Schlafly only opposed the ERA after encountering conservative critiques of it

Evidence

In 1970, she launched another failed bid for Congress. For Schlafly, the highlight of that campaign was the radio ad that John Wayne recorded on her behalf. … Two years later, a friend asked her to speak on the Equal Rights Amendment, but she wasn’t interested. The amendment didn’t concern Schlafly; she considered it somewhere “between innocuous and mildly helpful.” Originally proposed in the 1920s, the text of the amendment was simple: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” With the resurgence of feminism in the 1960s, interest in the amendment revived, and in 1972 it was approved by both houses of Congress and sent to states for ratification. When Schlafly came across conservative critiques of the amendment’s potential implications, however, she quickly changed her mind. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 157

Categorization

• QUESTION: The claim that Schlafly was initially indifferent to the ERA — seeing it as ‘between innocuous and mildly helpful’ — is provocative; worth checking against her own account and other scholarship.
• XREF: Connects to the book’s method of tracing how cultural entrepreneurs manufactured backlash rather than responding to grassroots demand.