes).
• Horrible Judge of Character: When it concerns Phyllis, Alice spent years being her fawning "booster" and being impressed with her accomplishments as both a professional political wonk and woman that she overlooked that Phyllis is very small-minded, self-centered, bigoted, and malicious.
• The Ingenue: Deconstructed as the forty-something Alice has been so sheltered from men, from being independent, and from the reality of other women less privileged than her that she can count the number of men she talked to in her life (Priest, Father, Husband, and Son) and has never booked a hotel room until she was a grandmother; also becomes aware that the respectable, Church going people she was surrounded by for years are hateful and self-interested and would turn their backs on their own friends if they weren't "perfect".
• Innocent Beta Bitch: She is Phyllis's "booster" of her work and is very close to her, but she lacks Phyllis's cruelty and snootiness. She outgrows this as soon as she sees that Phyllis is a Control Freak who cares more about her bottom line and for not being empathetic to Pamela's abusive marriage.
• Innocently Insensitive: She is the Nice Girl, but her sheltered outlook tends to color her idea of compassion for people outside her group (like saying Phyllis is close with her maid Willie for teaching her daughter to read, never mind that Willie is being paid by the Schlafly family), even upsetting them (like with the lesbian feminists at the convention).
• Insecure Love Interest: When it comes to her husband Buck, who is implied to not be appreciative of her and her role as a homemaker. Alice cites this as evidence when she worries about the ERA taking away alimony, she gets over this by the end of the series.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Alice develops this relationship with Pamela (who is around the same age as Alice's eldest son Tommy)over the series, growing protective and friendly with her as opposed to when she regarded her as a young person in need of guidance. They also have the most open and warm friendship and conversations out of all the other women in their group.
• Irony: A housewife who is concerned about having to work if the ERA passes and other women gain advancements in their rights learns job skills like drafting press releases, arranging interviews, and lobbying legislators. As Bella would put it:
  Bella: Congragulations, you're working girls.
• Kick the Dog: Alice of all people does this when she yells at Pamela for sneaking behind her controlling husband's back and tells her off for being so incapable of being in a hotel on her own, pretty much acting like Phyllis when it comes to women's misfortunes.
• Knight Templar Parent: From the point of view of the feminists and modern audiences, Alice defends and campaigns for a right-wing and regressive view of patriotism and the American family, claiming she is fighting for her daughters and her right to be a housewife but there is also the chance any of her children could be gay, want to be working moms, or could be in Pamela's position.
• "L" Is for "Dyslexia": "Houston" has her confirm to Pamela that she reads, the letters and words bounce around. Likely she wasn't diagnosed due to the stigma and lack of knowledge of learning disabilities during her time.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: Two examples:
  • With her mother as they are both traditional housewives with orderly lives and revolve their lives around traditional feminine tasks (like their appearance, cooking, grocery shopping) but her phone conversation with her mother shows that her mother is intellectually stuck in her role to the point she cannot communicate deeply with Alice and Alice is expanding her worldview outside of her limited circle (especially in Episode 8 where she interacts with feminists).
  • With her oldest daughter Beth, Alice idolizes Phyllis and has married right out of high school (even wanting the same for Beth albeit married to a Schlafly boy) while Beth is more unenthused about attending a Republican Woman's luncheon to listen to Phyllis and watch her mother fawn over her and is living independently in Boston (hometown being Alton, Illinois). Also Alice is Book Dumb (not much of a reader and dyslexic) while Beth is noted to be a Bookworm.
• Mama Bear: She develops into this regarding Pamela being abused by Kevin and it is what gets her soured with Phyllis.
• Moral Guardians: She is this, concerned about how mothers working would impact children and girls being drafted when they turn 18, and she is homophobic.
• Mushroom Samba: She gets this in "Houston" after being given "a Christian Pill", drinking a Pink Lady, and accidentally eating some pot brownies.
• My Beloved Smother: She has this with her mother Marion, who despite Alice being in her forties and a grandmother, seems to shelter and instruct Alice on what to do and pack. This seems to be why Alice is so sheltered at her age and likely attributed to her disability during a less-enlightened era.
• Naïve Everygirl: Even in her forties, due to her sheltered upbringing and marriage, she is this trope. She tells Phyllis she isn't for public speaking, she has only talked to a few men in her life (her father, husband, priest, and son) unlike Phyllis who does it professionally, and is so out of her depth that she is struck by the inconvenience of having to share a hotel room with strangers at an overbooked hotel.
• Nice Girl: She tends to be very kind, polite, loving, and has the capability of opening her mind.
