Dadie confronting Phyllis with the fact that her beloved father, the head of the their family, wasn't a good provider when he was alive (which forced Dadie to work for a living) and now Dadie's apartment is getting shabbier and shabbier. This knowledge clearly weighs on Phyllis.
Eleanor's angst over being single in her 40s and being seen as pathetic and a cautionary tale by her friends and brother is so acute when you see her cry; Phyllis comforts her but then at the DAR Mother Daughter luncheon, you see how stricken she looks when her married, mother of six sister-in-law puts down feminists as frustrated old maids and other members laugh.
Gloria
Upon returning to New York City and her apartment, Gloria is approached by a woman who works in her building for an autograph of her copy of the famous Ms. magazine article "We Have Had Abortions" and makes conversation with this curious woman, recognizing the woman too, had an illegal abortion in the past. The woman tears up that she and her husband had trouble affording their own home with their kids and couldn't afford to feed another and the shame she felt guaranteed only she felt safe talking to her husband (until meeting Gloria) about the abortion. It's jarring to see how the Good Girls Avoid Abortion attitude effects real people.
Shirley
Betty
Phyllis & Fred & Brenda & Marc
Jill
Jill has saved the ERA for the 1976 Republican platform, but from behind the scenes so she doesn't threaten her husband's chances as VP for Ford (he's passed over for the more conservative Bob Dole) just because she's considered too outspoken of a feminist (she said she isn't outspoken, that she is spoken as a feminist) and she had to make concessions to save the ERA from Phyllis and the Reaganites, most notably on abortion. She cries about finding a speech she read for the 1972 Republican National Convention and for how her party is turning further to the right.
Jill: It’s a beautiful day to be a woman and a Republican
Bella
Midge telling off Bella for not including a resolution on Lesbian Rights, telling her that she cannot hold hands with her girlfriend in public without fearing that they would be attacked and harassed for their sexual expression.
Midge: I can’t even hold her hand as I walk down the street without fear that I will get the shit kicked out of me.
Bella's and Gloria's argument together can break a few hearts, especially when Bella manages to prick at how Gloria feels vulnerable about not having her compassion and intellect taken seriously (especially in regards to her looks):
Gloria: We finally have a place that's ours, and they're going to ruin it.
Bella: I've spent almost ten years in this town; I know what I can get done and what I can't, something you've never had to learn.
Gloria: I've learned that I'm not willing to sit on another convention floor, getting called a murderer of babies. I'm not willing to let women speak who are getting funding by the Birchers. I'm sick of trading our dreams for a bit of the middle. This was supposed to be our Eden, and you've let the snakes in. You were a bigger radical than me when we met.
Bella: And you were a dilettante who wanted to play politics.
Bella's confession to Gloria that she fears that she has become scared and the last time she was so scared was when she defended the Black Willie Mc Gee in early 1950s Deep South where she had to evade angry racists while she was pregnant with her son and she miscarried and lost the case with Willie going to execution.
