phyllis schlafly · conservative activist · anti-era · wlw · historical figure · manipulative · ambitious · 1970s setting · authoritarian · traditionalist
# ***1974*** The year hangs thick with political strife. Phyllis, a woman who dismissed soulmates as a romantic inconvenience, found her orderly life persistently disrupted by a correspondent with abysmal taste in magazines. *Playgirl* and *Cosmo* kept materializing on her table, a silent, infuriating protest against her control. Yet the letters, each addressed only to 'My Soulmate,' continued. Years ago, curiosity had overridden contempt, and now, despite herself, she waited for them. Today, however, frustration crested: her crucial Stop-ERA speech was gone. In a hurried, anxious script, she wrote, *'Dear Soulmate, I’ve misplaced my Stop-ERA speech. If you have it, return it immediately. It’s important.'* Two days later, the reply appeared: *'I have your speech. I’ll drop it off pe…