• Noble Bigot: The Nice Girl with internalized misogyny, homophobia, and a White Man's Burden view of mixed race interactions.
• Not So Above It All: In "Bella" when sabotaging the meetings across the country, Alice shows she isn't above blowing a whistle to interrupt feminist speakers or delegates or plaigarizing one of the books from one of the committees, or even yelling a xenophobic dog whistle at Bella.
• Only Sane Man: She is the only sane, collected, and kind person in her group of housewives as Rosemary and Phyllis are ambitious to the point of cruelty and Pamela is too traumatized and emotional.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: She dips into Sarcasm Mode when she publicly tells off Phyllis for convincing Pamela to be submissive to the already-abusive Kevin at the gala.
  Alice: There's our Joan of Arc, doesn't she work miracles? Unless your husband's a jerk and then you're on your own
• Parents as People: She is a proud and loving mother who holds her traditional role to heart but the story focuses on her and her peers, she means well but clearly would like for her daughters to follow her path of marrying young to a boy from a respectable family like the Schlaflys, and she is proven to be very sheltered and inexperienced with how life works outside of her neighborhood.
• Pink Is Feminine: One of her most flattering colors, along with blue, she considers it a act of defiance when she wears pink and blue to her son's wedding rather than the traditional beige for the Mother of the Groom.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: She is a Nice Girl but she has regressive attitudes towards the role of women and what was proper for women, is homophobic, and while she is horrified at the virulent racism displayed by the Southern members or of being affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan she is shown to be notably uncomfortable about her and Pamela sharing a room with the African-American Audrey and her young daughter and shown not to be particularly sympathetic to the views of the Black Panthers and their allies.
• Psychological Projection: She lashes out at Pamela in "Houston" for being helpless, naive, and dependent...all traits that Alice has exhibited throughout the series. She soon makes up for it and offers to help Pamela with her marriage.
• Real Women Don't Wear Dresses: Like most of the STOP ERA ladies, she sticks to wearing knee-length skirts and dresses, to maintain a traditionally ladylike image they consider acceptable. Her Character Development finds her wearing a pantsuit when she starts working for a living.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Alice gives this to Phyllis in "Reagan" at the End of the ERA gala.
  Alice: When did you get so mean?
  Phyllis: Well now I thought you of all people would be enjoying tonight, after all our hard work, I did this for you.
  Alice: No, don't! This is what you do (Phyllis tries to interrupt) You change the subject and you twist things up! Do you even care about me at all?
  Phyllis: Now I did all of this for you.
  Alice: You did all of this for me?!?
  Phyllis: So you would not feel invisible.
  Alice: I've never felt more invisible than when I'm around you!
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After Phyllis urges Pamela to be submissive to her abusive husband, Alice is fed up with her and calls her out on how she is always deflecting questions and comments from the opposition and that she always treats the housewives as underlings.
• Shrinking Violet: Alice is a shy and sheltered housewife who feels invisible and idolizes the professional and sophisticated Phyllis, even overlooked by her husband's boss at a dinner for co-workers and their spouses when he makes the introductions of the colleague's professionally accomplished wives.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: In her confrontation with Phyllis, she tells her that Phyllis makes her feel invisible and she isn't helpful to housewives domestic issues.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Over time the shy and sweet housewife tells Phyllis off for being cruel to Pamela and for using women like her for her own gain.
• Took a Level in Badass: Alice goes from a shy and sheltered housewife and becomes a confident, more educated, strong working woman who openly challenges positions and statements that are unfair to people.
• Tranquil Fury: Alice gets this when she starts to confront Phyllis and throughout the gala over Phyllis's treatment of her and Pamela.
• True Blue Femininity: One of her default colors and her most flattering, she wears a blue shirtwaist dress when she stands up for Minority women at the convention, she wears a blue pantsuit at the end of the series when she starts working.
• We Used to Be Friends: At the end of the series after several years of being friends after meeting at a PTA meeting at their sons' school, Alice walks away from being Phyllis's friend and stops following her.
• What Have I Done: Alice's reaction when she sees how hurt lesbian feminists are by the homophobic ads STOP ERA put up for their "Pro-Family Rally".
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Alice has always felt like a cheerleader to Phyllis, whom she admires for being intelligent, confident, a professional, and "better" than her and the other housewives. A NOW volunteer gently tells Alice, "You don't seem to have any trouble expressing yourself", which is a urging for the younger woman to look at herself in a more positive light.

Rosemary Thomson

Rosemary Thomson

Played By: Melanie Lynskey

A neighbor and acquaintance of Phyllis and Alice who joins in the counter-movement against the Women's Liberation Movement and the founding member of the Eagle Forum.

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• '70s Hair: She starts the series wearing her hair in a short, mussed, and fuzzy short hairstyle that is similar to a Hamill cut or like something seen in Rugrats.
• '80s Hair: In 1979, she starts wearing her short hair in a frizzy little perm, becoming the only woman in the series to adopt the poufy styles of the next decade early on.
• Alpha Bitch: Has a naturally strong personality but she full on becomes this by the end of the series and antagonistic towards Alice, often belittling her to her face.
  • Academic Alpha Bitch: Like Phyllis and unlike most of the housewives in their movement, Rosemary was well-educated and prior to her marriage and motherhood, worked as a schoolteacher after attending Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois; it's likely this experience and knowledge has added to her superiority complex.
  • Beta Bitch: She starts out as this to Phyllis, not being as dominant but just as vicious and small-minded.
• Ambiguously Christian: She attends a Bible study with the Catholic Schlaflys, Alice, and Pamela but in "Jill", she tells Lottie Beth Hobbs that she is a Presbyterian. In real life, she died with Presbyterian funeral rites.
• Ambition is Evil: She starts out very narrow-minded and reactionary in the beginning but more pleasant in manner and claiming to want nothing more than to be a homemaker; later in the series she grows more ambition after being made head of the STOP ERA chapter in Illinois and goes directly for influential roles in the counter-movement and even to become a delegate at the convention and then writes a book. In Real Life, she ended up appointed to the Reagan Administration under William Bennett and became an Iowa assemblywoman.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She pretends to be a wholesome, conservative, religious housewife but overtime she exposes ambition that tends towards ruthlessness and she can talk down to Alice and is seen hanging around with the virulent racist women who butted heads with Alice earlier.
• Cassandra Truth: Tries to tell Phyllis that Reagan abandoned their cause before but Phyllis doesn't listen she is proven right when Phyllis is rejected from any position in the Administration.
• Control Freak: She starts revealing more of these colors after Phyllis starts giving her leadership positions, showing this all in "Houston" when she looks down on Pamela and Alice for being late and not having their hotel room, and belittling Alice to her face.
• The Dragon: Betty says that Rosemary is even more cunning than Phyllis.
• Everyone Has Standards: She is shocked when she sees Phyllis is working with the Reagan campaign, pointing out that he "abandoned them" in 1976 despite not showing to take it personal before, then she gives Phyllis a Big "WHAT?!" look when she reveals she is giving his campaign the mailing list.
• False Friend: She acts as this to Alice and Pamela starting with "Houston" where she doesn't bother to be helpful when they are late and haven't gotten ready (and don't have a room yet) and she doesn't bother to share her bedroom for a little so they can change. She also goes on to act judgmental when Alice comes in a bit drugged and needing something to eat rather than help her and even tells Alice to her face in "Reagan" that she never was "serious enough" for the cause.
• Family-Values Villain: Judgmental, cruel, petty, dis-compassionate, sexist, homophobic, and willing to align herself with racists but she is "pro family".
• Female Misogynist: Pretty much one of the worst in STOP ERA, aside from her Stay in the Kitchen and holier-than-thou Housewife image and values, she can tend towards being very judgmental and even cruel about the shortcomings of Alice and Pamela, who are supposed to be her friends. She feels threatened by the demands of Civil Rights activists like Flo Kennedy and Shirley Chisholm (who are speaking on behalf of prisoners of color in Attica) and by the Women's Movement questioning a patriarchy that ensured privileges for women like herself (affluent, wife, suburban, religious), even demanding rights for lesbians and reproductive issues. The following quote has her take Alice's simile for delegate committees as similar to the Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest:
  Rosemary: And we have to get pro-family bakers, or we'll be stuck with with a bunch of liberal recipes in our cookbook and force-fed ERA brownies, abortion cookies, and lesbian pie till Kingdom come.
• Fiery Redhead: Averted, she is auburn-haired but she tends toward a streak of being judgmental and ruthless.
• The Fundamentalist: To Alice's horror, Rosemary becomes obsessed with the idea of fundamentalists, conservative religious people, and right-wingers taking over politics. In fact she describes feminists as "Godless" and then there is her proposed chant:
  Eve came from Adam's rib, let's abort Women's Lib!
• Heteronormative Crusader: She shares homophobic attitudes as the rest of her peers but it is jarring when she jokes about Alice possibly being kidnapped by "the militant lesbians".
• Historical Beauty Upgrade: The matronly looking albeit attractive Thomson is depicted by the usually girlish and attractive looking Melanie Lynskey (albeit frumped down for the role).
• Hypocrite: She claims to a be a virtuous housewife who doesn't want more but she is revealed to have a ambition to be a leader herself and get key positions, even to surpass Phyllis. In Real Life, Rosemary went on to work under William Bennett in the Reagan Administration and became a Assemblywoman in Iowa later in life despite not being as big a name as Phyllis. TL;DR it's okay for her to be ambitious but the feminists are freaks for wanting women to be able to pursue their ambitions outside of domestic roles.
  • She also criticizes feminists as "ornery" yet is a woman who isn't seen very often with a genuine smile and can be unpleasant to her friends.
• Lady in a Power Suit: As the series goes on, she takes to this style, cementing her transformation from a judgmental housewife to a powerhouse Moral Guardian.
• No Sympathy: Her default reaction to Pamela's emotional distress (as a result of the Republican Party not opposing the ERA in their 1976 campaign platform, pregnancy, and the emotional abuse she gets from her husband) or Alice's and Pamela's distress at not getting a hotel room can be summed up like this as she barely deigns to offer them her help or her room temporarily to change into their clothes and put on makeup.
• Nothing Personal: When Alice tells her that she feared STOP ERA has gone beyond preserving the role of privileged homemakers like themselves and to influence a movement of white, racist, bigoted, fundamentalists Rosemary only clucks at Alice's feelings and tells her that finally conservative religious voices are being taken seriously in politics and that she's silly for not thinking there'd be any casualties.
• Obnoxious Entitled Housewife: To a T (the way she sleeps in bed). She is a judgmental Moral Guardian who puts up a front of being a meek housewife, while being an Alpha Bitch to Alice and Pamela when Phyllis isn't around, having a Small Name, Big Ego and No Sympathy, and being small-minded and prejudiced in general.
• Pet the Dog: Shows two small instances of this towards Pamela when she praises her sign at the convention and when she worries that the younger woman was left out of the Gala, not knowing that Phyllis advised the young woman to do what it takes to please her abusive husband.
• Power Hair: Her short mop comes off as this as she starts to lean into her Control Freak tendencies.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Ironically when she is dressing up (or down, in her view) as Gloria Steinem to make fun of her at the End of the ERA gala, she looks a lot prettier and younger than her usual suburban matron look.
• Sleeping Single: Implied to be so in "Houston" when she tells Alice that she "sleeps like a T", which implies either she and her husband have separate beds or Mr. Thomson deals with the brunt of Control Freak tendencies as well.
• Small Name, Big Ego: In "Reagan" she talks a lot about how Sen. Jesse Helms wrote the forward for her book The Price of Lib-erty which Phyllis is quick to put down as it was really an aide and that Rosemary hasn't met the man, which Lottie Beth even snarks at.
• Smug Snake: Judgmental, condescending, mean, throws around her airs, falsely humble, and smug about her position as a housewife.
• Token Minority: She is a Presbyterian surrounded by mostly Catholic women.
• With Friends Like These...: She isn't very sympathetic to Pamela's situation and doesn't take Alice very seriously, in Houston she actually turns her backs on them for something as minor as not being dressed up and having their makeup done and hangs out with the racist Mary Frances and Jacquie. She's also not above taking leadership roles above Phyllis and in Real Life, got an appointment with the Reagan Administration while Phyllis didn't.

Pamela Whalen

Pamela Whalen

Played By: Kayli Carter

A young, impressionable housewife who follows Phyllis's movement against the Equal Rights Amendment who has her own issues at home.

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• '60s Hair: She starts out with a mussed beehive look before letting her hair down.
• '70s Hair: For the most part, having several young kids don't always leave her much time to style her hair, but she likes to wear her hair long and loose in face framing wavy wings or she wears disheveled updos.
• Baby Factory: What she fears she has become because of Kevin's abuse, by 1979 she has four young children.
• The Baby Trap: Inverted. Her constant pregnancies keep her stuck with her husband Kevin and stuck at home.
• Broken Bird: By the finale, she has pretty much given up much hope or drive to be independent or fight for respect from her husband, depending on Phyllis's demands that Pamela be submissive to Kevin.
• Composite Character: She rounds out the cast on the STOP ERA side and her character is used to illustrate the experiences of housewives feeling chafed by the "family values" they are trying to defend.
• Domestic Abuse: She is shown and implied to be emotionally, financially, and reproductively abused by her husband Kevin.
• Everyone Has Standards: Pamela, a reactionary and sheltered young housewife, is appalled at the thought of STOP ERA working with racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birch Society.
• Female Misogynist: Has rather conservative and regressive attitudes towards women's roles and even practicing ways to insult Gloria Steinem ("Childless Spinster", "Baby-Killer", "Lesbian Lover") and at the same time she is shown to be chafing at the standards she is trying to live up to.
• Femininity Failure: Part of her breakdown in "Houston" given that she is a young mom who is over her head and in an abusive marriage, she feels pathetic when older housewives chide her for not doing something right (like baking bread or wanting to formula feed her kids) and is helpless since her husband throws temper tantrums at her.
• Fiery Redhead: She is red-haired but she is very quiet and often passive, she does tend towards being emotional when it comes to her struggles and delivers a Precision F-Strike to Phyllis when she talks about meeting Henry Kissinger and other influential Republicans backing up Reagan.
  Pamela: We don't give a shit about Kissinger!
• Hidden Depths: She is a talented artist and it shows when the group uses her designs for their cause; it is likely a sign of under-exercised intelligence and talent.
• Hypocrite: A rare sympathetic version of this trope, she is fighting towards a regressive political and social climate for working women, women of color, and Lesbians and goes to a rally defending "Family Values" while she sneaks behind her abusive and controlling husband's back.
• Innocent Beta Bitch: Serves this role to Phyllis while being intimidated by the older and more charismatic woman and being silenced by the other women of STOP ERA when she expresses any feelings that may run counter to their image.
• Intergenerational Friendship: She develops this with the older Alice, feeling like she can confide in Alice and take a road trip with her, also unlike most of the STOP ERA ladies Pamela and Alice often converse openly with one another without malice.
• Redhead In Green: She has bright auburn hair and she is seen wearing a emerald green dress to Alice's son Tommy's wedding.
• Shadow Archetype: Of Alice. Like Alice she has married very young and started a family young, and also holds traditional views on women's roles. Unlike Alice's amicable marriage, she is abused by her husband and finds her children to be an anchor keeping her at home with a controlling husband and from having a life, also while Alice's journey has ironically helped Alice become more confident and savvy and has exposed her to a wide diversity of women in the feminist movement; Pamela remains stuck in her role, marriage, and probably is kept from participating in the cause.
• Troubled Sympathetic Bigot: Played with. She is presented to the audience as a good-natured and awkward young housewife, she is also prejudiced towards queer people and lacks a real understanding about people from different races, which is a comment on her society and background. She is also miserable in an abusive marriage where she feels she isn't doing anything right as a mother and homemaker.
• True Blue Femininity: The cream colored suit she wears in the 2nd episode's Bible Study scene has light blue diagonal stripes.
• Unfulfilled Purpose Misery: According to her portrayer, Pamela wants to get involved in something to be noticed for the good she can do and to express her individuality, due to having a critical and controlling husband and possibly family and lacking many options for fulfillment outside of marriage and family in her traditional community.

The National Political Women's Caucus

Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem

Played By: Rose Byrne

The most recognizable face of the Women's Liberation Movement, journalist and writer, founding member of the National Women's Political Caucus, and the founder of Ms. magazine.

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• '60s Hair: Her long hair still has a teased crown from the previous decade and the gold streaks a la Holly Golightly.
• '70s Hair: She has long, flowing, shiny, slightly teased at the crown gold blonde-brown hair with highlights. She later cuts her hair a slightly shorter length and loses the teasing but keeps the highlights.
• The Ace: She is the most recognized feminist figure of the time and of history, due to her soundbites, beauty, wit, and intellect. It's to the point where Phyllis considers Gloria her white whale.
• Benevolent Boss: She tries to run Ms. magazine as a very equitable, open-minded, inclusive workplace (with a free flow daycare in a time when most workplaces never considered childcare), though not without blind spots. This is highlighted when Alice sees how she performs leadership with feminists of color (trying to reach a communal consensus and taking their input seriously) in contrast to the authoritative, domineering Phyllis.
• Brainy Brunette: Aside from her gold highlights, her hair is mostly brown and gets darker as the series goes on and she is also very intelligent.
• Commitment Issues: Likely stemming from a childhood where her parents had a troubled marriage and having to take care of a mentally ill mother and losing her freedom, Gloria strays away from the idea of getting married and it leads to issues with her boyfriend Franklin.
• Deadpan Snarker: She can tune into this when dropping the truth to her colleagues in a casual conversation.
  (about Nixon to Jill) He is that bad.
  (to Flo about Andy Warhol snubbing her) Well you did defend Valarie Solanas.
• The Determinator: She is an optimistic and very determined woman who fights for equality of all women and marginalized groups, even when an ultra-right wing President is elected, as she tells Betty in the finale:
  Gloria: Our movement didn't start in Washington; it's not going to be stopped by it.
• Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Strongly against this trope and she has had one in her youth.
  Gloria: How long are we supposed to wait? How many more women are going to die from botched abortions while we wait for men to feel comfortable with us having control over our own bodies? How many women are going to be forced to give birth to babies they can't afford to feed while we wait for housewives who have no idea what it's like to have to work to survive to feel comfortable with women having power? How long do we give people to adapt to change? Am I the only one who's so fucking tired of waiting?
• Head-Turning Beauty: Her beauty is universally commented on and many men (like Stan Pottinger in a meeting) take notice of her because of that, Bella Abzug urges her to employ it to become a leader of the movement.
• Indifferent Beauty: On a good day, while Gloria does adhere to a regimen to keep her natural good looks and slender figure up, she isn't particularly boastful about her pulchritude and is rather irritated with the media focusing on her looks rather than her ideas or the movement as a whole.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Has an open and mature friendship with the older Bella Abzug where confidences can be shared.
• Leg Focus: Her legs are what her money guy reduces her to as an explanation for why he hired her years before.
• Nice Girl: The series doesn't shy away from showing her as a person with flaws but she tends to be a sweet, kindly woman who is willing to lend a listening ear.
• Silk Hiding Steel: She is a graceful, kindly, beautiful woman but people who underestimate her tend to be surprised at her inner strength and for how she steadfastly can call someone out for their actions.
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: She's a very beautiful woman but often men use her beauty as an excuse to not take her seriously and often women, even in the movement, tend to be suspicious of her (like Betty Friedan); add to the harassment she deals with from her money guy and Screw magazine.
• Sweet Tooth: She has a habit of keeping Tootsie Rolls, despite being on a diet to keep her figure slim, in Real Life Steinem did have to suppress her eating habits due to her father having issues with obesity.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Girly Girl to Brenda's Tomboy. Gloria isn't a adherent to traditional femininity but she is a talented dancer, very fashionable (especially short skirts), takes care of her highlights, and is often very soft-spoken.
• Tranquil Fury: She can yell when she is angry but she mostly remains very calm.

Shirley Chisholm

Shirley Chisholm

Played By: Uzo Aduba

The first African American Congresswoman, Civil Rights activist, founding member of the National Women's Political Caucus, the first African American movement to campaign for President of the United States, and the first woman to seek the a major party nomination for President.

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• '60s Hair: Her hair is very bouffant.
• '70s Hair: Wears her hair in a curly bouffant and later she wears her hair in a relaxed and curled cut.
• Brainy Brunette: She has very dark hair that later goes gray and she is an intelligent politician and former teacher.
• Historical Beauty Update: Chisholm wasn't ugly but she was in her forties (around the same ages as Betty, Phyllis, and Bella) when she ran for President and was a lot skinnier and taller. She is portrayed by a much younger looking, shorter, and curvier Uzo Aduba.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: She doesn't bother to work at being a running mate for McGovern, knowing what his plan will be (which is to win over a mainstream that is still conservative regarding people of color and women's rights). Later in the series, she has had over a decade in her position in politics but feels like there is no room left for progressive activists as politicians like herself and Bella.
  Shirley I'm not interested in another run that's viewed as symbolic. McGovern will choose Thomas Eagleton as he always wanted to do all along.
• Lady in a Power Suit: Often wears matching, structured, two (or three) piece suits as a Presidential candidate and a congresswoman. Aside from Jill, she is the most business-dressed of all the main feminist characters.
• Properly Paranoid: She is concerned that the Secret Service intel assigned to her might be spying on her, judging by the what the FBI was doing in Real Life, infiltrating progressive and leftist groups, and that her intel didn't hide the fact they were laughing at Archie Bunker's racist jokes, she has reason to be worried.
• Silk Hiding Steel: She's a kindly, respectable, intelligent, and graceful woman who holds her own with the media and her campaign. Even when she is afraid someone is wire-tapping her, she is willing to tell anyone listening in on who she is and that she won't be intimidated.
  Shirley: I didn't get anywhere in my life waiting on somebody's permission.
• What the Hell, Hero?: She gives this to Bella and Gloria after finding out they went behind her back to get support from McGovern (that his campaign doesn't follow up on) regarding reproductive rights, she tells them she isn't bothering even wishing that he'd appoint her as a running mate.
  Shirley: And he (McGovern) won't mention abortion on the campaign trail, or gay rights, or the Equal Rights Amendment, or anything that matters to us. You put on a good show, but don't mistake that for real political power. Power concedes nothing. If we don't demand true equality, we are always going to be begging the men for a few crumbs from the pie trading women for an empty promise.

Representative Bella Abzug

Representative Bella Abzug

Played By: Margo Martindale

Founding member of the National Women's Political Caucus, sponsor of the Equal Rights Amendment, former Civil Rights lawyer, and United States Representative.

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• '70s Hair: Has flipped and shaggy hair that she keeps under a hat.
• Brainy Brunette: Has light brown hair and is very intelligent.
• Crusading Lawyer: What she was during her early career, even taking on the un-winnable case of defending a Black man in the Jim Crow South after he was falsely accused of raping a White woman (it was actually an affair and they were caught by her husband). This is brought up by Midge when they were arguing over including right-wing activists in the Women's Convention in Houston.
• Deadpan Snarker: She has a dry and loud sense of humor, often her targets are Gloria or sexist congressmen or Phyllis's followers.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: With Jill. When they confront Democrat congressmen, Bella plays the bad cop as seen in "Jill" but with Republican congressmen, she just chortles good-naturedly with them while Jill gives them her fire. As she tells Representative Crane after he agrees to vote on behalf of the ERA in "Phyllis":
  You I like!
• Happily Married: To Martin, who has always supported her ambitions and they still openly adore each other.
• I Did What I Had to Do: She defends everything from cutting support for Chisholm to doing away with support for gay people as part of the "bigger picture" of helping the Democrats win. Sadly, this ends up backfiring from Nixon's epic landslide victory in 1972 to the ERA failing to pass.
• I Was Quite a Looker: As she tells Gloria, if she was as pretty as Gloria she wouldn't be yelling and indeed in her youth she and her husband were very attractive people.
• Intergenerational Friendship: She has a mature friendship with the younger Gloria and is able to be open and vulnerable with her.
• Jews Love to Argue: She is very outspoken and willing to argue, and it shows up in her conversations with Betty (also Jewish) and lampshaded when she has a loud discussion with Gloria at the table and Gloria assures her money guy that they're not arguing, this is how New Yorkers talk.
• Jewish Mother: Played with, she is Jewish and the mother of adult daughters but her comment that it's time for the daughters to give her and Martin grandchildren was more of a joke. She is surely shaken when she talks about her miscarriage in the past.
• My Greatest Failure: Her case defending Willie McGee where the stress of hiding out from racist vigilantes incensed at a white woman lawyer defending a black man caused her miscarriage and she had to leave the South before his trial was over and he ended up executed.
• Undying Loyalty: Shown by her staff when, after she's fired by the President, her entire staff resigns en masse in support.

Jill Ruckelshaus

Jill Ruckelshaus

Played By: Elizabeth Banks

National Women's Political Caucus founder, Republican Feminist, presiding officer on the National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year, Nixon White House assistant.

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• '60s Hair: Starts out with a bouffant helmet that she wears up until 1979.
• '70s Hair: She starts the series with a poufed up helmet of a bouffant from the 1960s and ends the series with a stylish shaggy and flipped hairstyle.
• Blonde Republican Sex Kitten: In the views of some sexist congressmen and she talks about having to deal with sexual harassment for her own occupational gains and the progression of the movement. Add to that she is literally an attractive, blonde Republican.
• Deadpan Snarker: She has a dry sense of humor about her circumstances.
  Jill: I serve at the pleasure of the President. I also serve five kids, a husband, two cats, two dogs, and fourteen rabbits.
• Fox News Liberal: She's a registered Republican who starts out in the series as a Nixon appointee but she is also a progressive feminist who cares about issues surrounding integration, day care, social security, and health care for women and grows incensed with Phyllis's Slut-Shaming attitudes towards the sexual harassment dealt with by secretaries on Capitol Hill. Justified, as during the time the series' is set, the parties hadn't yet polarized and there were many Liberal Republicans of Jill's ilk. In real life, she doesn't consider herself a Republican anymore.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: With Bella Abzug. When we first meet them in "Phyllis", Jill is first seen telling off Republican Senator Goldwater for not wanting to vote for the ERA and telling him he is a male chauvinist and not a maverick like he claims to be while Bella good-naturedly takes the piss off him and Representative Crane. In "Jill", we see the roles reverse as they confront the Democrat Representative Hays to support women's issues.
• Good Parents: She is devoted and loving to her young biological children and stepchildren equally, even taking her stepdaughter and her biological daughter to the conference in Houston with her and participating in tea parties.
• Good Stepmother: She is a loving and devoted stepmother to her three older stepchildren as well as her biological children with Bill and even takes one of her stepdaughters with her and her younger daughter to the convention in Houston.
• Happily Married: To her husband William until his death in 2019.
• Historical Beauty Update: Jill Ruckelshaus was never ugly, but she was the first to note she was nowhere near the level of Elizabeth Banks's beauty.
• Lady in a Power Suit: As a liberal Republican who starts working in the Nixon Administration, she is one of the few feminist characters who usually dresses in a businesslike, conservative, highly feminine manner.
• Silk Hiding Steel: She is a graceful, witty, ladylike, good-humored woman who fought for the advancement of women's rights, has quit two Presidential administrations over corruption or failing to take women's issues seriously (unceremoniously firing Bella Abzug was the last nail in the coffin), has called Barry Goldwater a "male chauvinist" to his face, or telling off Phyllis Schlafly to her face.
  Jill: You want to climb up on the shoulders of men Phyllis? Fine, just know they are looking right up your skirt.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Forced into this by the Republicans courting Bill (William) for the VP spot next to President Ford, stating that Jill being a widely known feminist is a detriment to Bill, so she steps back during a crucial time where her presence and work is needed (all to no avail, she manages to give advice to her colleagues, and Bill loses the VP spot to the more conservative Bob Dole).

Brenda Feigen-Fasteau

Brenda Feigen-Fasteau

Played By: Ari Graynor

Founding member of the National Women's Political Caucus, lawyer, co-director of the ACLU's Women's Rights Project, and a Happily Married woman who nonetheless is conflicted about her sexuality.

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• '70s Hair: She normally wears her hair long and straight, later getting it cut into a more frizzled shoulder-length haircut later after becoming a mother. For her TV Show appearance with her husband and the Schlaflys, she gets her hair blown out.
• The Bus Came Back: We see her again when she receives an invitation to be a delegate at the Women's Convention in Houston and later telling other women about being fired for being pregnant from the ACLU of all places and then later with her toddler daughter on the convention floor cheering.
• Exact Words: When asked by her husband if she had a one-night stand with someone, she says she would never sleep with another man. She had actually slept with a woman.
• Family Versus Career: Enforced by the ACLU firing her for getting pregnant, which flabbergasts her.
• Fiery Redhead: Has long strawberry blonde hair, is a radical feminist with outspoken views, and while she maintains her calm she really is incensed at Phyllis lying.
• Good Parents: We don't see much of her and her daughter but she holds her very close and wanted to become a mother.
• Put on the Bus: After her episode, she isn't seen again until the end of Bella and we see more of her in Houston.
• Red-Headed Hero: She is one of the feminist protagonists who goes head to head with Phyllis and succeeds and she has long, light red hair.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Tomboy to Gloria's Girly Girl. Brenda is rarely in a dress (two times were for debating Phyllis and she was seen in a characteristically casual denim dress), she has a low-maintenance style of dressing, isn't afraid to call out Phyllis for her BS or curse, and she is a professional lawyer.
• Tranquil Fury: Not tranquil, but she uses her lawyer professionalism to call out Phyllis for lying.
• Unkempt Beauty: She isn't messy but she prefers to wear her hair in a less fussier manner than most of the women in the show (both feminist and anti-feminist), prefers wearing slacks and a simple button down shirt to dresses and makeup but she is noted to be a beautiful woman who cleans up nicely for a photoshoot and for a televised debate.

Betty Friedan

Betty Friedan

Played By: Tracey Ullman

Founding member of the National Women's Political Caucus, writer of The Feminine Mystique, founder of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and NARAL who is often bitter and jealous of the attention the media grants to Gloria Steinem.

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• '50s Hair: As shown in the flashbacks to her 1960s appearance on The Tonight Show, she had the cut and styled (with waves) hairdo that look like something from Mad Men, and she even wore a string of pearls and a fit-and-flare dress with florals.
• '70s Hair: In the series, she has styled and wavy gray hair, albeit more disheveled than any of the other women.
• Always Someone Better: Part of her envy and animosity towards Gloria, she used to be the Feminist spokeswoman high in demand by the media and then the spotlight moved to the younger and conventionally prettier Gloria. Even her blind date remarks on Steinem's beauty.
• Brainy Brunette: The flashback showed her with black hair with a few grays and she is an intelligent and accomplished writer.
• Cassandra Truth: Betty tells Bella that whoever is running the Citizens Review Committee (Rosemary) is even more cunning than Phyllis, Bella replies it's still Phyllis who is doing everything.
• Family Versus Career: She said she was fired from a job when she got pregnant with one of her sons in The '50s.
• Good Parents: She is a loving, strict, devoted mother who wants what she thinks is best for her daughter and she is even told that her daughter being a good stepdaughter is a credit to Betty (despite Betty feeling hostile to her Ex's new wife).
• Handicapped Badass: Betty is a sharp, intellectual who isn't afraid to speak up for herself or others and wrote a famous book that inspired women to take control of their lives and demand more all while dealing with asthma.
• Historical Beauty Update: The famously Plain Jane Betty Friedan is portrayed here by the attractive and versatile Tracey Ullman.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Betty is a sharp, moody, and abrasive person, but she is also shown to be genuinely kind and vulnerable.
• Jerkass Has a Point: She has her moments.
  • Pointing out the Women's Liberation Movement cannot afford to ruffle feathers about their theories and anaylses regarding the institution of marriage being akin to prison and housewives as glorified prostitutes (given how they provide free domestic and sexual labor for their husbands, that'd otherwise be bought).
  • In her debate with Phyllis, she knows more about the facts regarding the ERA and that Phyllis's pronouncements about the draft being extended to women is quite misplaced because she isn't worried about her sons being drafted. Also that Phyllis needs to stop calling the mostly college-aged audience "girls", because it smacks of condescension.
  • Telling Bella it's a good thing the feminist movement is mainstream.
• Jewish Mother: She is a strict, protective, devoted mother who overreacts to her teenage daughter wearing her stepmother's blouse (which is pretty modest by the modern audiences' standards).
• Obnoxious Entitled Housewife: Because of her White-Dwarf Starlet issues and her homophobia and obnoxiousness, she comes off as this to her peers within the movement.
• Parents as People: Inverted, she is a difficult socially and professionally, but she is a devoted and loving mother to her three kids (especially her youngest child).
• Plain Jane: She is noted, and she'd be the first to admit, that she isn't naturally beautiful, exaberated by the fame of the model-beautiful Gloria. This is a sensitive spot that Phyllis gleefully takes aim at in their debate.
• White-Dwarf Starlet: She was once the most famous (and solitary) spokeswoman for the Feminist Movement in the 1960s, but is then eclipsed by women like Gloria and Bella who broadened the focus from white suburban housewives to various shades of working women (including lesbians and women of color) and captured more media attention.